The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-03-11
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (18,178 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Arts and Economy Committee convened on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, with roll call and a statement of conduct read into the record. The session, organized around the theme of downtown space activation, featured three presentations. The first covered Darcelle 15 Plaza (formerly O'Bryant Square), including its design, historic cast-iron integration, fencing approach, dog off-leash area, budget, and partnership with Downtown Portland Clean and Safe. The second presentation, from James Beard Public Market representatives, described the project's mission, funding goals, timeline, and requests for city and state support, followed by discussion of the proposed public investment. The third presentation covered the Steel Bridge Skate Park, addressing its history, design partnerships, transportation connections, and future programming plans; a planned video was deferred due to time constraints. Public testimony followed, including remarks concerning Prosper Portland's financial oversight and a loan decision, as well as testimony supporting the James Beard Public Market from several community members. Discussion throughout referenced budget figures, funding sources, and partnership structures that were described inconsistently across speakers. No vote tallies or outcomes were stated in the transcript; any votes that may have occurred would be recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting concluded with closing remarks and an announcement that the next committee meeting is scheduled for March 25.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 It was like.
1 Good morning.
2 I call the meeting of the arts and economy committee to order. It is Tuesday, March 11th at 9:32 a.m. Keelan. Will you please call the roll?
3 Good morning. Dunphy here. Smith. Ryan. Here. Clark. Green.
4 Here. Christopher, will you please read the statement of conduct?
5 Welcome to the meeting of the arts and economy committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at. Portland.gov/council agenda. Slash arts. Dash and dash economy committee. Or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. This morning's testimony will be two minutes per testifier. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying. State your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
6 Thank you christopher. So for today, before I kind of get into it, I'm going to offer some framing remarks. In our first meeting on February 25th, we kicked off the work of this committee by hearing a presentation on the state of the economy. The key takeaway from that discussion was that while we are not yet in an urban doom loop, it is imperative for leaders and our community to act to ensure that we're making the right investments and policy decisions, to move us away from the doom loop, away from that boundary condition for that dynamic. So co-chair Ryan and I have decided to organize our committee work and our discussions thematically. Today, we will take up the theme of downtown space activation because it's a natural extension from our meeting a few weeks ago. For better or for worse, downtown is the prime mover for our broader property tax revenue in the city. So if we want to fund the necessary programs that make our city a desirable place to live, a place where working families can afford to stay here and raise a family with world class infrastructure, well-maintained public spaces and institutions and opportunities for recreation, then we really need a healthy downtown economy. The good thing is there's some great folks working on that today. So I'm excited to welcome our presenters today. But before I do, I just want to kind of invite councilor Ryan the opportunity to provide some opening remarks to the session.
7 Thank you. Thank you, co-chair councilor Green. Hey, welcome, everyone. It's great to see familiar faces here today. I liked everything that co-chair said. I want you to know that when I listen to that report, I thought, oh good. We have some activation events, projects that are really important that two of them have been percolating, one for over 20 years, one for the last 2 to 3 years, and then one that's just caught the imagination and excitement of portlanders just in the last year. My point is that this is exactly the response needed. When we hear a report like that, we have to figure out how to do better, how to take action that will bring portlanders out into the streets again, sidewalks, joyfully having fun and spend a little money. And they're also targeted in locations in the heart of downtown that really have needed to be lifted for some time. O'bryant square was a site that has been challenged for decades, and so we're really looking for this fresh start. The downtown activity. The activation of the skate park is something that's been in the imagination of those in the skate community for years, and is also been rallied by many, many others. Now, it's evolved in the last 20 some years to become a really excited. It's caught the imagination of people that I think 20 years ago might have been wondering if it was a good idea. How about putting it like that? And so I just think today is a day for us to also notice something that's so important, and that's that government can't do this alone. We rely on our partners in the community, private sector, community organizations. They come together. And when government meets community on their edges, that's when we take the bold steps to do what's right for our downtown, which again activates the rest of our cities revenue systems. So without further ado, I turn it back to you. And thanks for being here today. It's great to see this progress.
8 Thank you. Councilor. So today we'll hear presentations from three groups. Our first presenter is the folks involved with darcelle plaza. Will you please come on up to the dais? We're going to do 90 minutes of total presentations. And then after that we'll do public testimony on downtown occupation. So as you step up, please introduce yourself for the record and take it away.
9 Hello, my name is ross swanson. I'm the capital program manager for the growth projects at the Portland parks and recreation. Thanks for having us. And I really do like the theme that you guys have chosen for your second meeting. It's fantastic. That's what we do in parks and rec is activate spaces. And just so you know, behind us is two members from the PBOT plaza team. So they are also in partnership with us, although not at the table. So I'll let these guys introduce.
10 They're waving their hands. You want to introduce them? Just.
11 Sure. Yeah. Sarah, do you want to raise your hand? Sarah igliozzi from the plaza program. And then art pearce from. I don't know what your title is nowadays, deputy director of pgp, something like that. So projects planning and something. Yeah. Okay. I'll let these guys introduce themselves as they, as they come about. So next slide or actually do we have a slide deck up.
12 Yeah sharon down there.
13 Thank you. Can you go to the next slide please. So this is timely because within our within our division at the parks department we were we were looking around at all the activity activation that we are working on in partnership also with others. So this first slide is just an example of all the things that we're working on. This is both in the planning and the and the project side of what we're doing. The red dots obviously are indicate how much money we're investing at the particular places. But I also want to point you to the blue dots, which is our partner projects where our planning team is also actively involved in. So just so you know, we have a lot of things going on within the bureau for the central city right now. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the next slide. And I'll let laura lillard give us the context for what we're working in.
14 Good morning. Councilors laura lillard with Portland parks and recreation and capital project manager. So just starting out with a little bit of geography for context that that red rectangle is the site for darcelle 15 plaza. I know many of you know it quite well. Formerly o'bryant square, as councilor Ryan mentioned. So this is nestled at the edge of downtown and between the north park blocks and the south park blocks. And along that line there, that Green line is the future Green loop, which is a pedestrian and bike path that will run along the edge of the parks and connect them. And the street plaza team that russ mentioned is also helping with that for the ninth avenue with this project, it is the same size as a park block, so about half the size of a regular downtown block. So 100ft by 200ft. So quite small, but it really packs a punch that I hope you'll see that. And notably, this site is also at the edge of portland's pink triangle, also called Burnside triangle. Parkside triangle. Vaseline alley, an area known historically for its LGBTQ friendly businesses and nightclubs. Next slide. So this is a site plan for the plaza, and we'll get into more detail about its features. But just to start out, darcelle 15, plaza really honors portland's own icon, walter cole, who passed away two years ago. Having entertained and delighted as a drag performer for over 50 years. And as I mentioned, the site is smaller than a city block, so less than half an acre. The budget for this project is 9.2 million, so that's seven coming from system development charges and 2.2 coming from general fund. We do anticipate opening late this year. And councilor, as you mentioned, we couldn't do this without partners. We partnered with downtown Portland clean and safe here, represented by Steve wycherley and Steve and leanne. And they'll there will be more detail on that to come. But there are many features in this park that ross will go over. So we've just listed a few here, and we're quite excited about the way this park design is progressing. Next slide. So just to give you a sense of where this project has been so early on, when PBOT had secured the funding to demolish the one story garage that had been at the base of o'bryant square, the Portland parks foundation hosted a series of events to engage the public about future possibilities, and this whole effort was called back to square one series of events. And I'll go over some of these events. They really sparked discussions about activation and the desire to explore and test different types of activations and programing in the park. Then the demolition for the parking garage officially began in the spring of 2023. That summer, city council renamed the square darcelle 15 plaza, and this action really gave the project team our north star, honoring and celebrating the queer community. And the history of this neighborhood was, of course, a key takeaway from those earlier efforts engaging the public. But naming the plaza after darcelle really helped anchor the design intent. We partnered with PSU to work with poisoned waters on a series of interviews with friends, friends and family of darcelle and with darcelle showplace to hear some other ideas about the park after the renaming. Concurrently, Portland parks went into an agreement with downtown Portland clean and safe. After putting out a request to partner in the activation and programing of the space, and they came in also with some ideas about how to make this space successful from a management perspective. And we also hired a landscape architecture to design the park. So now we had our design team and our focus and our inspiration, and we went back to the public this winter with a 30% design. We got a lot of great feedback. We've spent the year refining and having several other touch points, and I know steven will get into some of those. We just submitted for permits mid-february, and we're awaiting to hear back from the permitting agency so that we can hit the button on bidding for construction and build the park. So that's where we are today. Go ahead. Next slide. This captures some of that early engagement in the back to square one series. You know, over a thousand portlanders were engaged. We had several interactive webinars over a couple of months. Several hundred attended those. There was a public survey put out. We also engaged many key stakeholder groups, both locally and also interest groups. We had a couple of open houses culminated into a design charrette where local design teams put forth their concepts, and we solicited the public for more feedback. Since that time, we've been refining the design. We've hosted a public open house in collaboration with PSU and the Oregon queer history collective. We've met with the design commission, historic landmarks commission, Portland downtown neighborhood association, the parks board darcelle showplace hosted an open house and a panel discussion on the design of the park. We also had a groundbreaking at the site in July to share the 75% design. Before PBOT began its sidewalk work, so about half of our recent public engagement has featured drag performances. So for us, community outreach will never be the same. It's really been a fun year. Go ahead and next slide. I just wanted to flash this list in front of you. Ross will cover much of this that's been integrated into the park design, so I won't go over it, but really just tried to design the park with the park users and the neighborhood and friends and allies of darcelle 15 in mind. We wanted to allow ourselves the freedom to try a lot of different programing and activation as the downtown transitions back from COVID. Next slide. Just really quickly, this series of drawings that was shown at the groundbreaking in July demonstrates how the site can be used for rotating events and activation. If you can see that circle on the upper left, that area is considered the upper plaza stage area, and then much of the space. The pink space sort of taking up the lower right hand side is the lower large lower plaza. That large space has been roughly holding the dimensions for the possibility that we could potentially host an ice rink, but we also imagine a skating rink, or without ice or basketball, and shown here on the left hand side is pickleball, where you could also still have casual seating that lunchtime or smaller. Events diagram on the upper right shows maybe a piano bar, some lunchtime happening, maybe a food cart, and the right hand side where there's a large plaza for casual seating during lunch. There's also a dimension for art or vendor fairs. You're seeing that on the lower right hand side, where you can see some market stalls set up. There's about a couple of dozen of those with enough aisles to move through comfortably. And then the last lower right hand side diagram shows where we might have a ticketed event and have controlled access for a ticketed event. A large stage could be brought in which, as you're seeing on the right hand side of that diagram, and then perhaps the upper plaza could be a beer garden or something that could help activate that space while the ticketed event is happening. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to ross.
15 Okay. So what you're looking at, this is our this is our final design. I hope this is our final design. And for a little context, on the upper left that would be Washington and ninth avenue. A kitty corner to that is the ritz carlton building that you're all familiar with. Ninth avenue is on the top of your screen. Ninth avenue is now we're calling that the promenade from again, that's the PBOT plaza team behind me has got a plan for that. Unfortunately, we don't have any drawings right now to show you that, but that that's that's in development and it'll be coming right after we finish our project. Also, ninth avenue is also the Green loop. So with that at the upper left, and if you work your way from the upper left to the lower right, as laura said, this is a half block. There's about a 6 to 7 foot elevation drop in there. So we've divided the space, an already small space, into three spaces. The circle in the upper left, again is the upper stage area or upper plaza. As laura has pointed out, we the ability to have events up there as a stage, but also as a simple lunch seating area. If you were to come from the food carts over at the ritz carlton, the lower section again is designed and built to be an active recreation or anything that laura has mentioned. And then finally, the third space is all the way over to the north end or on the right side of your screen. That's a small dog off leash area. It is going to be fenced, and it's for it's a small dog off leash area. But that is something that we clean and safe brought to the table mostly. And we feel at parks and rec, we don't have a dog run in in the downtown. We're anticipating quite a lot of use, especially with the number of hotels in the area as well as the change over to residential in the central core city, you'll see a strange blue diamonds. That's an overhead overhead structure. It's a tensile fabric structure. It's basically a shade structure. The large diamond over the stage is will be water resistant. So for any performers who are performing in a misty situation, they'll be protected from the rain. The rest of it above is more of a shade structure that you'd see in a nursery that just sort of dappled shade down on the screen. Let's see, there's a storage container for downtown, clean and safe again, that's at the lower right right hand corner. We'll get more into that. And then I want to point you up to the cast iron facade on the upper end. That that's our interface with the 99th avenue promenade. We'll get we'll get into the details here on that. With that, I think we're going to go on to the next slide. Okay. So what you're seeing here in bright Green, this is a fenced park which is different for Portland. But we're going to we're trying it out. And but having said that, one of the things that I wanted everyone to know that the design team took this very seriously and we tried to create as much permeability in this fence as possible. The idea behind the fence is that downtown, clean and safe, will open the fence every morning, close the fence when closing hours occur, but in the day you have everywhere that you see in light. Green is an open gate that swings open, will be open all day. It's about 30% of the actual fenced area will be open. So for folks, if you've ever actually taken a look at pioneer courthouse square, we're about at that ratio. If you look at the two east, north and south sides of pioneer courthouse square, we're easily within the ratio of accessibility within the park. The nice thing about the fence does, and we'll clean and save can speak more to this is for those folks who do want to have an event here that is fenced, we've provided the fence for you. So that brings a lower dollar threshold to come and actually have an event downtown. We provided that service for you okay. Next slide please.
16 Ross, just one moment. You had a.
17 Yeah. I just wanted to take a moment to introduce and welcome actually just to welcome the students. You're from sunnyside elementary. Yeah. Well, thanks for being here. I hope that you enjoy the presentations. It's about some projects downtown that hopefully you and your families will enjoy soon. Darcelle plaza and the james beard market and the skate park. Are you ready to learn more about it? Yes. All right. Sounds good. We'll have a quiz afterwards. Just kidding. Thanks for being here.
18 Thanks.
19 Thanks for butting in. I was hoping to do that too. That's one of the virtues of having a teacher as a council vice president. Okay. Please continue.
20 Okay. This next slide highlights the cast iron, the historic cast iron integration that we have in the plaza. Kudos to prosper Portland. Sarah king, who saw what we were doing and reached out to us right away and to see if we had any interest. Prosper. Prosper Portland, as well as the architectural heritage foundation, has a large amount of cast iron that has been salvaged off of many of the buildings in old town for reuse, and she reached out to us to see whether we had any interest. Of course we had interest because frankly, at the time, we didn't have enough budget on this project. And as you can see, this is instant ornamentation for a downtown plaza. So we jumped at the chance to do that. We are working with the architectural heritage foundation right now to finish acquiring it. We do have a bid, and we're hoping to enter into a contract with the firm, a local firm that will come and restore these. In the slide here you can see the white examples. Those are on northwest davis and nato down by the old u of o building. So that's where we sort of took our inspiration. But in the meantime, as we were digging around through the material, we realized we have enough of the original pieces for a historic building called the Smith and watson building to rebuild the facade. And so that's our that's going to be the interface between the ninth avenue promenade and our plaza. The upper picture, there is sort of a quick rendering example of what we intend to do as far as lighting on the facade. It will be white, and then we will have colored lights that flash down onto the onto the facade to highlight it at night. Next slide. And then this is some imagery of what the overhead shade structure is. We've we brought on a local firm, guild works, who is helping us design the overhead tensile structure locally. There's not a lot of these in the area. For those of you who've been to pickathon, they have done some of the pickathon stages. So an example of what you might see there as well as they have a couple of examples at the vineyards. And then city of spokane has recently put one of these in, but it'll be quite iconic. And then we are integrating lighting into this as well. So for those of you who are going to be in the ritz-carlton or adjacent buildings, you'll get a glowing effect as you look down on this. For those of us down in the plaza, you'll have a reflected light back down. Next slide. And then finally, we had a little a little fun in the dog off leash area. The Portland water bureau, believe it or not, has still has a bunch of historic fire hydrants that they're pulling out all the time. So we discovered they have a museum. And so we are going to reflect the same idea of the Smith and watson building down in for the dogs. And laura and another colleague of mine recently went to the water bureau's museum to see these and these, these actually, we actually some of these are from the 1860s, about the same time that the Smith and watson building was. So a little bit of fun there. Next slide. And then finally we're because because this, this particular plaza is all about activation and working with our partners. We're going to provide our partners cargo storage box a little enhanced cargo storage box. It's not something you're going to see at your local construction site, but we're working with a local vendor right now. And although this is some imagery that one of our internal architects created, this is what we're hoping for. The mural is yet to be decided, but that certainly stuck out to us as a good idea for what you're seeing there. But more to come on this one. In the next slide, I'll turn it over to you, Steve.
21 Okay. Thank you ross. And before we proceed, I just want to remind folks that we're about 16 minutes into a 20 minute time hack. We can run over a little bit into our our councilor Comment and question period. But just wanted to give you a time check.
22 Thank you. Chair, Green chair Ryan and fellow councilors, thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Steve whitley. I'm the director of operations for downtown Portland clean and safe, portland's oldest and largest enhanced service district. We're members of the international downtown association, the leading membership organization for urban place management organizations worldwide, along with thousands of other like minded organizations. And as part of this network, last fall, we were invited to Vancouver, bc, along with our city representatives from Portland solutions, to present to their mayor, representatives and elected officials and downtown stakeholders how working together, we have helped the downtown core tackle livability and safety conditions for all who live, work and visit downtown. I'm also honored to be part of the eda's current top issues research council for innovative partnerships for public safety. The reason I share this information is because I think it's important to know that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, learning from our peers in other cities and sharing industry best practices where we can, within our scope of work with the city. Our programs include janitorial services, sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal, public safety and the public right of way, street outreach, business support and retention initiatives, and placemaking and activation through events and marketing to bring people downtown. In 2023, the city of Portland hired bds consulting, an urban place management specialist organization, to provide an audit of the city of portland's esd's. Recommendations were given to city council on February 14th, 2024, and one of those recommendations was to consider in our programing around activations and place management activities. Page five of the report. Point three in the summary assessment states this in response to concerns about public safety and limited public police resources. Portland's esds currently deploy disproportionate resources toward clean and safe activities in comparison to other traditional esd activities such as marketing, communications, public space activation and economic development and physical improvements. And in response to that, our board comprised of business representatives, nonprofit leaders and residents. Our incoming board chair is a condo owner representative. We developed, they developed and approved a placemaking and activation policy for the organization to kind of address this. But in fact, our improved placemaking activation efforts have been well underway since 2023 of last year, since 2023. Two years ago, with the encouragement, invitation and support of then commissioner Ryan and a pilot project with the partnership with Portland parks and recreation, we've been rejuvenating director's park with events and enhanced services to bring life and vibrancy to the downtown core. Here's this slide kind of demonstrates some of the events that's led by our team of sidney mead, emily halverson and sarah busetto. In a letter shortly after we began our work in director's park from Ryan doss, the manager of elephants adjacent to the park. He wrote this previous to efforts in director's park. We'd experienced theft and intoxicated individuals, individuals multiple times a day. Since then, we've had almost zero of these interactions, helping both with profitability, customer confidence and overall safety for our staff and patrons. This allowed for the activation of community events and a larger amount of people using the park for positive purposes. Larger groups using the park to eat lunch, play in the fountain and attend events. Keeping this is an ongoing is crucial to shifting the tide of negative perception the city has acquired, through the partnership with the Portland parks and recreation. We've seen directors park and the surrounding area be transformed. The park went from being a center for drug use and problematic activity deterring community use. That was challenging economic sustainability and business continuity to now, as the Willamette week reported in an article in August of last year, a hidden gem, the article said this maybe you're looking for some free socializing, but don't have the funds to hit the bar scene, or certainly won't do it in the middle of the day. In that case, you'll want to head to director's park. This is another hidden gem in downtown Portland, adjacent to the south park blocks. Here you'll find weekly craft corners and other free weekly events to attend, where you can make new friends and learn new skills. In summary. Our downtown activations team of sidney, emily, and selva are intentional in creating programs that best benefit local residents and visitors alike through engaging the community. Examples include our summer in the city events program. The previous slide alluded to some of those and holiday specific programing. So in summary, our goals for activation are to increase foot traffic to the area, make the park a vibrant, safe community space in downtown, bring positive economic impact for surrounding businesses, improve safety and livability through positive activations and presence and change the narrative. Garner positive media inquiry and reporting for Portland. We are happy with the results. We've increased annual foot traffic by almost double since 2021 through providing intentional events and participatory activities. We bring people downtown, improved public perception of downtown as safety is linked to vibrancy and activity, not just security. Attracting people, investment and engagement from communities that helps retail, food, beverage and hospitality businesses thrive, which in turn helps to lease office spaces. And today, we find ourselves in front of this committee to talk about the exciting project of darcelle 15 plaza, two year long standing project in partnership with our friends at Portland parks and recreation and the Portland police bureau. At this point, I'm going to hand over to steven leon. But before doing that, this slide just talks about what we did over the holiday period, snow day village. We estimate we had about 50,000 people use the park at this event. Partnership with mike bennett. It had the goal to create a free, family friendly, village like experience in downtown Portland, and we estimate that the impact was about 1.5 million estimated economic impact. We had santa letters coming in from as far afield as india, even, and 47 events and activities. But I do want to say a great big thank you. As we look at the darcelle 15 project to the vibrant communities, sonia shymansky and pippy in our director adena long, who marshaled the parks team and the public works dca, priya dhanapal and PBOT director millicent williams. The coordination collaboration we're experiencing is second to none, and we are so grateful for our partnerships in the city. And having said that, all very quickly, I'm handing over to steven leon, who will take it away from here. Hi.
23 I'm steven lin, I'm the owner of under you for men and gay Portland visitor center. We're located right across the street from darcelle 15 plaza. I'm also a member of the clean and safe board. Wow. I love talking about positive new things in Portland, and this is one of them. I've been looking at a fenced o'bryant square for over seven years. We're almost there. The new community space for everyone. It's about the arts, clubs, sports teams, nonprofits, performers, entertainers, and even puppies. Walter, my close friend for 40 years, would be proud. Thank you parks. Thank you PBOT. Thank you. Clean and safe. I'm a stakeholder in the neighborhood. Well, let's go to the next slide. It's location site, if we could. Location is everything. You know I there are three words. Those are the three words that made my business renew its lease for a very long term. Right here in the center of downtown Portland, here in the west end downtown location is what draws all of our community. It combines the positive direction that brings back visitors, shoppers, and even those that are working from home. That's what activation does. They need to experience lively, active and a secure downtown. That's how we get our city back. We need to leverage the works of directors park. That model is working. It's made a difference in my business. It's made a difference in the neighborhood. Darcelle 15 plaza is next. It will become the second connector of the park blocks the core of the to the west end and the pearl. The park blocks south to the north, a safe gathering place for those of the arts and entertainment community. A place to support area businesses, hotels and those in the sro. Housing and the hrc. There's only one place that's an equalizer, and that's that dog run, where the sro housing individuals walking the dog along with the person from the ritz carlton hotel. It's very cool. It's going to be a fun place to see a place that supports these area businesses is critical for the development of our future. The space and activation. We gain area security by the increased footfall. It's cost effective through architectural design, community activations and not the high cost of uniforms, either private or public, not uniforms. Activation. Next slide. No sorry I'm so you know we're we're cool how we got there. The neighboring businesses stakeholders I'm impressed with the many levels of engagement. And through this we have become allies with parks PBOT working through issues that purpose and design. It's been a rewarding experience. Laura shared the parks blocks engagement called back to square one. From there, the neighborhood stakeholders stayed engaged. Were still engaged to this day and we will be engaged for the future. From the slides, you saw that darcel packed house. This is just one of the many that plus many monthly meetings. These things are continuing. Merchants, hotels, community partners, even the bhr irc is important a engaged in this process. This is rare when you have public and private agencies, the commercial businesses all sharing interaction for how to develop something that's going to be an integral part of our community. Moving forward, there will be continuing opportunities for engagement with ideas of activation. For many, the plaza concept started with one word that was prevalent from the very beginning interim park. The park was a typical park. This size is supposed to cost $25 million or more. That was not possible. The wait to get there might have been a decade of waiting for a bond levy, but through the engagement process, the work around creating a design that supports activation of the word remove the word interim. And we became a park that's cost effective. Design can reach into the future. What we have seen is a permanent park. Thank you. This unique place has been envisioned by the community for the community, and is being built at half the typical cost. Portland needs to know that. That's a lot to think of about saving money in a budgetary crisis time. This last slide, placemaking and activation by design, the creation of darcelle plaza embodies what walter stood for a place where everyone is welcome. I want to highlight some of the placemaking activities that the design allows. The design of the plaza facilitates low and no cost activation. The amenities are many from hardscape area, built in lighting, accessible power, even sewer hookups for trucks, the food trucks none of that you'll find in a traditional park. We have event scheduling, ongoing engagement, security, daily upkeep, and active management after hours. Security is also part of this. With that unique european design fence that opens wide. However, the main reason for the fence is to support low cost activation. It's not just about security, it's key community. It's a key community request. We have an issue in the community where a lot of organizations and clubs are not able to have their events with secure access control, place control points. The plaza can support ticketed and multi-day events and remain set up overnight. It's the needed and required security. Without the ugly cost of cyclone fencing that we often see at pioneer place or the waterfront. On a side note, the cost savings of a typical three day event compared to other sites. To find access fast, no permits, easy fire marshal approval. Easy work permit approval. And this is the first park that has the ability to host safe, low cost multi-day events. Maybe a mercato market art show or fashion event. As a neighboring business stakeholder, I thank you for supporting darcelle 15 plaza. I'll give it back to Steve for her last slide.
24 Last slide. I know we're out of time on ninth street. Pbot is developing an exciting program as part of their street plaza program citywide. I'd encourage the committee to have PBOT come and present on their work city wide for that. But here's a quick slide just to point out that adjacent to the park is going to be known as darcelle promenade, and this is a connection intended to support safe and active bicycle and pedestrian movements. Support the overflow from the plaza parks project. We're we're very excited to work with PBOT on this project, and I know we're out of time and probably don't have any questions, but there are some PBOT staff who could have asked responded to questions if we'd had time. Thank you so much city council. We really appreciate your partnership so much.
25 Thank you all for that wonderful presentation. I'm very excited to see this come to fruition. We are thin on time, so I'll just offer my colleagues here a minute, maybe keep it very brief. If you've got a comment or a question.
26 Yeah. Very briefly. I love this model. I love public space activation, public private partnership, community led visions on these things. This is the exact kind of thing that the city should be doing in every neighborhood in the city right now. However, I'll tell you that four things came to mind specifically that made me concerned. First, that it took seven years to get to the point where we are now. That can't happen. We understand that there were a lot of things that have gone on in the last seven years, but we've got to be faster about getting progress moving forward. Two the parks bureau currently has $600 million worth of deferred maintenance, and I think that the overhead shade structures look really cool. But I am deeply worried about storm damage, about moss build up, making sure that those continue to look nice for the long term. I worry that the city continues to largely only hire or only employ police officers after 5:00, and that we don't have staff to help. Focusing on the broader parts of nighttime activation downtown, making this space successful and relying exclusively on police as the tool of government. I think that if we want this space to be active and effective, we need to be able to have other kinds of staff around. And last, I want to make sure that the last part you were saying about the this being a more affordable way to activate compared to other parks. I have heard from neighborhood associations across the city that the most expensive, the single largest expense they have every year are the permits that they have to pay to the parks bureau in order to have a concert in the park. We can do better with the available resources that we have, if we think about it in the ways that we're thinking about this. So thank you all for the years of dedication to making a vision like this happen.
27 Yeah. Real quick, I just want to say, did you want to respond to that?
28 Yeah. I just had one quick comment. I'm curious about the comment about police, because the staffing model for the work that we do does not involve police. We have sidewalk ambassadors and public safety folks, and then our janitorial staff that work generally from 6 a.m. Till 10 p.m.
29 I was thinking more of the city side. Oh, perfect. Liquor enforcement. You know, I went on a ride along this last weekend with the entertainment division from 11 till about 4 a.m. I saw, you know, pop up hot dog stands that did not have a food handler's license. I saw over some people being overserved, things like that, that I think the city could do a better job of supporting the nighttime economy from a more institutional standpoint.
30 Thank you, councilor, for the clarification. Makes sense. Thank you.
31 Yes. Thank you. I agree with a lot of your comments. I will say since I had this land in my lap, it's moved really fast. Since that that 2023 right in January and it was devastating, sad, even if expected, that walter passed. And I agree that his family has been in touch with me throughout this process. They're very pleased with how it's evolved. So thank you for your sensitivity of always working with the family. And also the collaboration is beautiful. We don't always see this, I know it, it hasn't been easy. It shouldn't be easy. Your different cultures coming together to land a really important project. But for our city to see a site that for decades and decades has not, has not inspired people to want to hang out there for the most part. Let's just say that to move to this is a big, big value added. So, you know, this is our process to go from doom to boom. And I think we're going to see a big boom. So I'm excited about the additional investments that parks did after hours earlier. And let's just hope we can get this done. I know that we kicked it off last July, and to think that we will have activation by a year later, roughly a year later, right? Not okay. This is exciting and we're on our way. Thanks.
32 Thank you, councilors, and thank you for taking the time today to present to us. Next up, we have principles from the james beard public market to give a presentation. We have jessica elkin. And pippa rent who's the board chair. I think they are joining online.
33 As well.
34 As you're getting set up. I didn't do a very good time at managing time for the presentation side of the last one. So if you can try to keep it a tight, maybe 18 minutes. Thank you.
35 Great. Thank you, councilor Green.
36 Hi there. My name is pippa errand and I'm the board chair of the james beard public market. And on behalf of the board, I want to thank the arts and economy committee for giving us the opportunity to present our project, especially regarding downtown space activation. The mission of the market is to build a daily, year round venue that showcases our region's bounty, promotes sustainable agricultural practices, encourages healthy eating, and provides entrepreneurial opportunities for those who grow, produce and sell what we eat. I grew up in Portland, 63rd and fremont, and as a lifelong portlander, as an artist and as a nonprofit founder, I am honored to be a part of this long awaited vision for Portland. I see this project as part of portland's healing and revitalization, which I care about very much. I love this city. I strongly encourage you all to support this legacy project, the james beard public market for our city and our region, and hope that you will become champions of this effort. And I want to pass it off to jessica elkin, our executive director.
37 Great. Thank you. Thank you, city councilors, for giving us the opportunity to present the james beard market this morning. I agree with commissioner Ryan going from doom to boom, but also going from doom to bloom. We are in a bloom loop with the james beard public market, and just really honored to be here to share this long awaited vision. I am going to do a share of my screen that you may not be able to see me, but hopefully you can see us. Hopefully you can see all of this. So what you're looking at right now is the future home of the james beard public market, right near darcel park, which is really a wonderful this is all about the revitalization of our downtown central city. And this intentional placemaking will have a huge impact on our community. James beard. James beard was born right here in Oregon. He is america's culinary son, wrote over 20 cookbooks, and he how he interacted with public markets. The yamhill public market really shaped his life. The yamhill public market shuttered in 1941. He enjoyed the seasonal bounty of our region, everything from fresh Oregon strawberries to Oregon dungeness crab, which he savored during his summers in gearhart. The connection to oregon's food heritage shaped his lifelong commitment to celebrating everything Oregon, Oregon and sustainable local food, which we should all be proud of. The james beard public market honors this legacy by providing a space that continues showcasing the best of oregon's agriculture and culinary bounty. As pippa mentioned, our mission and core values. This project is a long awaited vision of our community. For decades, a james beard public market has been a dream vision by the late ron paul and many community and civic leaders. Today, this vision is becoming a reality with a perfect alignment of time. The right partners at the right place, a sight steps from Portland pioneer square, the historic unger building on southwest sixth and alder street. We purchased the building for 3 million on January 17th, a huge milestone for this organization. Our market with funding is slated to open June 2026 and will house 40 permanent small businesses and create hundreds of jobs. Oregon farmers, butchers, cheesemongers, fishmongers and other independent food and beverage merchants will gather under one roof, open seven days a week, the james beard public market will be a destination for Oregonians and visitors from around the world. What is a public market? Many of you have been to public markets. Seattle has the pike place market in seattle, and Vancouver has granville island public market, san francisco has the ferry building. Here are some photos of some of my favorite markets, the milwaukee public market.
38 Jessica, I'm sorry your slides are not advancing on our screen. I wonder if it's presenter mode for you.
39 Interesting. Do you see a slide that says what is a public market?
40 We do not. We see this sort of view that you would have, like with the slide sorter. You may have it on a different monitor that's not shared.
41 So as I'm sharing my screen, do you see this?
42 I see that it's just it's the first slide still now. Yeah. Now we're seeing it move.
43 Okay great. Thank you, councilor Green. So what is a public market. You can see that we have the milwaukee public market the borough market granville milwaukee public market is a really great market. It was put in the third ward and was part of the revitalization of that part of milwaukee. Most recently, the public market there was voted the number one market in the country. A public market is much more than a place to buy food. It's a vibrant, community centered hub that celebrates local culture, sustains regional agriculture, and fosters connection between farmers, food producers and creating more equitable food systems. As I shared, the james beard public market will be a year round space, elevating oregon's culture, strengthening our Oregon agricultural economy, and providing a platform for local small business. One of the unique things about the pike street market, I want to note, is that it is a huge driver of economic development. I read an article recently that said over 20 million people last year went to the pike street market, and I'm sure many of you have been there. It's generating over $200 million in economic development activity and supports thousands of jobs in retail, hospitality and agriculture. This market helped revitalize their downtown waterfront area and played a key role in building the local economy. Can you see this?
44 Yep, we can see it. Thank you.
45 As I mentioned, the pike street market, the in an audit of its 6 million award, the two seattle pike place market, the us economic development administration concluded that the market renovation was the most successful community economic development project in the history of the united states, turning one time capital support into long term, permanent, well-paying jobs. Pretty incredible outcome for that market. It's a catalytic investment, as you may have read in the paper recently, mike bennett, the artist, is opening up a art gallery very close to the market. For decades, leaders, visionaries, small business owners have worked to make this dream a reality. And now we're at the finish line, one step away from realizing a project that has the potential to help breathe. Breathe life back into portland's urban core and strengthen our Oregon economy. This is the type of large investment that we need to make to rebuild our economy and strengthen the heartbeat of our city at the time when we need it most. The market will be home to roughly 40 small businesses and employ more than 200 people. And as you see from the slide, we're already seeing the positive economic impact of the market. With recent news of new leases being signed and lots of momentum. This is a true public private partnership. This project is a model of how the public and private sector can work together to do big, visionary things. Right now we have a funding goal of 25 million. How we will raise this is we currently have a state asking for lottery bonds. House bill 3377 for $10 million. We have an ask into prosper Portland for 3.5 million. We haven't received funding from prosper and the city of Portland, and the amount of 250,000 that paid for our due diligence, as well as our pre dev, to make sure that this project was viable, which it is. We purchased the building, as I mentioned, on January 17th for $3 million. That money was an investment from travel Oregon, travel Portland and private philanthropy. And we're asking the city of Portland for $1.5 million. The timeline for this project. We have an ongoing capital campaign. Our vendor application is currently open. We've had 400 vendors express interest in being a part of the market. We are in this process and will begin signing leases this summer. The flood of excitement for this project is really amazing and we are really optimistic about what this market can do. Pop up events will start activating in September of 2025, with full opening slated for June 2026. One of the reasons why this market is so exciting is this market isn't a two or 3 or 5 year vision. We can get this built and open in a little more than a year. So there's an urgency to not only getting this open to create economic opportunity, but to also create jobs and be that catalytic project to help our downtown central city. The location of portland's kitchen next to portland's living room. We are very close to pioneer square, as you can see in this. In this map, 15.2 million visitors annually go through pioneer square, 9000 hotel rooms in the area. We are 38,000ft■!s between our two buildings. Portland city block Portland city block is roughly 40,000ft■!s, and we anticipate seeing around a million visitors annually. And we believe that's a very conservative number. Here's a our most recent rendering. This is the view on alder street. The building we purchased has the large iconic sign on it with james beard. And then we will have a mural overlooking the upstairs event space that will highlight the seven regions of Oregon. This is sixth avenue view, and if you keep walking down that street, you'll you'll run into pioneer square. Here are the floor plans for the building. These are available online. You can see we will have market stalls ranging from a fish market to a butcher, produce, an event space, and one of my favorite features of the market is the teaching kitchen. This teaching kitchen will provide nutrition classes for kids. Community connection. We anticipate having a lot of community events and that intentional placemaking in this space. And then we will have a seasonal rooftop deck that will have catering as well as gardening beds. And we're talking to our neighbors at Oregon state university right now about some programing that we can do together. I do want to point out that the teaching kitchen, one of the unique opportunities is to incubate new businesses and to create entrepreneurial pathways through the market. Market in grand rapids, michigan has incubated close to 150 small businesses since it's opened, and we have a huge opportunity to focus in on entrepreneurism, but also the role that this market can play with food innovation and supporting small businesses. As I mentioned, we're in the middle of our vendor selection. We have had hundreds of small businesses reach out wanting to be a part of the market. We're partnering with miso. Miso is helping with some of the applications, and we're also trying to expand all of the different offerings, from permanent stalls to seasonal stalls, day tables pop up opportunities. In addition to how are we making sure that all of the things that we grow, produce, make in the state of Oregon have a place in the market so we can highlight all of those small businesses and oregon's unique bounty. And I hope that was within 18 minutes. And I I'm happy to answer any questions.
46 You did a marvelous job, jessica. Thank you. We have we have, I think ample time about ten minutes colleagues. So feel free to pepper off any questions that you have and engage in dialog.
47 You know, I'm honestly struggling with this one a little bit. I think that it's a beautiful vision. And I've been to the granville island market. I've been to pike place market. I think they're incredible assets. But I'm looking at this and seeing roughly $28 million price tag, 18 million of which comes from the public. And I'm just not convinced that this is the best. You know, if I have a million and a half bucks right now, I'm not convinced that this is where it should be going. This seems like an incredible opportunity for the private sector, certainly. But why? I mean, I'm just struggling a little bit with it, honestly.
48 May I speak or is this wonderful? Well, thank you, councilor Dunphy. I can. Public markets are proven economic drivers for small businesses, for underserved communities, and for creating pathways to entrepreneurship. It is a tried and tested model that helps small businesses get their foothold. My parents were vendors at the Portland Saturday market for over 30 years. They were makers. They made their their wood products, and they had a foothold in the economy without a college education. And because of that, they were able to support a family and they were able to create economic opportunity for themselves. Public markets are a pathway to economic opportunity for our most underserved and our most tried and true small local businesses. We need economic development urgently, and one of the pieces of this project that are so critical is that once we are built, we are generating operating dollars from the vendor rent. Our mission is to serve the vendors. Once we are operational, we are no longer a traditional 500 and 1c3 that is going back to the public or private sector asking for support. We become self-sufficient. So what we're looking for is investment from the public and private sector coming together to create economic opportunity for our small business community. Our makers, food, agriculture. And, you know, we become self-sufficient. So I just want to put an emphasis on these markets are critical for the health and well-being of the community.
49 So if I can engage directly with my councilor Here, because I think it's I think it's an important question to ask. And I think we should be asking this question with every dollar that the public might, might use to support, whether it's a private investment or public private, public private partnership or even just a public venture. You're right to bring that lens. The way that I see it is, is that everything hinges on downtown property values. And so our ability to fund parks, our ability to do Portland bureau of transportation, backlog, maintenance, anything that comes from the general fund is going to struggle unless we can restart the sort of downtown engine. And that's a function of, of sales. And that's a, you know, a function of activity. And so in some sense, I think it pays for itself if, if, if we really can get this thing open on a timeline that makes sense and doesn't delay and introduce more costs, and it's, I think the, the, the amount that I mean, most of it's coming, I think, I think we're coming to the state of Portland, or I'm sorry, the state of Oregon, I think, is going to be the biggest potential payer of this. I think our city's piece is quite small, but I want to take us back a little bit from the standpoint of what a public market is. And we have we do have this proud tradition of public markets in Portland, the yamhill public market, that jessica had mentioned early on was was actually started during the kind of heyday of municipalization and part of the populist movement where it's like, look, we need a place where we can bring together truck farmers, where we can bring together people who have a little extra produce to sell chickens to, to sell and, you know, eggs and so on and so forth. Because it was a response to both, kind of like the struggles of big business as as the united states was industrializing, industrializing, but also the pressures of world war one and that inflation. So I think as we go into this kind of new regime where we've got chaotic trump, trumpian tariffs being announced, like one day it's 20%, next day it's 50%, the other day it's 0%. That's creating an enormous amount of uncertainty. And so having something like this where we do shoulder the kind of risk in some sense of the public private partnership. We unlock the ability for these vendors to, to sell their stuff at a pretty low rent. And I think from my vantage point that seems like a good public investment. But look forward to ongoing dialog on that. Councilor Ryan.
50 Yeah, thank you. I just want to first of all, thank both jessica and pippa for that presentation of the three projects. This is the one I have the least amount of pre-work in the last term on, but I've been so excited to watch it evolve. And I did hear your vision a few years ago, pippa, when you came into my office. And congratulations on how quickly it's moved once you partnered up with jessica elkin. You're a great duo. I think what I was listening for, and I did hear it, was that you're cognizant of the state focus and let me back up a bit. When I was a kid, Portland was known as a big timber town. Let's face it, that's where most of our money came from. This is like the 70s in the last ten years, especially. What is when you think of Portland and I talk to my friends from elsewhere in the visit. They always put food up at the top, and the foodie culture. And then james beard just happens to be a portlander. So to think that we haven't owned that in the way that other cities have, I think has been a misstep for some time. And it was sad back when my friend, it was ron paul's vision decades ago and it didn't come through. And so what's different today? And I think what's different, and I'd like you to accentuate this is, is our statewide reputation as well as not just a place to go to a good restaurant, but a place that provides wonderful food. And so it's locally sourced. And so I think that I'm hearing that. And then we have all these farmers markets around the city. So that's my question. How are how are you building bridges and relationships and partnerships with the many farmers markets around the city, and especially the big one at Portland state, which people really rely on on saturdays? How will they feel like this is additive to the ecosystem?
51 Great. Thank you. Commissioner Ryan. You know, coincidentally, I met with the Portland farmers market, executive director and board chair last week. And we know that there are models all over the world around how farmers markets, especially our farmers market, which is one of the best in the world, is going to partner with our future public market. And that really important connection and how we're seen as an additive to this larger food ecosystem. You know, so much of what councilor Green was mentioning around the history of the yamhill public market. In many ways, what we're doing is we are creating more equitable food systems for all Oregonians in the heart of our city. And one of the purposes of a farmer or a public market is to create those food systems. Working with the statewide agricultural community, really digging deep into what we do best with, which is agriculture and our makers and our producers and our small businesses. And we're creating that pipeline of economic opportunity statewide. But how we deliver fresh, local, seasonal food to all people is such a big part of this mission. How we're helping create more opportunities to partner with community organizations, whether it's feed the mass or the Oregon food bank, we become a part of that food ecosystem and making sure that everyone has access. And as we are in a tumultuous time, public markets are a way that we used to shop. It's the way that we used to connect to our food systems. And as councilor Green mentioned in 1941, our yamhill market shuttered when corporate grocery stores came in and the small local producers just couldn't compete. Now we're going back to this in such an important time. So farmers markets are a part of our, our, our the health and well-being of a public market. How we create partnership is something we're talking about. The hollywood farmers market is another one. And again, how we're an additive and being a seven day a week market is such a big part of that.
52 Yeah. Thank you. You know, I envision people staying downtown traveling and going to your the market, the farmers market, the james beard, but also walking up to Portland state and how we can keep that placemaking vibrant. Downtown will be a big part of this project. So thank you for answering that. That was a question that was looming in my brain the most. I think the rest is on your funding model. I know you've been able to secure philanthropy, philanthropic dollars to get the building purchased. I think it makes sense. And wishing you the best in Salem, because you are making this a statewide project. But I did hear the request for the city of 1.5 million. Can you tell me more about where that request has been made? And a little bit more about that?
53 Our goal. Thank you, commissioner Ryan. Our goal is to get investment from the city and prosper for the amount of 5 million.
54 Okay.
55 Part of the $1.5 million request from the city is looking at our permitting. And the project is roughly $500,000 in permit fees. So part of that request is looking at some kind of kind of abatement for the permitting for the project as a way to get us to where we need to go. It's just a way of looking at abatement as a, as a potential pathway instead of just cash. So that is our request. You know, I do want to point out that our neighbors to the north in Vancouver, Washington, their city, is investing over 66 $0 million in their new public market project. And, you know, we're acutely aware of the budgetary constraints right now of the city, but part of a big part of the vision of this project is we are building something that is catalytic. That's an economic driver that can also create future revenues. And there is an urgency to that. And again, public markets have proven records of being economic development, development engines and bringing in resources for the community and creating a new tax base.
56 Thank you. And again, you know, we're a community facing city council. So we get to ask some detailed questions now and then like the one I just asked. And also who are your partners in the city? When we looked at the other two projects, they've had long term relationships with both parks and PBOT. And this one, it sounds like prosper Portland is your main partner at the moment.
57 Prosper Portland is a very big strategic partner. They have created a technical advisory committee for this project that is working to make sure that our project is a focus, that we have the support we need around permitting, around funding and un siloing so many different parts of the city in order to move this project forward with urgency and in most effective way. So we're working very closely with shay and lisa and sarah at prosper. And then we are developing, and we have very strong support and partnerships with our friends at travel Portland, and we are continuing to look for champions at all levels of the city. And really grateful for councilor Green and his support. And we are looking for all of the city commissioners to support this very, very important project for our city.
58 Excellent and great to hear. And I see representatives from prosper Portland here. That was very helpful. And thank you so much for your time. I really appreciated getting an update. It's really come a long ways in a very short period of time. And again, thanks for leaning into the state and making this a big picture state project that just happens to be housed in the economic driver for our entire state. That's the city of Portland. Thank you.
59 Thank you, commissioner Ryan.
60 Thank you, councilor Ryan, for digging into the dollars and cents, which is something I usually do. But today I did it more philosophical. Any other comments or questions from my colleagues at the dais? Okay. Thank you so much, jessica and pippa for the presentation. I look forward to continuing to work on this as we move forward. It's very exciting at this point. We will now invite up a presentation on the steel bridge skate park. Well, Ryan and friends, please approach the dais. And as you get set up, please introduce yourself for the. For the record. Thanks.
61 Great.
62 I'm Steve moe, I'm the operations director for push movement.
63 My name is kelly bird. I am an employee of nike skateboarding.
64 Hi, my name is Ryan hashagen. He they pronouns and I'm the director of the steel bridge skate park coalition. I want to thank you, councilors for having us here today. It's very exciting to see this project move forward after 20 plus years of activism and community work. I spoke this morning with howard weiner, the owner of cal skate, the former chair of the old town community association and the original project instigator of the steel bridge skate park. In 1999. He asked me to personally thank you all and your colleagues for bringing this vision to life, and he couldn't be more proud in retirement. Also on my way here, I ran into jesse burke, our current chair of the old town community association, and I would just like to extend a huge thanks to jesse howard and all of the leadership of old town community association. Over the years. Their steadfast support has been crucial to this project. And, you know, and we look forward to more, more collaboration. This project has had many organizations contribute over the last 20 years. We gave a brief presentation to council last week, as you all considered the momentous land swap that has been done with great work by PBOT and parks and their colleagues at ODOT as well. On our side as activists, we have many different individuals and organizations that have been part of this project and part of rallying support that commenced with commissioner Ryan awarding funding for this project. One of these organizations is the push movement, and I'd like to introduce Steve moe here next to me from push movement.
65 Hi. I'd like to take the time also to thank the commissioners for approving and moving this project forward. I know that I have only been in Portland for about 12 years, but all of the skateboarders that I work with have long standing dreams of seeing this go forward. So that's really exciting for us. Our nonprofit uses public parks to do all of our programing. We focus on wellness prevention and recovery through skateboarding, and for that, we are always looking for safe spaces to take our programs. We work directly with various local high schools and middle schools, so we're able to use those public spaces to kind of encourage the kids to use these parks, enjoy them for what they are, and this park will be a really great place for us to do our programing, because it is so centrally located and because it is so close to so much of the other places that we do skate downtown, it's going to give us that ample opportunity to teach the kids how to move skateboarding forward, and also how to move themselves forward and do a positive interaction with the community we are. We became a part of this advocacy group a couple years ago. I met Ryan through a friend of a friend, and we had talked about this, and this was moving forward a lot more quickly than it had been for the couple decades before that. So we were really excited to see this program or this project go forward, and wanted to join forces as quickly as possible. We were able to do a small pour for the initial foundation of the steel bridge, and that was one of one of our exciting days and just able to bring people to the place that it's going to be and activate that zone. And once we are down at that location, I think that activation of that space is really, really meaningful for not only all of Portland, but for that specific area. We spent a lot of time downtown skateboarding, and so having that be a location that we're going to centralize really means a lot to us.
66 All right.
67 All right. So I'm kelly bird, I am a ten year resident of Portland, a lifelong skateboarder. And yes, Ryan and crew brought me into this project. As you know, as mentioned, this has been going on for a long time. So I was brought in roughly over a year ago to be part of the current group to do what I can to pull this thing forward. So I would just say, like from my own experience as a lifelong skateboarder, you know, it's great to see a mandate for spaces like this. I think skateboarders have always been great about taking spaces that, you know, are sometimes forgotten and kind of revitalizing them, often without a mandate. But I think we have a great example of that here in Burnside. You know, I'm old enough to have been coming here when Burnside was a very small, like, diy project, being driven by a bunch of determined do it yourselfers here. I mean, really created a global sort of destination for skateboarding. And, you know, I think that it's an iconic kind of landmark for skateboarding in that regard. And it created a movement in and of itself. And so I think, like when you see something like this similar situation space that like could use some revitalization, but to actually have a mandate to do it from the city, I think is huge. You know, obviously the benefit of skateboarding is great for disaffected, marginalized youth. I think it creates a sense of community that maybe isn't always there. And a sense of determination as well. I think just just the way you have to learn how to do it. It's just a lot of trial and error. Pick yourself up, try again. So I think like the combination of those things revitalizing space, creating community, building confidence in youth, like there's, you know, always tremendous upside in these types of opportunities. So I think like as an employee of nike, like we you know, we're all about fostering movement for all bodies but certainly youth. So I'm here to be a bridge between the project, to be a voice at nike for how we can help get the space going, but also how to how to really program the space longer term. I think that's the biggest component of this is like just to have like. A steady partner to program the space. I think like we have a partner now in skate like a girl and do similar work to, to push to push movement. But, you know, we have a private space on central east side that they use once a week to do meet ups that often. It's, you know, close to 100 people weekly using these this space. So to have additional space for, you know, to bring community along is always great. And so yeah, I think like that's kind of really what my part in this is with Ryan is to help like raise that awareness where I am and continue to bring groups that we partner with along, and also to just to like, help. Obviously, we have a tremendous roster of global elite athletes that I think, you know, some of them even reside here. So be able to like raise awareness of the space, like by bringing those type of athletes to the space and doing events. I think certainly what we saw with the rock star event just this past summer was kind of testimony to like the type of draw skateboarding and that type of event has in Portland. And so yeah, that's that's sort of what I'm here to help do.
68 Right. Thank you. Yeah.
69 Yeah. So we've talked a lot about how we've gotten here. But we want to talk about the future now. Steel bridge skate park is both kelly and stevie have mentioned are are going to be a gathering spot, a destination and likely a global landmark. What we're aiming to build with Portland parks is a world class skating facility here. Many of us now a generations of us, have grown up with Burnside as a iconic location. I was in slovenia last year. They have a skate park under the bridge six side that is named after Burnside. I was in winnipeg. I was trying to explain where Portland, Oregon was. People in winnipeg didn't know where Portland was, didn't necessarily know where Oregon was, but they knew Burnside skate park. This is an iconic destination for our city. It is going to bring families, bring people, bring different generations to this site and to a site in old town that is particularly it's a backwater of space and it's been an underutilized space. The possibility for activation is immense. So, you know, we heard just now about the james beard market being the portland's kitchen. You know, we've got our living room with pioneer courthouse square. We're looking forward to being the rec room, being a space of gathering. And for future generations to be able to connect and convene. One of the great aspects of this park that Portland parks is putting together is the plaza space. That this will be not just a space for skaters, but be a space for spectators as well. So, you know, as you can imagine, coming from Saturday market coming up to the cherry blossom at the japanese American memorial plaza crossing, nato crossing. As I'm about to share more and coming into this skate plaza, entering into old town and being able to have space to spectate and watch and see the activity and participate, you know, Burnside was iconic, but it was also built with this diy ethos, and that was very much insular. So to have a public space, to have a project that is built with inclusivity at the forefront and Portland parks has done a wonderful job. They've convened an 18 member community advisory board. Cv and others are on that board, and they really have that inclusivity as one of their guiding lights. So this space, as I said, will be a landmark destination, will provide activation of old town and provide a stimulus for one of the underutilized areas of our city. Sport Oregon was unable to be here today, but they shared a report for us that they had written about the steel bridge skate park and its possibilities for economic activation. They sent their regards and would love to share more thoughts with you all in the future. I've got a series of quotes here. I'll read some of them. They said that the steel bridge skate park will provide significant opportunities for economic growth to Portland and the metro region. They said that there's potential to invigorate the old town district and continue to showcase Portland as a premier city for residents to live and play. That regional and national competitions will increase consumption of hotel rooms, promote traffic at restaurants and bars, and create liveliness in the immediate region of the steel bridge. Sport Oregon is also who brought the rockstar energy event to the well touted and successful and free to the public event to waterfront park last year. We look forward to collaborating with sport Oregon to figure out how to build the steel bridge skate park to allow for future competitions like olympic qualifying events, future rockstar energy tours, the usa bmx freestyle and also the x-games. Sport Oregon also said that there's tremendous economic value in developing and constructing a new Portland skate park for the local community in old town. Coffee shops, food trucks, restaurants and convenience stores are all components that would benefit from a skating congregation point. All in all, a new large scale skate park in old town would check several boxes in terms of producing economic impact. In Portland, there is no shortage of economic opportunity that would come from this project. I've had the chance to tour the site with some of our councilors. Councilor Dunphy, recently, councilor Dunphy even and joined us as we went down into the bowl and got to see the contours and got to see some of the access points. We had PSU students recently do a better block project report on safe routes to skate parks, where they looked at the different access to the steel bridge skate site. Some of the cool opportunities are places right now that are very overlooked. If you look at the nato and everett intersection, it is one that right now it doesn't even have a crosswalk over to the PBOT smart park garage, but that will be a future focal point. That will be a future point of I will see you at the skate park and kids that are in grade school right now will be using that as a spot to make connections and to build relationships. There's also a potential access up to the TriMet max line on first avenue, which is a regional investment and currently another underutilized max station. So on to our next steps. Again, looking towards the future, we're also looking a bit to the past. Odot PBOT parks have just are successfully working on the property transfer. You guys will have their second reading tomorrow. We really appreciate all the positive feedback that was provided last week and really again, want to thank PBOT for their countless work on this. I want to thank ODOT. Odot has been incredibly helpful in making this, which is in their backyard behind region one for being a great partner in this, and I want to thank Portland parks as well for pulling this together. I want to thank the community advisory board as they inform the design of the project and the values of the project, and they work with dow architecture, who was awarded the RFP. Some of the other next steps that are coming up is PBOT is completing the long awaited nato crossing. This is a component of the flanders greenway, and I'll share some slides here in a second about that. But this will be a crucial safety crossing right now. There currently isn't a safe way into old town besides davis street or ankeny. We're also looking forward to the activation of north waterfront park with a grom section or a kids section, and also a traffic playground underneath the steel bridge, and I'll share some slides about that as well. I'm also going to share some information about a formation and an official recognition of friends of steel bridge skate park that would provide a resource for operation, maintenance and programing, and to be a group that could help organize the other partner organizations. Work with folks like push movement, skate like a girl, Portland all wheels, welcome. So to go into that, I want to share the flanders connector. This is a project that gabe graf at PBOT, along with old town community association, mitchell menashi and others on the board of old town, have been working on for over a decade with union pacific, which. Can be has. Yeah, the railroad has been a partner. Let's just say we've we've made some progress. It's just taken a while. You can see in this photo it's a bit shaded, but this is a photo I took a few days ago. There's a physical barrier right now, a literal concrete barrier. This used to be one of the most scariest spots of frogger that I would see in my daily commute. And you would see people pushing wheelchairs. You would see families trying to scamper across from the cherry blossoms to the chinese gardens. This is an intuitive spot for a crossing into old town. You go from Saturday market, you're walking up the waterfront, you get to the end and you go, where do I go? Well, you're not going to cross a median like this and go across what at one point was four lanes of traffic with gabe graff's work better, nato was extended here. It's now only two lanes of traffic. And there is, as you can see in the not rendering, but in the schematic there is a plan for a crosswalk, a new railroad crossing, a quiet zone that old town community association has been asking for. And this will all be implemented here in the near future. At the north end of the skate park. This will connect the flanders greenway and connect the steel bridge skate park plaza site to the rest of the active transportation network that we have come to be renowned for, and has been an economic driver for our city. So the eastbank esplanade, the steel bridge, the lower deck of the steel bridge investment that was made in the 90s, the extension of nato and the recently completed flanders greenway, which will all be connected here at the flanders crossing. We also are excited to see how the flanders, how nato crossing will help complement and bring forward howard and old town community associations. Original vision for the steel bridge site, which was not just the plaza and the competition bowl. As renowned as that space will be. The vision also included a section in north waterfront park, north of the cherry blossoms and the japanese American memorial plaza. So I'll go into each of these. But davis street ramp is currently used for storage. This is envisioned as a grom or a beginner section for kids, and a site to bring families from Saturday market to be a spot where scooter, kids and families can be there on a Saturday market and learning like the big kids. We also envisioned to see this as being a space for wheel recreation for families of all ages, of all ages and abilities, with a kids traffic playground and a pump track in the section in pink. So here is the core of the site. This is the future world class skate park. This is the space that sport Oregon and others will likely bring world class events to, and we will be seeing, perhaps in a future iteration of tony hawk's skateboarding. Dao architecture and the community advisory board are bringing this to life. As you can see from these photos, the site already has interesting contours and I believe, as Steve mentioned, already has a two foot by two foot section of concrete that's already poured. So there's been some progress made. David street on ramp. This is where the envision grom section is. This currently is storage. We believe that some of the storage could be relocated to the underutilized first and davis smart park parking garage. There might be other areas for this space as well. We've been working with the japanese American museum of Oregon and hanako and their team there to make sure that there is a japanese artistic influence as part of the community design process. Paul fujita, a former employee of bill nadeau, a renowned skater, manager of cal skate for many years and a skateboard artist, is on the design team. But this cage right here, being unlocked, could open up a covered skate space, a space that could open up sightlines from the skate park to the steel bridge, create iconic views, be on the covers of future skate magazines, and also allow a space for families to be able to learn and practice skating. We also envision in the section north of north of the nato crossing, right at the base of the steel lower deck, a kids traffic playground. This has been a long awaited vision of local cycle advocates. For those that are unaware, traffic playgrounds are a space for youth to learn how to use traffic signals and how to use traffic road markings that are popular in europe. I've seen them in chile and peru throughout the world. Recently there was one built in Vancouver. There's also one built in Gresham. There's a demand, a pent up demand for one here, and we believe it can be added to the project in a cheap fashion and would allow for youth on scooters, on scoot bikes to be able to transition into the park. So we think this would also draw regional destination for families. I personally think my metric for success of this project will be going down to the park on a Saturday morning and seeing families handing out string cheese to their kids and being able to, you know, enjoy that and then seeing it transition throughout the day. Another element I want to share with you is the friends of steel bridge skate park. We are working with Portland parks to create an official entity that can provide operations, maintenance and programing. In the long term. We want to be similar to friends of pioneer courthouse square. We have met with their director. We envision activating the ground floor retail of pbot's old town smart park garage with a friends of steel bridge, skate park headquarters, and classroom space for after school and summer programing. We have looked forward to meeting with grant moorhead of PBOT to explore these options. We also think that this would provide energy and eyes to the old town TriMet station. I share this with you all last week, but I can't say it enough. I just want to express thanks to all those that have shown leadership on this project. Commissioner Ryan, you're obviously on top of the list for bringing this forward and for getting this funding and taking that bold step of leadership and allocating that sdc funding. We really appreciate you moving this forward after 20 plus years of activism. I also want to thank Portland parks leadership, some of which are in the room with us across swanson, others that couldn't be here because they had a crucial meeting with intergovernmental agencies about this project. I want to thank prosper Portland and their staff, their PBOT, others who are in the room as well. Folks at ODOT have been really crucial in TriMet as well. Trimet is currently in the meeting with parks right now discussing the space. I want to thank the activists from years past, both splat, which was Portland parks advisory skate park team and also skaters for Portland skate parks. I want to thank folks like kelly at nike sb, and I want to thank the leadership of old town community association howard helen and jesse burke, which have all been crucial and steadfast supporters of this project over the years. On that note, let's see if this works. I'd like to share a video of selfie testimonials.
70 We are a little thin on time. How long is the video?
71 We've got four minutes. How is that on timing?
72 We don't have time for four minutes of video.
73 We will share it with you.
74 At another time.
75 Thank you.
76 Thank you so much for your presentation. We've got a few minutes, colleagues, for any comments or questions.
77 Well, I said this last week and I'll say it again, this is a really exciting project. This again ticks all the boxes of taking a troubled area and turning it into an asset. I think it's the right kind of partnership that we should be investing in. And I'm really excited, and I was just discussing earlier with councilor Green that when this opens, even though I'm old now, I will come down and skate. I'm going to hurt myself for you guys.
78 On that note, I think you should not just provide classes or help for the littles, but the elders that want to hang out down there so they can be there with their great whatevers. Serious. And I just can't tell you how many people who own hospitality venues across the city that have really spoke so highly of this project, and I don't know if they did that 25 years ago, but they are today because their customers have children that don't know what to do when they're in downtown Portland. And so I think some of those people you'll see in the morning will be people who are here visiting and enjoying the park in downtown. So I just wanted to share that with you. It's very exciting. I think it's really smart that you always acknowledge how many partners are connected to this. I mean, when you can go from hour one, you know, fortune 500 local company. Hello, nike, to the activist that you've mentioned to everything in between, that's a really good Portland story. And that's the way we're going to keep moving towards blooming and booming out of this doom that we're currently trying to not be quicksand about, but actually take action. And that's what you're doing. So thank you for being here. It's very inspiring.
79 Thank you councilors. And then I'll just say this because I have the mic. Skateboarding is not a crime okay. Thank you so much for coming today. And thank you. Keelan. Will you please read the next item?
80 Thank you gentlemen.
81 Item item two public comment on downtown space activation.
82 Thank you. Can you please pull up the call up the first testifier.
83 The first three testifiers we have are tyler fellini, kurt huffman, and judy ann woo.
84 All right.
85 Let's see if I can.
86 Do this. Watched enough first time in person. All right. Good morning. Councilors. My name is tyler fellini. I'm the executive director of Portland jobs with justice, also a registered lobbyist with Portland. Jobs with justice Portland, the city that works, but for whom? If you're a big fossil fuel company, will work for you if you're a massive entertainment monopoly who was sued by more than half of the us state attorneys will work for you. If you're a group of wealthy businessmen trying to start your next venture after leaving legacy, athletic wear companies will work for you. But if you're a worker struggling to make ends meet or a community fighting for real investment, good luck because prosper portland's latest $7 million giveaway isn't for you. Let's talk about what this really means. Prosper Portland has a publicly stated mission to advance inclusive economic growth, to support small businesses, to revitalize communities in a way that benefits those who have been left behind. And yet, here we are, watching them approve a multi-million dollar loan for an athletic wear incubator run by a bunch of former execs, a venture that directly contradicts these principles. Prosper portland's own risk guidelines are meant to ensure financial responsibility and safeguard public funds. Yet this loan violates those guidelines, making it clear that rules only apply when they want them to. This isn't just a bad deal, it's a pattern. Time and time again, we see prosper Portland pouring money into speculative projects that do little for everyday portlanders while claiming they are leading the charge for equitable growth. The rushed live nation deal was a corporate handout that will ruin our local music scene. The Lents projects were rife with worker abuse. Bully had to intervene to get construction workers paid, and prosper Portland sold another building to the same developer. Let's not even start on the absolute disaster the broadway corridor project has been. And the most alarming part prosper Portland operates with little real accountability under the city charter. This commission has broad financial powers, including the ability to borrow money without direct city council oversight. This means multi-million dollar deals can be approved without the kind of scrutiny the public funds demand. The charter also allows prosper Portland to enter into agreements with other public bodies or city departments without requiring council approval, leaving elected leaders and, by extension, the public, largely in the dark about where our money is going. I thought I had three minutes, but it looks like I don't.
87 We have a lot of people sign up for testimony, so we're just doing two minutes each.
88 Great, cool. Can I just wrap it up really quick?
89 Yeah, please take a few seconds.
90 So that should concern every single person in the room. Now, I know the city council has limited options to stop this loan, but limited doesn't mean non-existent. You have oversight tools at your disposal. You can approve the appointment and removal of prosper Portland commissioners. You have the authority to approve or reject urban renewal plans and substantial amendments to them. These are mechanisms you can and should use to hold this agency accountable. I urge you to take action not just on this loan, but on the broader issue of prosper, portland's unchecked decision making demand financial transparency. Scrutinize how funds are being allocated. Leverage the oversight powers you do have to push. Yep. Thank you.
91 Kurt huffman, judy ann woo. Judy ann you're muted.
92 Okay.
93 Hello. Can you hear me.
94 We can hear you.
95 Okay I'm just going to read my testimony so I can get through my time. That's all right.
96 Yeah that's perfectly acceptable. Yes. Please start.
97 Hello. My name is judy ann woo and I am a marketing consultant based here in Portland, Oregon. And I work with independent restaurants, Oregon food brands and travel destinations across the state. Previously, I served as the director of global communications for the Oregon tourism commission, also known as travel Oregon. But before that, I spent 15 years in the food industry in new york city. I've cooked at the james beard house as a chef. I've attended numerous james beard foundation award ceremonies as a member of the press, I served as a judge for the foundation cookbook awards for many years. And all this to say that I know firsthand how deeply beloved Portland and Oregon is within the national and international food community. I have seen how our restaurants, our wine or beer, our ingredients and makers have drawn visitors from around the world. And I know the extraordinary impact that this has on our state's economy. Many places have epic scenic beauty, many places have rich cultural history. But oregon's magic lies in the intersection of all that, with the addition of being a world class culinary destination. And it goes without saying that portland's food scene is only possible because of all the amazing ingredients that come from around the state, from the ranchers in eastern Oregon to the orchards in the columbia river gorge and southern Oregon, from the pristine waters of the Oregon coast and the fertile soil of the Willamette valley, the james beard public market isn't just a building, it's a statement of who we are as Oregonians and our commitment to our farmers, fishers, artisans and chefs. It's an investment in small businesses, job creation, food equality and tourism. I'm almost done. A place where visitors and locals alike can experience oregon's bounty in all the vibrant, thriving places in one place. But I don't know if you know this, but oregon's unofficial motto is Oregon is for dreamers and dreamers. We are, but we are also doers. We are scrappy, we are smart, and we make impossible. Things happen all the time. So today I ask you all to dream big. Imagine what this market can be for our community, our economy, and our future. And then let's make it happen. Let's support the james beard public market and make this dream a reality.
98 Thank you. Judy an.
99 Thank you.
100 Next up we have christine walter, henry miller and kate mathers. Christine. Henry. Kate. Okay. Next we have kimiko matsuda joining us online. Let me get them. Followed by laura ammons. Go ahead kimiko.
101 Hello, I'm kimiko matsuda. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our public testimony. I am a community engagement marketing specialist who is passionate about the future visioning of our downtown corridor. I'm here to testify in support of the james beard public market, the revitalization and the reimagined vision for portland's downtown has gained momentum in recent years, but most recently, I've seen really true emotional connection to the identification of a public market and oregon's ability to claim james beard as their culinary son. The market's vision to create pathways for entrepreneurship is an exciting direction that amplifies portland's culinary scene. Introductions to the conversation of oregon's rich agriculture, creating a stronger tether with the city to farmers and makers from across the state, is so exciting and increases accessibility for so many people to engage in farm fresh food and experiences for visitors and locals. The scene of history, culture, pride of place is an absolute must. Please help us support the james beard public market. Thank you.
102 Thank you so much, kimiko.
103 Laura ammons.
104 Good morning. Can everyone hear me?
105 We can hear you loud and clear. Laura.
106 Thank you. Good morning. Arts and economy committee, committee chairs and members. Thank you for having us. My name is laura ammons. I am a co-owner of sesame collective. We're a local restaurant group here in the Portland, Oregon metro area. We have six locations across the Portland metro area in district two, three, and four, and I personally live in district three. I am here today to testify in support of the james beard public market. One of the many things that I think Portland is great and known for is our thriving hospitality scene. Our hospitality businesses touch and support many industries and is not limited to just restaurants, bars and hotels. There are so many other secondary and tertiary businesses that are supported by their existence. I also believe that in creating this market, we will create an anchor for our culinary community. Portland has seen a mass exodus of businesses that were renting office spaces downtown and using it more for intellectual hubs, and now that we are post-pandemic and in a new way of life, where work from home is here to stay and a new norm, I do believe as a city we need to be thinking swiftly and reimagining why we exist and how we are going to drive our economy. Hospitality businesses will always require humans and will always have an element of an in-person that must exist. And I don't believe that ai and technology will ever replace real human connections, which we're all so desperate for. Public markets are we mentioned earlier around how there in all of these other cities? Personally, when I go to a new place, they are a place I like to hit. They help tourists orient and anchor to the places that they're visiting. They naturally bring people together. I believe with the allocation of these funds, we will continue to ensure that our city is known and for its culinary food scene. I also believe that it will drive economic development and our tourism appeal. I do think that it's no secret that there are many businesses leaving the downtown area, specifically restaurants headed to our neighbors in Vancouver and in Beaverton. Even I do think that it is important that as Portland, we need to ensure that we remain the epicenter for culinary in the pacific northwest. So I do hope that you will consider allocating funds for this very needed project. Thank you.
107 Thank you for your testimony, laura.
108 Chair. That completes testimony.
109 Thank you. It looks like we had three people who signed up that did not show.
110 That's correct.
111 I'd like to invite tyler fellini if he's still in the room to finish his remarks.
112 Great.
113 Thanks, councilor. So I'm just going to jump right in. So prosper Portland operates with little real accountability under the city charter. This commission has broad financial powers, including the ability to borrow money without direct city council oversight. This means multi-million dollar deals can be approved without the kind of scrutiny that public funds demand. The charter also allows prosper Portland to enter into agreements with other public bodies or city departments without requiring council approval, leaving elected officials and, by extension, the public, largely in the dark about where our money is going. That should concern every single person in this room. Now, I know that you guys have limited options to stop the $7 million loan, but that doesn't mean you don't have options. You have oversight tools at your disposal. The city council approves and appoints approves the appointment and removal of prosper Portland commissioners. It has the authority to approve or reject urban renewal plans and substantial amendments to them. These are mechanisms you can and should use to hold this agency accountable. I reached out to city council and the mayor about this issue, and what I heard from councilor Dunphy was deeply concerning. Prosper Portland has explicit authority from previous councils to spend that money however they see fit. He sees this relationship as indefensible, and I hope the rest of you do, too. The public deserves better. I urge you to take action not just on this loan, but on the broader issue of prosper, portland's unchecked decision making demand financial transparency. Scrutinize how funds are being allocated. Leverage the oversight powers you do have to push for greater accountability. Portlanders deserve an economy that works for all of us. That starts with real accountability, that starts with action, and that starts today. Thanks for letting me finish my remarks.
114 Thank you tyler, and, you know, thanks for your patience as we sort of try to forecast the amount of minutes that's necessary based upon the sign up list fluctuate a little bit. So I'll take your remarks to heart. Looks like we've got another third grade class up in the upper section, so I'd just like to say hello. Thanks for coming today. At this point, councilors, we have finished the agenda. I'll offer. We have time for any closing remarks, any responses anyone wants to make.
115 I just want to thank the participants. You all put a lot of time and effort to that. You also engaged a lot of partners to show up with you. So it was kind of an expensive meeting. You could have been doing something somewhere else. So thank you for leaning in and being part of the Portland story to reactivate our downtown. And I really want to just acknowledge how these projects really are connected. The dots connect. All three of them are really in similar parts of downtown. The children up there who are here visiting, they're going to want to go down with their parents on a Saturday morning and activate the skate park, I'm sure. And then your parents will want to take you over to the james beard market for some lunch. Right? And then you'll go, wait, what am I leaving out? The last but not least. Then you'll go to darcelle plaza for this amazing, like performance on the afternoon. So it allows our families to really activate downtown. And that's exactly what we should be doing at this time. So thank you all. And thank you to the city leaders who are partnering with with the folks from the community. Those are really you have a hard jobs and yet you won't be able to accomplish them without them. So I don't see a lot of projects going forward right now without partnerships. There's simply not enough funds in the coffers to do this alone. So we really do need to see these cross-sector partnerships that come together so organically, like we heard about today. I appreciate all of you.
116 Again. Thank you so much for taking your time to come here today and present on the ways that you're helping us activate space downtown. And also, thank you for the people who showed up to give public testimony, raise concerns about how we use our economic development dollars and what oversight and transparency looks like, as well as offering support for the james beard foundation. So the public market. So at this point, I will just say that our next meeting of the arts and economy committee is on March 25th. And until then I close, I adjourn the meeting.