November 28, 2023 — Meeting Transcript

Glad to see a lot of faces here. So it's nice to not be up here alone, as usual. So will our city clerk

please call the roll? Alderman Berkowitz?

Here.

Alderman McAndrew? Here. Alderwoman Buse? Here. Aldermen Patel? Here. Aldeman Gary Feder? Here. Alderon Rick Hummell?

Alderman McAndrew? Here. Alderwoman Buse? Here. Aldermen Patel? Here. Aldeman Fader? Here. Alderon Hummel?

Here.

Mayor Harris? Here. City Manager David Gipson?

Mayor Harris? Here. City Manager Gibson?

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe? Here. Thank you.

And before we get started tonight, I'd just like to recognize one of our officers who was passed recently, who was with the department a very long time. And we all really revere and is very dear to us, Officer Tom Bosch. I'd like to just have a moment of silence to just recognize him and think about him and keep him in our prayers. Okay, I think we'll get started. This is the time on our agenda when We call for public requests and petitions. Anybody in the audience here who has a topic they'd like to share with us that's not on our agenda tonight or anybody in our Zoom audience that might have a topic to share not on our agenda, now is your chance. For those that are here to talk about things on our agenda, you'll have an opportunity later. I don't see anything, so we'll move on with the first public hearing regarding the Wright's Tavern expansion. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Yes, Mayor. This is a public hearing to consider an application for a conditional use permit or CUP amendment submitted by Matthew McGuire of Box Hill Group Wydown doing business as Wright's Tavern restaurant owner to allow for the expansion of an existing restaurant into an adjacent tenant space. The existing restaurant space measures approximately 1,100 square feet. The proposed expanded restaurant measures 2,200 square feet. The existing CUP allows for the operation of the restaurant seven days a week from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. The existing restaurant concept is a full-service sit-down restaurant open for dinner. The restaurant currently provides 40 seats. The proposed expansion area would be used for carryout, prepared goods and market items. The applicant is proposing that the CUP allow for seating and restaurant service in the future should the owner wish to convert the space. The applicant already has a full liquor license and will work with the finance department regarding the expanded use. Delivery service from the restaurant is not proposed. The restaurant is located outside of downtown Clayton, therefore parking is required for employees. The applicant has secured parking spaces from an adjacent property and provided proof through an agreement. Expansion of the use is considered a major amendment to a conditional use permit and therefore requires approval by the Board of Aldermen. Staff recommends that the Board of Alderman approve an amended conditional use permit for the operation of Wright's Tavern located at 7624 to 7628 Wydown Boulevard per the conditions outlined in the resolution.

Okay, I'll open it up for discussion. Matt, would you like to come forward and tell us a little bit more about what your plans are? And also, I wondered when is this going to open?

Small specialty food market next door to the restaurant. Oh, sorry.

Also, I guess you have to say your name and your address.

Hi, I'm Matt McGuire from Wright's. the proposal is to hopefully do a small specialty food market next door to the restaurant. Um, that would be open Monday through Saturday, um, hours operation. I think roughly we're talking something like nine to nine to seven or nine to six, something along those lines and prepared foods, gourmet food items, you know, to go prepared stuff, um,

Yeah, any fresh produce or anything like that in there? Yeah, a

small bit. It's a small space, so we're going to, yeah, some basic goods like really good eggs, some small bit of dairy, and yeah, some fresh produce through some of our vendors.

Great, wonderful. When do you think this will be ready?

There's not a ton needed other than refrigeration and some plumbing, so I think I'm hoping we could have things ready in four or five months tops.

Great. Wonderful. Anybody else have questions for Matt?

Have you looked into whether or not anything you're going to produce might compete with any of the other owners of businesses on White Island?

I have. I don't see any kind of conflict in that way. Mainly, you know, like the closest kind of comparable would be like the to-go food at Straub's, which I think is far enough away. Right. I was just talking about the deli

on White Island.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no. Yeah, he's a dear friend of mine. And so I'm not looking to impede on anything he's doing, Max.

You've spoken to Max about it.

I have. But yeah, I have to stay away from doing what he's doing. Yeah. So I'm thinking more along the lines of prepared food, stuff that we'd sell by the pound, like whether it's chicken salad or roasted chicken or stuff of that nature, instead of selling lunch deli sandwiches, not that kind of, it won't be like a lunch. I mean, I'm sure we'll have things that you could take home to make something like that, but

he does have chicken salad.

He does. He does. It

might've been a slip. Yeah. Yeah.

He does.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I just want you all getting along over there. Oh,

absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah. My daughter would never talk to me again.

Okay. Any other questions for Matt? Yeah, I do. Oh, sorry.

We'll go, go around. No, I was just going to say, Matt, I think it's a great idea. I think when there was development proposed there. many years ago now um people talked about having a small grocery or something yeah at the base of the building so i'm sure the neighborhood will really enjoy it

i hope so i mean there's history like the gym used the gym where the gym is now that used to be a market when i was a little kid that you know

and it's impossible to actually get a reservation at your restaurant

36 chairs

you can walk in there and get some yeah i would love

it

so but congratulations it's doing great thanks

yeah

secret is 1201

that's what i've heard

We haven't succeeded in that either. I think it sounds wonderful. The one thing that I would ask you to consider and just wondering where you stand on it is sustainability, especially with takeout food, styrofoam, using compostable dinnerware, those simple practices like asking somebody if they want the disposable forks or not. What are you planning on doing in that regard.

So I bet that's a great question because we have very, and it kind of is by necessity and, you know, also that it's the right thing to do but we have very little space for storage for anything and to go boxes and to go containers and to go bags, when they come to us or gargantuan they take up a ton of room so if we can kind of encourage tote bags, anything of that along those lines to kind of pare down on boxes and waste. It not only is better for sustainability, it's also just better for how everything functions. If we can encourage people to do that instead of having bags and boxes and stuff like that.

And I think we talked about it before when you were here, but the Green Dining Alliance obviously has the standards and they'll do audits of different food establishments to help them comply with that and i don't know if you'd consider doing that trying to get some help on ideas of what to do

yeah i love talking to them i've learned i've learned a lot from them i was the first person that they were the first people ever told me that bleach was a neurotoxin i said oh i've been using bleach every day for i'm fine but yeah no they're great they're really helpful um i haven't talked to them you know for a couple years but they're certainly helpful as far as advice and stuff

And do you have any standards right now you think you'll be implementing as far as those? Other

than encouraging people to bring their own bags and, you know, making tote bags available, I don't really have anything specific that, you know, other than using, you know, sustainable wares, whether it's, you know, recycled containers or boxes and stuff instead of just, you know, brand new plastic everything. That's

kind of the plan. That's what you're moving forward with.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that the consumers are looking for it as well. There's a

good marketing technique. It is. Right. Okay. Thank you. Good questions. Becky, anything?

Thanks. I'm excited, and as a resident of Ward 1, I would just hope that this is really successful and you feel like opening a similar bodega-style spot in Ward 1.

That has been my hope for a long time. We'll see if it's a good beta model, and we hope it is.

Thanks.

I was just wondering about parking. It seems to me like in the evening hours, given the proliferation of restaurants in that corner, that parking could be difficult for patrons who just want to pick up. And so what's your thought about how cumbersome that may be for people who just want to stop by and pick something up?

So far from... I've only been there a year, but in this year, the parking has not been a problem at all before 6 o'clock. And that six o'clock, that really becomes maybe pinchy Wednesday through Saturday. And then parking from eight or nine in the morning until six o'clock. It's pretty open.

My other comment, we had an excellent dinner there trying to get the reservation required sort of going on a calendar and marking a date three weeks in advance in a particular time of day to call. So it was sort of equivalent to trying to use frequent flyer miles on a particular day. So I'm just wondering about, it's obviously up to you, but did you give any thought to actually using the extra space to expand your restaurant so that people could get in a little more easily? Yeah. I would

love it. And I think the building owner, Dr. Martin, I think doesn't really want to expand the restaurant. And he likes the store idea. So right now that's where we're staying. Okay. Well, good

luck to you. Thanks. Will the store and the restaurant share anything in common, any space or services? We

will share space because there's two spaces that are broken by a stairwell. You can walk through to both sides. So we will be using a kitchen. You can walk back and forth.

Okay. And Gary asked my question about parking, so I don't have anything else. There

you go. Well, I think a market will be a huge hit. People... Being someone who's been around Ward 2 for a while, people have been asking for a market for literally two decades at least. So I think just I wish you luck. Thank you. I appreciate

it very much.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay. I will, if there are no further comments or questions. Oh, yes. I'm

sorry. I'm Kevin Williams, 120 South Central, Clayton, Missouri 6105, attorney for rights. I have one small request, I guess. And that is the condition 16. We had informally asked if this could be removed. It's really more of a practical aspect of the operation. Practically, the idea of the market is that people come in and they get the prepared food and they leave with it. It may become a little bit awkward to notify every customer that they're not supposed to double park and they may get offended because they're probably not double parking anymore. one hopes they're not double parking so it's just a practical thing if we could uh remove that condition just because it feels a little awkward 16.

wait I mean it's an ordinance in general that double parking isn't allowed correct

Kevin I believe we have intended this is not the speaking I'm sorry Thank you. I believe it is envisioned that this would operate in terms of when the customer contacts you to place an order, that you would remind them that double parking is not permitted, not someone who comes in and is already parked.

Oh, I understand. So could we clarify to say that it's carryout restaurant orders? It says requesting carryout or requesting. Okay. Okay. All right, if that's the intent and the record will reflect that, that's fine. I don't want to speak for honor, but I assume

this. That was a condition from two restaurants ago that was in the conditional permit, so I can't speak to the origin of it.

That's how we view it. Okay, if that's how you view it, then that's great. That's all we need. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Unless there's further discussion, I will close the public hearing.

I'd like to move to approve resolution number 2023-35 granting an amendment to the conditional use permit of 7624-7628 Whiteown Boulevard Rights Tavern. Second. Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, off you go. Congratulations. We can't wait to see it. Okay, next would be our PUD amendment for Merrimack Ave.

Yes, this is a public hearing to consider an ordinance amending of plan unit development for the property address 201 to 215 North Merrimack Avenue and 8015 Pershing Avenue to increase residential density.

I will open the public hearing and ask for proof of publication. Thank you.

The 63,112 square foot site is located at the Northwest corner of the intersection of North Merrimack Avenue and Pershing Avenue and has a zoning designation of planned unit development or PUD. On June 27th, 2023, the Board of Aldermen approved the PUD for the subject property to allow for the construction of a mixed use development containing 145 apartments, 1000 square feet of retail space and 194 parking spaces. This is a request to amend the PUD plan to increase the number of apartments and parking spaces. The applicant is now proposing to construct 151 apartments, which is an increase of six, and 196 parking spaces, an increase of two. The overall massing and height of the building are not proposed to change. The zoning code outlines the process for adjustments to an approved plan unit development and states that any amendment increasing density or a change in the number of parking spaces is to be treated as a major amendment, which requires a public hearing and review by the Board of Aldermen. The proposed amendment includes additional excavation to extend the below-grade parking for the additional spaces and reconfiguration of the floor plans to create the additional dwelling units. The proposal does not include additional building height or above-grade extensions. The applicant is proposing to maintain a parking ratio of 1.3 spaces per dwelling unit, and the plan follows the traffic study. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed amendment will not substantially alter the approved development, is compatible with the surrounding context, and recommends approval as submitted. And the applicant is here this evening, as is our Director of Planning and Development, Anna Krane.

The 63,112 square foot site is located at the Northwest corner of the intersection of North Merrimack Avenue and Pershing Avenue and has a zoning designation of planned unit development or PUD. On June 27th, 2023, the Board of Aldermen approved the PUD for the subject property to allow for the construction of a mixed use development containing 145 apartments, 1000 square feet of retail space and 194 parking spaces. This is a request to amend the PUD plan to increase the number of apartments and parking spaces. The applicant is now proposing to construct 151 apartments, which is an increase of six, and 196 parking spaces, an increase of two. The overall massing and height of the building are not proposed to change. The zoning code outlines the process for adjustments to an approved plan unit development and states that any amendment increasing density or a change in the number of parking spaces is to be treated as a major amendment, which requires a public hearing and review by the Board of Aldermen. The proposed amendment includes additional excavation to extend the below-grade parking for the additional spaces and reconfiguration of the floor plans to create the additional dwelling units. The proposal does not include additional building height or above-grade extensions. The applicant is proposing to maintain a parking ratio of 1.3 spaces per dwelling unit, and the plan follows the traffic study. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed amendment will not substantially alter the approved development, is compatible with the surrounding context, and recommends approval as submitted. And the applicant is here this evening, as is our Director of Planning and Development, Anna Crane.

Right, very good. Okay, I'd like to open the discussion. I'd first like to just take any comments from our audience here. So I know that some of you are here to speak to us about this, so I'd encourage you to come on up now and begin that process.

Thank you. My name is Kathleen Gunn, 329 North Beamiston Avenue. I'd like to start out by complimenting the architect and the development group for several things. First off, the project is lovely. The majority of the parking provided will be underground, which is very nice. Also, the project brings needed residential density into our downtown area, and it includes two affordable units. Also, the development team worked really well with neighboring property owners and they have been very responsive to questions posed. I want to acknowledge their willingness to communicate and their respect and professionalism when doing so. However, this project is part of a PUD where variances from zoning code ordinances can be offset by public benefits. So the developer is requesting an additional six units to be added to the project. The addition of these units required some changes to the floor plans, which increased the number of units with square footage below the 750 square foot limit outlined in Clayton's ordinance by nine units. So I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that. And I believe that this requested change should be accompanied by a submission of additional public benefit. I request that the developer increase the number of affordable units provided in this development from two to four before this change is approved by the board. Four affordable units in a 151 unit building represents 2.6% of the total units. Our country has a substantial lack of decent housing units that the average American afford. Our particular area, Clayton and this area in the county, has a definite lack each affordable unit included in this development would directly contribute to solving the problem um I appreciate what this development team has brought to our city but I believe they can do more thank you thank you very much

others that would like to comment

yes hi my name is Barbara Finch and I live at 230 South Brentwood Boulevard And I'm here tonight representing not only myself, but other Clayton members of Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice. We are cognizant of the lack of affordable housing nationwide, but especially here in Clayton. It's going to require change in order to bring affordable housing into this community of such great opportunity. And change is hard. It requires compromise. Tonight represents an opportunity to take one small step toward making Clayton a more diverse and inclusive community. I respectfully echo the comments of Kathleen Gund and request the developer to increase the number of affordable units in this project from two to at least four. While this may be a big step for the developer, it will be a right step in the right direction toward providing housing in Clayton at a price point that more people can afford. Thank you, Barbara.

And Barbara, thank you for your very clever note. But is this the key to your house? Are any where important? I got the key. We all got one. Okay. Very, very clever. Thank you. Anybody else here that would like to speak about this? Yes, sir.

I'm Tom Lucas at 8010 Pershing. I spoke to Anna Krane before. I think they got a chance to look at this too much. I just wanted to confirm that nothing was going to be changing on the outside of the building because I know they look very closely at where there was existing zoning that was residential and some commercial, but nothing got moved at all on the outside of building or closer to the sidewalk or anything. Everything on the building is identical on the outside. Is that right?

I'm Tom Lucas at 8010 Pershing. I spoke to Anna Crane before. I think they got a chance to look at this too much. I just wanted to confirm that nothing was going to be changing on the outside of the building because I know they look very closely at where there was existing zoning that was residential and some commercial, but nothing got moved at all on the outside of building or closer to the sidewalk or anything. Everything on the building is identical on the outside. Is that right?

can you respond please yes that's correct and i also see the architects nodding as well

okay that's all i wanted to make sure they weren't moving things over a couple of feet or something

okay very good thank you other comments okay and so i would like to see if the developer the developers here would you like to come up and address some of these uh some of these requests and see you know let us hear from you and what you think

Good evening. I'm Joel Foose, principal with Trivers Architects. Just to confirm with Tom's question about the footprint, all of this was changed within the 250,000 gross square feet that we have within the building. So a lot of the changes were made to Right size units and as we start to get into the efficiency of making these work and actually making units to some of the questions about affordability a little bit more right size for what you know department market demands and what they should be so. Staying within the footprint was really a charge. We know that was important. And so we kept everything within that to get our unit total up a little bit. So no other major changes besides that for this request of increasing the six units, but I'd be happy to answer any questions that anybody might have.

Well, we can go around and have comments. Would you like to make any comment about moving from two to four affordable?

I am Jason Braidwood with Keeley Properties. Yeah, I'll address the affordability topic, and then we can do more general questions if there are any. I agree with everything just said, just like I did when we added the two, which is frankly a comical number on 100 units, let alone 150. This is a problem that I believe St. Louis as a region is about maybe could be the worst in the country in terms of lack of policy. I'm not going to try to get defensive. I'll talk about kind of the challenges that all of us developers are facing right now in a sec. But I will say that the surest fire way to get affordability in any market is to build more units, period. That is supply and demand. And sometimes you have to accelerate that with policy. And I wish we had one. I wish we had had one from the river to Chesterfield. I will say that in my 25 years doing this, this is probably the hardest three to four year stretch that anyone has seen in terms of construction costs. And that's even before you talk about interest rates. So this is exceptionally difficult to pull off. We are pulling we are doing a 10 percent, 60 percent affordability in our cortex project. That is one of the reasons it has a broken ground. So we're committed to it. We didn't go back to the city and say, hey, we're not going to do that 10%, even though our financing has said you can do that. We're okay with it now. We're not going to wait until we can figure it out. And that includes going with HUD financing to figure it out. That project has surface parking. It happens to be three and a half

acres.

This project is one and a half with underground and above grade concrete parking. We are delivering this project. Don't want to get too specific here, but 30% higher than any building multifamily wise has ever sold in the state of Missouri. So some reason we have a couple banks that like us, and they're local, their neighbors are yours. And if they weren't local, they wouldn't be doing a deal in Clayton. But We're a little crazy, and we love this site, and we have some great St. Louisans that are backing us, including Bill Coleman and Russ Thiele, and we're going to do it. But this change that we made was purely optics. No more square footage. This was really reducing the size of units, which makes them more affordable, and we were not going to get financing when the denominator was only 145. It needed to be more units. So the per unit numbers looked better or we weren't going to get it done. So we charged the architects to really reconfigure the units to make them a little smaller at times and to make them more leasable and to really get more units in the building. And then we had to dig for more parking. So it's not a great fit for this particular project. And that, combined with the time that we're faced with financially, neither one of those things are excuses. I want this topic at every one of these meetings whenever someone's presenting to you guys. And I'll come up and I'll do a little speech on it too. I don't think this one is ripe for it. I'm still getting kind of ribbed by our financing that I said, hey, let's do two. Because it is... about $800 off because the rents are so high in Clayton, which is the point. I get it. It makes the deal not financeable, even one. So we're going to do the two. What I ask from everybody is almost best efforts like language versus increasing this because we have to close this loan. We have to figure this out. And the best way for us to get going, the best way to get more affordability is to break around and get going. And we'll do the two. We shrunk units. That helps. I would love to try to do one more. And you have my word that I'll try. But if it's in the PUD, we have to go through the appraisal process and figure it out, unfortunately, which is really tough out there. My overall point is not to be defensive and even push back. My overall point is that I want this topic on the agenda, and I want this topic listened to because there's a problem in the country. And about 4 million units shy of what we need, and they're not all luxury. Those 4 million units are affordable.

Great. Great. Thank you very much.

I'm happy to address any questions.

Yeah. So I'm going to go in order of seniority if we have comments or questions for either for Jason or just in general for Anna, whatever.

Jason, how are you doing? Thanks, Ivan. So I'm not unaware of the financing climate as it's been for the last two years, how difficult the banks have been towards development. I'm not unaware A lot of developers might come in here and try and blow smoke with us about this set of the other thing in the economy, but I can say for sure. I can I can let everybody rest assured that you are being honest about the situation in the community of development. I have a very strong desire, though, that we do provide as much affordable housing as possible. I hear you saying you think the same way. And I appreciate that. I was very excited to hear when Richard told me that you were offering two affordable units at a time when you were applying for your original PUD. And I think that's great. I can't help but still get on my hands and knees and beg. I mean, it's just where I'm at at this point is to beg and say that, you know what? Clayton, probably more than any other city in this community, really, really, really needs it, really needs it. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing, I could tell people, well, as of the two that you offered, we have three. all of clayton seriously three that's it um you know and and you could you know you could have a strong legacy in this city by adding even one more just adding one more that would really make a difference in what we already have it would add gosh numbers a third to what we already have um And so, yeah, I mean, I appreciate it. I obviously am not in touch with your banks. I don't know what they need or don't need. I don't the numbers in terms of the delta between what's your lowest rate for a smallest unit that you have and what the affordable would be? Do you have that number?

Mark might have it memorized. I think the key with this building is because of its neighborhood, our design, unlike Clayton on the Park or some of our projects in the city, specifically doesn't have studios. And that's that's one of the challenges on this one, so we did shrink we broke apart a couple two bedrooms into one bedrooms and we made some larger ones into like two junior ones.

Right, but

the overall price point of like a one bedroom in clayton is five $600 higher than a price point of a studio and clayton and. That's not to say that we don't need affordability at two bedrooms and one bedrooms. I'm not trying to say that. It's just a bigger jump in the amount of rent that you expect to collect. So if we had studios, it would be a lot easier.

Right. And I guess I'm not too worried about whether it's a two-bedroom, one-bedroom, or studio. I'm not too are always the smallest units in the building. Makes sense, you know? Actually ironic, yeah. It's a little bit, yeah. But, you know, so I mean, you know, Look, we don't do this work in the development area at a loss. I know that. I'm not asking you for your numbers. I don't care what you're going to sell this for in two years or three years. But there's got to be a way to fit in even one more. That's my comment. Thanks, Ira.

Great. Bridget?

Thank you for your comments. Really appreciate it. I guess this is a little bit different from that, but what do you think given the financial market? We haven't heard very good things from developers. Do you anticipate actually being able to build this?

I thought we were going to stay more general.

Yeah,

I do. I wouldn't say that if we were a typical developer that only uses 10% or 5% of our own capital. We're very fortunate, my wife and I are fortunate to have found a couple great people and Mark's unfortunate to have Mark and Mark's fortunate to be working for Rusty and formerly for Bill Komen. We're putting in a ton of our own money. And that's the only way to get it done. We happen to have a mezzanine provider that's like another layer of debt besides a senior provider that has state of Missouri money so that they actually kind of get what we're doing here, thank goodness. And then lastly, I mean this just happened yesterday, our senior loan is almost sub 50% of project costs now. We just learned that. So with that, I still am pretty confident. But I really can't stress this enough. I mean, I'll give you a couple little plays from the playbook that Mark's done to make this happen. Our esteemed architects weren't quite market in terms of where they were counting the square footage, like I'm talking about within a wall versus a front of a wall. We have to do that kind of math to expand and push just to get an appraiser and a bank to say, oh, okay, so now it's only that amount of money to build this. And it's only that amout of rent that you need to collect. So we did that. We did these six units. It is taking every bit of that to even get people to the table. But yeah, I'm not optimistic. I'm usually a pessimist. So I don't want you to think that I'm giving you something that's false. We just committed today to close on the ground. And if we close on ground, as Ira knows, once you do that, You're either really dumb or you feel confident that you have your investors. Mark and I are personally going to put a lot of money into this ourselves to make it happen. I am confident. And, you know, we have a great contractor. We're not using Keeley. I think we have a contractor that's rolling up their sleeves for us. So I'm confident.

And then I guess I'd just be curious to hear your perspective in terms of, you know, we all would like to see more affordable housing in Clayton. So what do you think, you know, as a developer that obviously knows this city and this area, what do you think needs to be done in order for more units to occur here?

Other

than sitting here and pleading. Right, yeah.

I mean, first of all, I think that the acceptance of an 80% level versus 60 is a really nice first step, you know, because 60 is a big change, and it affects performance quite a bit. What we're doing in all of our projects across the country, just to get started, not even talking about affordability yet, is we're trying to surface park as much as possible and then working with the constituencies and whatnot that, hey, we'll build a phase two when construction costs versus rent even out, and then we'll build the parking garage. So the surest fire way to get supply, which is the surest fireway to get affordability, is to allow... Anything that comes to your table in, like, three acres or four acres, just try to get creative in parking. Parking kills the deal. Once you build concrete, you're done. And stacking on top of concrete like we are, it's a non-starter. I think I might have mentioned this last time, but this building is twice as much as our Marlow project in the central west end, which we delivered for. Two years ago. Twice as much on hard costs. Double. And that has 205 units. That's 151, hopefully. So we need, what really stinks is that we need the rents to catch up to cost because costs aren't, they're never going to go down. They don't go down. So I would just suggest that any large parcels that you have that are coming in front of you, I don't know how many are, but we have Gershman's property, we have Claris, we have A nice, beautiful park next to Enterprise Now. I mean, there are some really big lots that...

I know Barbara has ideas for that.

I've talked to them. Those large parcels, Clayton is so built out, I know it's difficult, but those parcels that allow creativity in parking are the best ways to get... and then you and then using wood right using wood on ground versus concrete it's the best way even if you don't love the architecture of like like what like our Clover project at Olive and Nashville's got 200 Clover projects I know they're not nothing to write home about but that that's what gets affordability in wood no concrete unfortunately

Anything else, Bridget? Anything else for you? Susan?

I appreciate your comments. I appreciate your professionalism in what you do and the value of affordable housing. I think that the public comments made earlier were very salient. And I agree that I think we would all like to see i always say at least one more unit here with affordable housing i don't know your numbers i don't know what your margins are um so it kind of puts us in a difficult situation to demand it or not demand it but what you did say earlier that what was your language uh i i hope you'll take best intentions or whatever language you meant and and what what can you expand on that

yeah um We had a tour today with my head of property management, who's been doing this a long time now. And I guess I'm picturing getting this building to the point where we mobilize our PM team. They reassess the market a year and a half from now, right? And take stock in where we're at. We take stock in how much over budget we are like every project that just finished here in town or hopefully under budget if mark does his job for once um uh and uh and and we figured out along the way with her really doing a good study as to where we can like which units are most our best fit for that so it's really kind of a market angle with the team a year and a half down the road and I guess I'll just use Jim Coleman's projects as an example. They got killed in the middle with concrete costs. If that happens to us halfway through a project, I don't know what to do at that point. We save a couple bucks along the way though. And that's my word to you that if something like that happens, which we saved some money on Clover, believe it or not, then we have some room. That's my intention. It takes some trust, I guess.

Anything further, Susan? No, thanks. Becky?

Yeah, thank you. I'm just trying to like square all of these comments and ideas, and it's confusing. And so, you know, I mean, on the one hand, I hear you expressing like what I think you were expressing, which is I think Ira kind of alluded to, and I feel is like, Ooh, we have three affordable units in Clayton and they're probably like teeny tiny. It's not like a family can live in them and like, you know, whatever, like it's like, it's not, it's, it's a start. And I'm glad we're talking about it. So it seems to me like you were expressing sort of an agreement with that. And I think I heard you express some... Like acknowledgement that we don't have any clear policy on this in Clayton or the region, which I imagine poses further challenges for developers to know like what you do. what the guidelines are that you have to work within and how the different kinds of trade-offs that you can make to make a deal work or get something approved. Did I reasonably understand you to be expressing that? There isn't policy here.

Well, I'm floating between specificity of the project and general macro. I will say this, nine out of 10 metropolitan areas that have a policy, you're providing affordability in exchange for tax abatement or TIF. So, I mean, that is the game. We don't have incentives at our Cortex project besides a minuscule amount of site work. We're going to commit and stay to it. But there are very few communities that are healthy enough to ask for affordable housing in robust fashion, right? 20%. And then not compensate in some way. Yeah. So that's what

I was curious about in terms of like policy. When you see it other places, that's generally...

Mark Rubin with Keeley as well. So I do have a little insight and experience with the affordable side. So I've been over a decade serving member at the Crown Center, which is at 170 in Del Mar, for those of you that are familiar. And we're currently – we've just completed phase one of two, which is 52 units. The next phase will be 68, and we're tearing that one tower that was built in 68 down for the second phase. So I'm current serving chair. I've learned a ton. So these are using low-income housing tax credits in that case. So that's a way in which you can actually get more quantity. So, right, because we're – having this conversation over two versus three units or four, one opportunity might be, is there a way to incent some existing apartment buildings that are already out there? So, and whether that's through a mechanism of some level of subsidy, but you're going to have a much more narrow gap. You know, this is kind of where you opened up the conversation and question, you know, what can you do from a policy standpoint in order to get more volume and higher degree of concentration of this that will serve, you know, the general public? And The challenge that we have, obviously, in the new space is our cost base is so high. So for us to be able to bridge that gap becomes that much more of a challenge. Is there an opportunity with some existing apartment owners, myself included, that have older product where you can incent them to potentially relieve some of that pressure, some of that demand that's out there? So anyway.

Thank you. Thanks. Becky, anything further from

you? No, I'm just trying to... I don't know how I'm going to... We can come back to you. So I think the one other comment you made that I want to kind of... like pry into a little bit is the, you said something about, I think I heard you say that actually rents need to rise for the calculus to work. And I think that most of what I've heard is that rents have raised dramatically, certainly compared to people's incomes and ability to pay rents. And so that's, and perhaps it's not like the target market you're going for your building. But, you know, I mean, these are just like, as I think about, you know, like our role here as, you know, the city council in Clayton, Missouri with like how do we um like what do we do with that like people can't afford to pay their bills in parts of our region and how are we like continuing that or worsening or are we improving it and like what does that mean

it's really difficult because you really what what you're saying is it requires patient right because rents go up they go up every year right call three percent Just in a normal inflationary market, they're always going to go up a little bit. And that's really all I was referring to. Just construction costs went up 100%. So the problem with patients is that you're not building anything. And our starting point is for, I think some numbers are 6 million units under across the country. And that's just multifamily. So I don't have a great answer for you. I will say that the when you say, Hey, costs come down, costs don't come down. You really can't count. And land isn't the issue by the way. I mean, there's always little idiosyncrasies, but it's not, we're paying a nice amount of money for that ground. But if that was higher or lower, it's not as big of an effect as everything else. Your confusion is warranted. We talk about it all the time. And when you try to bring in supply and demand along with, uh, such high cost to build that there's no easy answer

thanks alderman Gary Feder

thanks alderman fader

so i see the request i guess from a couple of perspectives you know from a positive in terms of affordable housing in the last year i think we've gone from a multi-family project with one affordable unit to another one with two, your project. And I think the one that is going to be pending in front of the Board of Aldermen on Merrimack and Bonham, which I think was proposed with six units and received a lot of points in the PUD system. And so I assume at least as to that issue, that would be favorably received by the board. So I think we're making some strides. Now again, none of these numbers when you compare it with the number of units are big percentages they're small percentages but at least the trend is going in the right way you know the negative i i first of all i think all of us read almost daily if you if you're sort of interested in development you see articles i mean how tough the lending market is so i don't think you have to convince ira or me who've worked with developers about how tough the market is um and i do have a concern that one of the three projects that we've approved i think which included an affordable unit, I think we've now heard radio silence from. It's going nowhere, as best I can tell. There may be reasons other than lending in that particular case, but obviously that's part of it. And so I view this project as one that You know, the people in the neighborhood were very unhappy about this being a vacant site and everything that was happening with it. You all come along. I think Bridget and I probably attended more meetings for a project than anyone I can think of. I mean, you guys had meetings anytime somebody wanted to have a meeting with In their house, you had a meeting. So, and I think Tom's perspective, and I know he was a critic of some of the things you did, you finally, after this long process, got to a project that people actually really like or excited about. And to be honest, I don't want to see us taking an unreasonable risk of this project not happening. Maybe you're far enough along that that's not a big risk, but I think it's a close call and I really don't wanna risk it. I don't want the second project. We have some retail folks who've said they're gonna open up their facilities. And again, radio silence because I don't think they can get the financing to do the improvements to do the work. So this is a serious issue. I mean, getting to Ira's point, I trust you guys. I think you've developed a lot of credibility as to Ira's point. If you said, all right, we'll do one more unit. I somehow will make it work. Fine. I'm certainly I'm with you on that. But as long as there is some genuine concern and you're at a key point in moving this project forward, I frankly don't wanna risk this thing falling apart. And so I think you guys have earned credibility. If you're telling us that adding this other unit is gonna make this whole already tenuous financing more tenuous than I would have a problem. If there's a way to not tie your hands and have you somehow make some good faith promise that as things move forward in the project, you will make every effort to add another unit It's not ideal, but I'd be much happier with that than something that says you absolutely are required as part of the PUD to add another unit if that's going to threaten your financing and run the risk that we'll be sitting there with this lot for another empty lot for another couple years. It's not worth it. It's not worthy to the community that surrounds the site.

OK, great. Thank you, Rick.

going last it's usually i don't have a lot of new things to ask or say um so what i will is share are some comments um so i want to um make sure it's pointed out that the professionalism and the communication that you've had with the city and with the neighbors has been outstanding and so We can't say that about everyone that engages in products in our city. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate the fact that you've already tried to do something different by putting the affordable units in that we've talked about. I am a former banker, so I have financed these. And so I do understand the challenges and you already have creative financing in place. And so I recognize the headwinds. And as Gary said, I think there is considerable risk that many projects won't go forward. I know there are many financial institutions that simply won't finance real estate projects right now and they're waiting. And we would like to have a project like this in our community. I also think your and Mark's points about broadening our approach to achieving affordable housing is important. New construction, it's really a lot harder to achieve that. We have older properties and I do think that perhaps we could spend more time developing incentives for alternative properties to get them there and possibly through the use of some tax credits, although tax credits in Clayton usually don't go together. um so anyway i am supportive of the project um as currently proposed um and i too would appreciate it if you could do anything else but recognize that what you've already done is um admirable

very good thank you well i just want to say first of all i just want to echo your your comments about the professionalism and the way that you've worked with the community i think a lot of people have said something to that effect tonight and And it really is true that we don't always get that. Often, but not always. And I think you guys have gone above and beyond on that one, really. So thank you for that. Thank you for your patience and being here and answering all these questions and giving us some lessons on development in this world that we're in right now. You know, I do want to point out that I know we're talking about we only have a few units, but those are just the new units. And we talk about this a lot. I love this idea of trying to somehow work with existing buildings to get to some more affordable units. But we also have a lot of older buildings that are affordable. They're in the Morelands. They're in Daman. And so... We, as a group, I know I've, I think we all have seen a presentation that was given to the Equity Commission about affordable housing and how to get there. And one of the main steps is to preserve and protect the affordable housing that you already have. And we are actively working, I know, it's not easy, but we've talked a lot about how we can possibly do better at that. So I think it doesn't all have to come from new. I do appreciate that you've already, you know, on your own accord put in two units. And I think given the, it sounds like it would be somewhat risky, pretty risky for us to mandate that you put in two more. I would really like to go down the road of saying, you know, approving this as it is, but having you tell us or confirm to us that you'll make your best effort to add more, whether it's one or two or whatever more, as you go forward, as you described. So we would, I would support approving it as it is, But asking for your comments that will be on the record saying we will make every effort to do

more as we go forward. So can I ask one? Sorry, do I have order? Just listen to everybody. This is a tough one because looking at the percentages and things like that, one would certainly hope that one of the additional six units could be an affordable housing unit. Is there any additional public benefit that is being added with this? This was a PUD. We went through all our calculations.

So let me, Susan, I see where you're going with that. And I'm going to give you a chance to answer it. But I'd also like to ask Ana to comment on that because I think that's something that you discussed

already. Yeah, go ahead. Sure. So the way our PUD system is set up with points and benefits, it is not weighted based on how many changes you're requesting. So for example, if somebody has a setback of 10 feet And they're requesting a setback of five instead. That's five points. if somebody has a setback of 10 feet and they're requesting zero feet instead, it's still only five points. So in this scenario, we've already weighed the points, the five points for requesting units that are less than 750 square feet in size. We don't have a number of less than 750 square foot in size, just five points to waive that requirement altogether. So the number of points related to that with public benefits have already been established within their original PUD. So there are not any additional public benefit points required based on the amendment that they're asking for tonight.

So if the units had had one that asked for the waiver, the 750, if we waived it, we could have waived it for all 100 and whatever. we wait right

the way that the pud is established right now we waived that requirement so did there was no it didn't apply to a certain number of units the requirement for 750 square feet is just waived under their previous request okay

i think that that gets at your your point i think yeah yeah i would

i'd like to just say a few things i so i you know i I have an issue with a couple of comments that you made, and I don't really want to get into a whole big didactic discussion of this, but I think it's wrong to assume that market forces are going to somehow solve this problem. And I think you basically alluded to that. And I think you, you basically stated that and I think that's really, it's a horrible, horrible thought that that's the, that's the answer or that that somehow would work because it won't work. Market forces never work when it comes to poor people. And I think for us to sit here and say, well, we just have to add more units to Clayton and somehow that's going to solve the affordable units. That's not going to solve anything. When you build more units in Clayton, more rich people come to Clayton. And when that happens, you're once again entering into this whole homeostatic demographic that that provides more and more wealthy people in one area, and then you have all the other people living in other areas. So Clayton doesn't benefit at all by necessarily having more units. In terms of its diversity, in terms of bringing in poor people, uh or less advantaged people and so I think this the whole concept is just is just is just wrong you know and it makes me angry to think that we're still thinking that that's somehow the answer you know um we need affordable housing in Clayton if we're going to do what I thought this board was interested in doing and that is to bring diversity to the city You're not going to bring diversity to the city by continuing to build housing that is going to continue to feed into the high rents that the city has and will continue to have. I agree that we should preserve the low income or affordable housing that we have in the city, only we don't really have any codes or any control over any of that.

Well, we're trying to get there. I

know, but it's not in place. We haven't done anything to do that at this point. And we've turned a lot of those areas that have more affordable housing into condos and conversions and everything else. And it's been happening over the last 10 years. And so I'm just saying, we can't wait for it just to happen naturally. It's just not going to. So I ask you again to make every effort to do it. I don't know how Clayton gets it. I don' t know how very wealthy areas get it, Beverly Hills or whatever. You know, I don't want to live in this community where we are going to continue to reinforce the notion that this is just going to be a wealthy community and that's the end of it, of a lot of white people. And I just don't like it.

I think what we're hearing, correct me if I'm wrong, is that we may need to, as a city, find ways to help motivate this.

Well, and I think that's, I'm sorry, Mayor, I don't mean to interrupt, but that's a lot of what we're talking about throughout the comprehensive plan effort. So I think as part of that planning effort, it may very well come out that we have seen a significant percentage of our population who wants to see more affordable housing. And I think we will be able to take that information for projects that come forward in the future and perhaps provide tax incentives.

Right, right. And I appreciate that. And I agree with that 100%. I was just addressing how market forces are not going to make it. It's not going to solve the problem. And I absolutely

agree. But I also, you know, I kind of echo Gary's point And I do appreciate Kathleen's comments and Barbara's comments, but I just have trouble imposing on this developer an additional requirement, an additional financial requirement at the risk of killing this project. So Gary and I, as he said, sat in many, many meetings and the neighborhood really came around and I would just hate to see this project not go forward. So I really hope as we move forward for new projects that we see more, a larger percentage of units be more affordable. But I, at this point, I'm just, I'm not willing, I do hope that you can add one or two more. I'm not optimistic given the financial climate. I don't think anybody necessarily is, but I, you know, I, for one, I'm just very hopeful for projects as we move forward.

And

I'll add to this too that, and I, It is true. You preserve what you have. And as I listen to the board talk, you know, talk the talk, and I understand why it's most difficult with new construction. Well, then if we're serious about preserving what we have, when it comes before us to tear something down, to build up something more expensive and nicer, or whatever opportunities we have, we talk about tax incentives, whatever it might be, let's just not talk the talk. You know, if a new construction, the finances aren't working, You've got the best intentions, you'll do your best. I get that. But then let's listen to each other and actually be serious when other things come before us where we can make a difference and not just pretend that we care about this.

Very good. And thank you for bringing up the comprehensive plan, because I think that will lead us to other alternatives. Right now we have a community that does not want us to offer property tax incentives, period. And so we have to get our community, if they want some of these things, there are other things besides this, entertainment and whatever else we are kind of shooting for that has hit roadblocks. I mean- we might have to help it out. So we need to get the community to understand that and support that then.

Jason, one question for you, which is, I mean, have you discussed the possibility of another affordable unit with your banks and lenders?

It came up today with closing the ground loan and the appraisals address.

Are they seeing it as a possibility?

Are they asking me if one more is a possibility?

Are they saying to you one more is a deal killer? Are they telling you that? I can't speak to if

we're at the margin of the deal with one. Could

you check with them?

Go on and check if we're at that margin when there might be a 30% change of construction costs along the way? I'm not trying to be facetious. I mean, the reason I want to do best efforts is because there's, as you know, 1,000 variables to building a building that's well over $50 million. And this is one item of $8 billion. I want to provide it. I do. I really do. I mean, that's the first thing I said. And I think I qualified a bunch of the stuff you addressed. And I want to throw one more thing out, just to address what my 15,000 neighbors at Clayton, how they feel about affordability and race. I can't tell you how many projects we've gone to a neighborhood, and they want no part of multifamily. They want no part of 750 square foot units, let alone 500. And I know what they're saying. I don't need to say it here. Its neighborhood said none of that, and this is an expensive neighborhood, and they said none of that. Not a single neighbor was scared as to what this would bring, scary multifamily. So I just want to compliment folks that we stumbled across along the way, and I want to compliment you guys for saying the things you're saying. And yes, we need something more than supply and demand. God, yes. So I don't know if we're at the margin, Ira. I mean... There's nothing more that I want to say, yes, I'll give you another unit. And then he's going to kill me. It's just we're at that point right now that even closing the land is a nightmare. And I'm just trying to avoid variables.

Okay. I think we're about ready for a vote. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There's been somebody hanging around here. Sorry about that. Online. Yeah. Linda Bardoll. Do you have a comment or question for us?

I do. So Linda Bardahl, 202 North Brentwood Boulevard. And I want to echo what everybody said, you know, Gary, Brenda especially, who have been so responsive to us and Jason, Mark, how responsive you've been to us, et cetera. I have a few questions or comments, but my first one is, How much money are we talking about between an affordable housing unit and a non-affordable housing unit? What is the monthly delta?

Yeah, it becomes pretty extreme with the larger unit. So my quick math, just because I kind of just got the heads up today that this would be a topic, was about $850 a month.

Okay, so with a large... It depends on,

like, there's no policy really. So in terms of like what we're benchmarking against and whatnot is not necessarily like federally mandated, but like the math we're doing downtown, for instance, it actually would be pretty similar to this. So it frankly doesn't get as low as you kind of think. It's not like this would be a $700 unit or anything like that. Just know it's not like a low-income housing tax credit unit. It's $1,500.

But just to

clarify. Closer to 1,500, yeah, a month. Yeah. I'll leave it at that.

Do you have other questions, Linda? Well, I think.

Yeah, I think put in context, what's your gross on all of the units in that month?

I can give you a number, and it can be awash with a lot of other numbers, but I will tell you that losing $1,000 on a unit is not just that month. It is the fact that when we go to finance this later or we go to sell it later, that that is going to complicate an already very difficult city to sell projects in. And it's just another variable. And it's even hard to sell stuff in St. Louis when you have tax abatement. on the good side of the ledger. I'm not saying that I'm against any of this, and I hate sounding defensive about a topic that is so important that I believe in. I stump for. But it is material. We have two of them that I have to find in the building. And we will, and I look forward to it, to tack on some more without any more square footage. We just chopped up, we made units smaller. That's all we did. I think it's tough on paper.

Thank you. Linda has still had her hand up, so I just want to make sure. Do you still have any other questions, Linda? Yeah, I

do. So to just clarify, a If the two units are larger units, which I don't think we've established, they're going to be some units. But for a larger unit, it's approximately an $850 a month delta, which is about $10,000 a year. No,

no. And

I hear...

I'm sorry. When I say larger unit, I mean a larger unit relative to a studio in the city. If we were to do a two-bedroom in our building, it would be several thousand dollars. Yeah.

Okay, so let me ask the question again, Jason, because I'm sorry. Maybe I misunderstood. So in the project that we're talking about, the delta between a regular unit and an affordable housing unit is how much?

Well, it depends on what size unit you ask the question about. Okay.

If we're going to get into specific dollar amounts, I...

Well, give me a range. I don't mean to pin you down. I'm just trying to understand. I

mean, do you have our pro forma available? Do we want to go through this? We don't even know how to calculate it. But I...

I feel like you answered this question and you said like 800, 850, maybe a thousand per unit per month. Like that's what we're talking about.

Our smallest one bedroom. I

don't know what else we need on that question. We weren't

really prepared for this topic. I feel

like you've answered the

smallest unit in the building. would be about $850 a month. So those two units, if we do select a one bedroom for those, I don't know what floor, I don't what view and we're not there yet. That was my math. Okay.

And I can accept that. I guess my next question is, because I think a couple of the older persons have indicated. So if this is not approved, even though you've said that you've already have agreement to close on the land, if this change is not approved, are you not moving forward or where does that stand?

I have a tough decision to make. And we own a lot of ground around the country right now and projects are on hold. We've owned Cortex for seven and a half years and it's vacant. So I... You know, we're real estate developers. That's how we pay ourselves. It's how my kids are going to school. And I just got to do the best I can. Not sure what to say to that.

Any other questions, Linda?

So when this was approved back a few months ago, the financing was not in place. Is that right? Not even close. All right. I guess the last thing is a comment, and that is hope is not a strategy.

I agree. All right. Thank you very much.

I have a quick question, and it's just a point of view. You had asked him for a commitment, and Susan started talking, and he never did answer on the record. Yeah. It

was about community benefit.

but but that question we got answered with honor the mayor

the mayor asked you an answer i asked you a question about you making the effort i think in in terms of making the effort to get more affordable units one or two

yeah i thought i thought i mean correct me but i i thought it was hey if if you're not going to add more And we're approving six more units. Is there other community benefit? Am I phrasing that right?

No, but we went beyond that. We're not reevaluating the points here. That's not on the table. We know that when this was approved before, based on size of units and all of that, it was sort of a blanket approval there. So we're not going there. My question to you is, or my statement really at the end of all of these really brilliant comments was I appreciate what our Equity Commission has brought forward. They always are very thoughtful, and they are very passionate about how our city is moving forward. And I want to pick up on a word that Barbara used, which is compromise, which is we're asking for two more units. You've already got two. you're telling me that it's possible if everything falls into place as you move forward on this project, that you could add one more. And so my thought would be to go ahead and approve this as it's been submitted and ask you right here and now to tell us yes or no, you will make every effort to add one more at a minimum as you go forward and see how this project sort of pans out. Absolutely. That's what I think would be a good compromise, and I think everyone's hearts are in the right place, and we all have the best interests of Clayton at heart. And you all, you Equity Commission folks and Barbara, you can see how difficult it is to push this ball forward. We're all very committed to it, but we really need to somehow even explore further more creative ways of making this happen because one or two units, it just isn't a thing. It's helpful but what would be helpful are a lot more and what would also be helpful is making sure that our other affordable units that we have don't fall down and have shiny new things built instead. So those are all things that we can work toward as a board and we are. And with your help, we will get there. And we really appreciate the thoughtful comments that you've made and that you've written to us and so forth. And the keys. So with that, I think we might be ready for a vote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it. But thank you for the reminder. I generally forget to close the public hearing. So I will now close the public hearing, Alderman Berkowitz.

I'd like to introduce bill number 6999, an amendment to the planned unit development for 201-215 North Merrimack Avenue and 8015 Pershing Avenue to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any further discussion? The attorney.

Bill number 6999, first reading, an ordinance approving an amended planned unit development plan governing certain property located at 201-211-215 North Merrimack Avenue and 8015 Pershing Avenue, known as the Merrimack-Pershing Planned Unit Development, repealing conflicting ordinances and other actions related thereto.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Alderman Berkowitz.

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 6999 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, let the minutes reflect the board has given unanimous consent.

um i'd like to introduce bill number six nine nine nine an amendment to the planned unit development for 201-215 north merrimack avenue and 8015 pershing avenue to be read for the second time by title only

second any discussion all right mr city attorney

Bill number 6999, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving an amended planned unit development plan governing a certain property located at 201-211-215 North Merrimack Avenue and 8015 Pershing Avenue, known as the Merrimack-Pershing Planned Unit Development, repealing conflicting ordinances and other actions related thereto.

Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel aye Alderman Gary Feder aye Alderman Rick Hummell aye Mayor Harris aye thank you

Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel aye Alderman Fader aye Alderman Hummel aye Mayor Harris aye thank you

okay thank you very much guys for all of your commentary thank you very much equity commission members and Kathleen and Barbara okay all right moving on to the city manager report

Yes, the first item this evening is a contract with Vernon Jones Construction for CBD Phase 1 resurfacing. The Public Works Department is requesting approval of construction contract for the federally funded Central Business District or CBD Phase 1 resurfacing project with Vernon Jones Construction. The project includes the mill and asphalt overlay on Bonham Avenue from Brentwood Boulevard to North Hanley Road and on Merrimack Avenue from Maryland Avenue to Forest Park Parkway. replacement of curb ramps to come into ADA compliance, updates to select pedestrian signals for ADA compliance, brick paver crosswalks and pavement markings and signage. Two bids were opened on October 26 2023 and burn and Jones construction submitted the lowest responsive responsible base bid plus add alternate a. And the amount of 1,559,020 dollars and 83 cents at alternate a includes the removal and replacement of traffic signal detector loops. And pavement which are maintained by St Louis county this ad alternate was included to establish the cost to present to St Louis county. with the intent that they would direct pay or reimburse the city for this expense. In addition to the contract amount, staff requests authorization to approve change orders in an amount not to exceed $156,000 to be used to cover expenditures to correct unknown site issues that become apparent during the project. The total anticipated cost for the project is expected to be up to $135,000 $135,000 higher than what was projected when the budget was prepared. However, the Capital Improvement Fund has adequate funds for this project and we expect there may be savings in other projects to offset this increase. The city is eligible to receive federal reimbursement of $965,535 for this project. Staff recommends approval of the ordinance authorizing a contract with Vernon Jones Construction and the amount of $1,559,020.83 plus a contingency of $156,000 totaling $1,715,020. 83 cents for the CBD phase one resurfacing project. Okay, thank you. Any discussion? I'll go in order of seniority. I have no comments. Okay. Can I ask her?

Maybe, David, it says we're eligible to receive. Does that mean we will receive it? Or has the grant not come in yet?

Yes, we've been approved for the grant. It's just we have to submit reimbursement requests as the project progresses. So if for some reason the project would come in under crazy under budget for any reason, which we don't foresee, you can't exceed it and you can go lower depending on the percentage match of the project, essentially. Okay.

And does Vernon Jones, do they usually do group paving projects? Is that something they do? Because didn't they build Atzick Field? I mean, it just seems like a strange. They've

got a couple different arms of their company. But yes, the most recent projects they did in town was CloudRack Y-Down in 2014 and Davis Place 19, maybe. But those are microsurfacing projects, but they do paving as well.

Yep. So, Matt, this will take out almost the last or possibly the last brick print crosswalk?

Phase two of the project, which will immediately follow this for the most part, will do that. This is the first one. These two projects combined will also, over the last eight to nine years, will be the culmination of addressing the curb ramps identified in the ADA transition plan. So a total of 750 curb ramps will have been approved over that time period.

All right. Anything else? So the

brick print, was that the not true brick crosswalk? Okay. So I didn't remember when we last talked about this, we talked about the cost of putting in the brick crosswalks that we have with real brick and that's something that's not reimbursed.

Correct. They call it a non-participatory item and it's not reimbursable or essentially matchable on the project.

Right. So when I was just trying to figure out, I was trying to remember what that was and looking at the list of things there was something for the The brick strips at $130,000 and then the brick paver crosswalks at $106,000. So those are the two non-reimbursable. So roughly $236,000. It's actually

$264,000.

And that's our choice. And that's because we want the brick crosswalks in the downtown area.

And on this project, as opposed to Maryland Avenue when we last discussed it, about half the paver crosswalks on this project are already brick pavers and won't be disturbed or replaced. It would be replacing the asphalt stamped brick

print. Does that ADA require those?

No. Thanks. Okay, thank you. All right, any other comments or questions? Oh, yes.

Yeah, Matt, it just occurred to me, what is a traffic signal detection loop? I'm guessing that this must be at both Brentwood and Hanley. Is that where these exist? Or just in short, what is

that? You might see it as you approach county intersections. It's lines in the pavement, most noticeable ones. They've been crack sealed maybe or recently installed. It looks like a loop around the vehicle. It's a magnetic detection loop. It senses the vehicle approaching the traffic signal. The St. Louis County utilizes them for detection at the intersections so that they know when a vehicle is there. we utilize cameras and radar sensors in the pavement so we don't have those on our projects but anytime you mill there's no real way to save them with the pavement they're embedded into the pavement all right thank you

are those two um to be used to have the light change when a vehicle approaches right these are the ones with those

We haven't been using those for quite some times. It's just

that we're

intersecting a county route there as we come up onto Hanley. So the county controls the full intersection and signals along any other route.

These are the ones that sometimes if you were on a bicycle and never sensed you were there and the light never changed. Yes. But I think you took care of that.

Okay. Any other comments or questions? All right. Alderman Berkowitz.

Let's introduce Bill number 7000, approving a contract with Byrne and Jones Construction for the Central Business District Phase 1 Resurfacing Project to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7000. An ordinance approving a contract With Byrne and Jonas Construction Incorporated Doing business as Byrne and Johns Construction For the CBD Phase 1 Resurfasing Contract STP-5438, parents 613. Who's that?

I skipped ahead. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Alderman Berkowitz.

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7000 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in opposed but the ministry the board unanimous consent

um i'd like to bill number 7 000 approving a contract with burns and jones construction for the cbd phase one resurfacing project to be read for the second time by title only

okay any discussion hey mr city attorney

bill number seven thousand second reading and consideration for adoption An ordinance approving contract with Vernon Jones Construction Incorporated doing business as Vernon Jones Construction for the CBD phase one resurfacing contract, STP 5438 parents, 613 closed parents.

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Patel. Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder.

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Patel. Aye. Aldeman Fader.

Aye.

Aldemann Rick Hummell.

Aldemann Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you. Okay.

Last but not least, the CEC recommendation for signage downtown.

Yes. On October 12, 2023, the Clayton Community Equity Commission unanimously approved transmittal of a recommendation to the Board of Aldermen in support of bilingual signage if or when signage is replaced or updated in the future. Background information related to the recommendation was included in the packet. Staff recommends that the Board of Alderman consider the CEC recommendation.

OK. Chris, I know that you're here representing this measure. Would you like to address the board? OK.

I think most of you are aware of this and with the advice of David, we understand that we're not going to spend money to replace signs, but this isn't as when and as signs are changed to consider it. And a suggestion might be that we think about especially the welcome to Clayton signs. would be a nice place to start because we could welcome people in more than one language. Recognizing that, by the way, people who use the signage, it's not the citizens of Clayton who need wayfinding, it's visitors. And I am a chronic walker and I'm always walking downtown. And so anecdotally, at least a couple of times a week, it seems I get stopped with somebody asking me for directions around Clayton. So people really do need and use those signs and they all have their phones, but they still have it so our request is just to put that in that lens on it when we're looking as and when we change signage thank you

chris

do you have questions for chris okay

Chris Win How would we determine? I mean, believe me, I'm in favor of it. I just want to know how do we know which languages we end up determining, which ones we put on a sign? Obviously, there has to be a limit.

chris i How would we determine? I mean, believe me, I'm in favor of it. I just want to know how do we know which languages we end up determining, which ones we put on a sign? Obviously, there has to be a limit.

Right, exactly. How do we

determine that?

So the thought would be that we would, of course, include Spanish because it's the most often spoken second language. And given our... population our asian population i don't know if it'd be mandarin or another one we might get input then from mosaic or one of the other um prop non-profits in the city to give us advice on that but clearly spanish should be one of those languages

Spanish and Chinese. Are there two different dialects? Yeah, there's

two dialects in Chinese, so I don't know which one offhand. But we know that we over-index in Clayton in Asian population. And I know from living in the Moorlands for so long in the multifamily that there were a lot of grandparents who were living with families and were not English speakers. Right,

but I'm reminding you of your point, which is it's not really for people living in Clayton.

Well, it could be for people who are

outside of Clayton.

It could be for those grandparents or people who are non-English speakers in Clayton.

The first generation, perhaps. Yeah,

because there's a lot of multi-generational family living. I see people, grandparents walking the babies. I'm sure you see it too. You're a walker. Thank

you. Other questions? I had one question for you. In picking up what was said in here, as we talked today, we were talking about wayfinding. But also, I think that in what was written and submitted, it's also that idea of the welcome of the community. And so when you mentioned, for example, the Welcome to Clayton signs, which is a much more, it's an easier undertaking than all of our signs, that it's not necessarily that someone knows, oh, I'm now in Clayton, they will know that. But it's also saying this is Clayton. And yes, we realize that we have a lot of different people who we welcome into our community.

Totally. And thank you for emphasizing that, because it is one of the things we want to do is to be more welcoming. You know, as I'm fond of saying in many of our meetings, if we want to be more welcoming, I have an idea, let's be more welcoming. So, you know, when people stop and ask me for directions, I stop, I chat with them, I give them directions. Admittedly, I'm retired. But so anyway, I think those places are, it's what it says about who we are. Thank you for bringing that up.

And I would say too, I actually spoke to, I was talking to our new judge, Judge Strom, and he actually mentioned too that he finds himself often, I don't know if it's necessarily when he's just in the building or people that come before him often, you know, English is not their primary language. So thinking about how we can be more accommodating for people who are, you know, visiting our community.

For sure, because 90% of the traffic tickets are issued to non-residents of Clayton who can never find where to go to pay. I don't

know, thinking about starting at a place, I don't know where we see the most people who are non-residents and thinking about how it could be more bi or trilingual. down the line court in

our court might be an interesting I mean thing to look into just because it's very important there that people understand

yeah it's just the signage came up at the coffee that Gary and I were at a few weeks ago and Judge Strom was there and he said actually I have a lot of people that come before me who are not English is not their first language so

questions

thanks for being so welcoming thank you

Go ahead. I was just going to say, I do think this concept needs to be thought about some more. We want to be welcoming. I think signage is one way to do it. This is probably why I was never in marketing, but it does seem to me like working with the Chamber of Commerce and developing some kind of program where you put stickers on your menus or on things that say welcome to Clayton. And it could be certainly in two languages, but there's a lot we can involve the whole community in trying to be part of this welcoming effort. and frankly could do it in a way that would be much more economical which is part of our goal we don't want to spend 500 000 on new signs but i think there's a way to be welcoming and deal with signage get our community involved that we somehow want to get that welcome word out there and I think that's the way to do it. And I think the Chamber, or at least it requires more thought, whether it's two new signs that go up and who knows exactly where in Clayton those would be that say welcome to Clayton. It's a much more direct way, I think, to send that welcoming message and still do it in a way that frankly will be within our budget, which I think we do have to consider.

I just want to be clear. I think the recommendation at this point is that we do what we can to add other common languages that might be spoken by folks in our region to signs as the signs need to be replaced. It's repeatedly

stated in our meetings when we discuss this.

It's not an addition to the budget.

It is not. We've talked about this over and over in our Equity Commission meetings, so... Yeah, that's clearly stated.

Thank you. I do want to point out, though, that it is interesting. We're spending $260,000 to have bricks in our crosswalks. And you always tell a community's value by its budget. So yes, as we look at replacing them or doing it on our welcome signs, our budget reflects what we truly value.

Right. And we did have a big discussion about those walkways way back when. And I think it was me who said, why don't we just do asphalt? Yes, come on forward. Oh, I'm sorry, Rick. We'll get to you. I'm sorry about that.

Sorry, Tom Lucas from 8010 Pershing. A couple of thoughts. about signage. You know, I think a couple of signs I think wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe they should be much more expensive than electric and we could put different languages on them, you know. But I do worry about signage if we start to do bilingual signage, you know, for our traffic signs or other things. First of all, just the size of the signs and we're taking up more real estate. But more than that, when I talk to people around, and I've talked to typically more young people typically left leaning. And I get a lot of smiles, and then I talk to them, and they're thinking that we may be doing, instead of trying to let people understand our virtue, that we may be virtue signaling and maybe looking foolish.

Yeah.

So we do need to put that in the mix that we're not just putting up a sign and that's all. And I have some several ideas that I think might be good. They are a lot of money. You know, it's like if I didn't speak English and I got stopped by the police in Clayton, I think it would be great if somebody could show up within 15 minutes and interpret for me. Yeah. Well, that's why they have those apps

on the

phone. And just sort of what you were talking about with the we want real bricks in the crosswalks, but we're really looking for ways to do low-income housing. It's sort of like we're – and I'll say myself, I think many – almost everybody – people will probably get offended by this, but there's a part of me certainly – That is an elitist. And I think there's almost everybody lives in Clayton. There's a part of elitism and people that don't think they are probably either lying or in denial. And, you know, we need to look at those issues. Why are we living? I have no need to live in Clayton. You know, it's like. I moved from South County because I thought it was cool 20 years ago, you know, whatever. But again, I think we need to look at the signage before we would go too much more that we wouldn't be looking like, oh yeah, these people in Clayton, now they're saying they're doing all this. But if you come from North, you're looking from Olive, it's Mandarin. I think it's Mandarin. It could be another Chinese language that there's signage all over the restaurants. So those... know but to me it would be to help people that are here that can't speak english and i think like a translator or something like that but again that's a lot of money our sensitivity training for all of our employees that would probably be even more but lots of

mark you guys ready just take spanish Okay. I just want to throw out one thing. Rick, go ahead.

The forgotten speaker here. I'm waiting my turn.

No

problem. So I think the idea of making any kind of a welcome-oriented sign a priority and implementing it is a good idea and something that we should try to initiate sooner rather than simply waiting. I also think that Gary's idea about embracing the chamber is a good idea in terms of why other people come here, especially if there's a business reason. But the other big player that people come to Clayton to see is the county. And so I have to believe that the county has some kind of a, if they don't have a program, perhaps they have an advocate or something that would be supportive of this in terms of accessing county government services. So maybe there's a collaboration in terms of wayfinding or other things in our community that both the city and the county would benefit from. So I'd like us to explore that.

I think that's a great idea because, you know, a lot of the things that people come into our community for are county functions. And so I think that's a plus to get them involved. Okay, so I just want to make one little tiny comment, which is eventually if we want to add something to our signage, we could simply add a Q square that people could point their phone at and get any language or other information that they would need. So that seems sort of inexpensive to me to do. So just saying. So I think...

Should we price that and see if we can get that going sooner than later? I mean, that sounds like an easy thing to do.

We could certainly price it. I don't know if it suits what you were after, but it doesn't say welcome or whatever necessarily, but it would provide the information that people... I think almost everyone has a phone these days, it seems to me. Even people on our street, living on our street, have phones. It's amazing.

I think, as Rick said, if we prioritize the welcome signs, which is something that isn't in our reach to do, maybe it's my age, but if I'm driving trying to find somebody and I take my phone and have to read it and then do this.

So I assume these were for pedestrians.

Yeah.

is that an incorrect

assumption

they're not they're all walking yeah but your recommendation are you making a recommendation for pedestrian just in general so the street signs downtown clayton

Yes, and the pedestrian wayfinding was a big part of the

wayfinding and

stuff.

It's not like changing our stop signs or our no parking signs like those are regulated like we follow standards for those it's wayfinding.

So I think what would make sense is, I think the recommendation here is that we consider this, and I think we can just go on ongoing consider it and maybe we put this at some point with our communications group to take a look at because that seems like the relevant staff to kind of about this is that correct so we can pass this to them to think about and know it it may not be you know next week but in in relatively uh time timely order we could have some thoughts from them to to uh consider does that make sense to everyone so

what are we asking them

to

consider because

again it seems how different what what kind of um multilingual um communication signage would would make sense and what would they recommend. Would they recommend they could reach out to the county, they can reach out to the Chamber, they can kind of put together some more comprehensive thoughts about what they would recommend doing? That's my thought. I don't think we're going to solve it right here tonight. So the recommendation is to consider it. I think we are considering it. Do we need to vote on it? It looks like we do, but what are we really voting on?

to receive it

okay we have received it and we will consider it duly and we'll try to get some thoughts from our our staff on it okay okay good thank you for the recommendation yeah did you watch donnybrook when it was discussed okay But it was to Tom's point about sort of a frivolous, you know, idea.

And the Equity Commission has done a lot of substantive, pushed a lot of substantive change for our city. So thank you.

Okay, you all. I think then we'd finish with that topic and we can move on. Thank you very much, Chris, for not just this, but for everything you are doing for the city, which is so much. Appreciate it. We have the consent agenda next.

Yes, just one item on there, which is approval of minutes from November 14th and November 17th.

Anybody have any changes to those? Okay.

Alderman Berkowitz. Second. Alderman Berkewitz. Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Patel. Aye. Aldemann Gary Feder.

Alderman Berkowitz. Second. Alderman Berkewitz. Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Patel. Aye. Aldemann Fader.

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell.

Aldeman Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you.

Okay, if you'd like, we can do a quick go around. I know it's getting late, but shall we? Ira, you got anything? Did you do anything at all recently? I've done nothing. I was kidding. No. I've done

absolutely nothing.

Nothing to report? I

can't remember anything.

That's okay. It's been a long, Bridget.

I can't remember if the steering committee was, I think, I don't know when our last. Oh, that was a discussion. Yeah, we did have a steering committee meeting, which was great. We talked about some surveys, priorities, and that was good. I think we have another one in a couple weeks. And then we had a really long plan question eating last week it was like three and a half hours long as kind of painful. It was primarily on two items 600 West polo. which is going to be a really, really big house in Polo, right at the corner of Middle Polo and West Polo. So that was approved. And then Enterprise is not going away. They're just getting new signage in case anybody was wondering why the Enterprise signage had come down. They're just calling themselves something different now. Enterprise Mobility. Yes, Enterprise Mobility. And then the last thing is we talked about the new, which we will talk about the new PUD in a couple weeks at 111 and 121 South Merrimack. So it was really a very attractive building. It was a pretty impressive presentation. And I think one of the neatest things is they're going to have an art, like sky art at the top. that you can kind of see from the distance. So I don't know. I'll let you all kind of look at it when you get your packets. But if you have any questions about what the Planning Commission talked about at the meeting related to it, please let me know.

Luckily, I just found the notes. We had a Sustainability Advisory Committee. This is everyone who's leaving for Thanksgiving break. So I pushed it to the other side of my brain. But here's some notes. It was a well-attended meeting. The representative from the Clayton School District came talking about the sustainability efforts that they are making. We have an intern from WashU who is still working on a citizen web page that hopefully will be up and going soon. Talked a little bit about benchmarking performance and how we're putting it together into regulations. touched on the livable community master plan um what else and don't schedule meetings as day before vacation let's see here matt becky i'll leave the rest to you before i got thank you

I was running my Thanksgiving errands, so I was fully listening and I talked, but I did not take notes at the sustainability meeting. So I think the only thing I want to say is I think, you know, I'm really interested to see what kind of information we get from the comprehensive planning process about what our community thinks about, you know, what we call affordable housing or diversity in housing stock and all these things. And whether there's an appetite to actually support it with policy that requires funding or frankly, might disincentivize certain types of development or other things, right? Like, like it's just real. Um, and thinking about like what that means and, um, you know, like how we sit in the region and what our opportunities are. So I was interested in a couple of things that came up today in terms of the idea of like older properties. I don't think I had like thought of really what that means before to think about that in this way, as well as the idea of like what it looks like to reuse potentially or reimagine um commercial buildings which as their leases expire might be found to be incredibly vacant and unsustainable financially as commercial buildings and so you know thinking about that kind of stuff and i don't know what you know we can do now but i'm hopeful that there'll be some ideas

the meat of many further discussions maybe at the retreat even or yeah great thanks alderman Gary Feder

the meat of many further discussions maybe at the retreat even or yeah great thanks alderman fader

um i think we didn't i don't think we mentioned last time because i think it was the following day rick and i attended the ccf meeting um i don't know there was a lot that came out of that although i think ccf's looking forward to their joint meeting with the board which is coming up relatively soon um I attended the Turkey Trot, which was a great event. My only running was running home as the race started. But it's a great event. And I think the mayor and I were sharing, it's always when you see an event like that, it always makes you wonder why can't we do things that are like that? Because it's such a unique thing to have so many different people from all over Clayton and so many different ages. It's really one of those things that really brings people together. So it really, that was a neat event. And then the Equity Commission's Housing Subcommittee met yesterday via Zoom, and apropos of tonight's discussion, we did talk about the fact that the Board had raised questions about the PUD ordinance and changes to it, and that we'd had at our retreat discussions about potential changes, and that... We're looking at the ordinance again and seeing how it can be improved. The committee was most interested in how we deal with affordable housing and just gave a little preview again of this project on Merrimack that these six units did generate 12 points, which is I think more than any project has ever given to any one category, I suspect. And so at least I think, at least I expressed some optimism that the PUD is definitely rewarding those who provide affordable housing. But I think for now, the committee and the CEC is waiting to see what the board does next in terms of potential revisions to the PUD. And once it becomes a subject for a Friday session or whatever it is, I'm sure the Commission would like to maybe get a little preview and see what they think we ought to be doing with particular emphasis on affordable housing.

Well, if you can keep us reminded of that so that we don't forget to do the preview, that would be great. Yes, Rick?

It occurs to me, just as Gary was saying that, in context of our discussion with the uh, developer tonight that this particular project on, um, Merrimack and Bonham, um, has no, or at least I don't think it does has a structured parking. They're using our structured parking garage, which means that their overall costs, um, are significantly less. So it is good that they are, their number of units are higher because their cost structure consequently is different too.

Almost 300 units.

Yeah. So, um, anyway, just a, um, a sign of consistency. I just wanted to amplify on the CCF meeting that it let us know that for those of you that may have been aware that, you know, Centene had made a contribution that if the Commons project didn't go forward, it could revert back to Centene and they've granted an extension on that.

Let's slow down. No, we have not finalized that.

Well, I thought that's how Alex

announced it. No, we have not finalized it. We have run that up the proverbial flagpole and it looks very favorable, but it is not official in any way. So that's still just the ball is just in their court to just get back to me about sitting down and confirming that and getting sort of some uh amendments to the contract kind of underway because it's a three-party contract the city centene and ccf will have to sign it so it's it's a process for sure yeah

got it um and then uh there is a transition in the presidency so cordell whitlock will be going off and jennifer volk will be coming on and they'll probably come and talk to us about the public art on Whiteown. And then the fountain over at Chapman Plaza, you notice that the water gets turned off, but the lights get turned on. And so that's just all part of that.

Are they always going to be red?

It's supposed to be creative art is all that I know kinetic art is what they call

it, and I don't know I just, you know, anyway,

a question for

Tony.

Yeah. And then, Bridget you sold yourself short we had a very long CRS WC meeting as well recently. I don't know, but it was one of the longest meetings I've ever attended and it had to do with a communication audit and a communication plan. And it probably means a lot for our communication staff as well with the overall goal of trying to grow membership. And one of the things that was interesting from both of those meetings is the desire and need to improve communication via social media channels and the lack of staff to do that. And the desire to have the city somehow solve that problem through some shared services. So I don't know where we place that in the overall priority of things, but it seems to be coming from several places.

Well, we can talk to the school district about how they will share in it as well. Yeah. okay i i don't have a lot i want to report that uh the my act group has participated in the comprehensive plan in a discussion led by the consultant and anna um i think it was a really good discussion that they really participated and i think i was trying to remember any of their ideas do you remember any just anecdotally They had some doozies. They had some good ones,

though. Yeah, they talked a lot about having activities to do other than eating, which we hear from all age groups, but they talked about still liking to go to clothing shops, so that was interesting. We talked to them a lot about ideas of how to engage the rest of the high school, so they gave us some feedback on what a more successful survey geared towards students might be and how to get that out to students at the high school um and other high school age community members um to get responses back i do have the the one question you asked them at the end i'm going to forward you all their answers

okay great what did i ask them oh there was one thing in clayton you want there's one thing i think you want what would it be yeah i'll be interested to see what they said yeah yeah okay i'll report on that next time after i read all their answers um and then uh leadership clayton kicked off and and like every year i went and met with them at lunch and judy goodman had already toured all of clayton with them on a bus and given them the whole history spiel and all that something she does of the goodness of her heart every single year um it's a really good group from a wide variety of companies a lot in clayton a lot of banks but it was great um we are uh myself and other pat kelly and the chief and others are are really pushing you know ahead trying to learn more and more about what can be done with the unhoused and so um you know where i i met with someone pat kelly and i met with someone yesterday morning i'm attending a meeting on thursday morning that is going to go over what's going on in the city of st louis So I got myself invited to that. And so I think we're learning a lot and the goal is to learn enough to have something substantive. I mean, the goal is to learn enough to actually make an impact, but also to have something substantive to report to the community who've been asking us for that. So if you're asked, we're working on it very hard and it's very complicated. Did you see the article in the New Jeffery Yorg Times

okay great what did i ask them oh there was one thing in clayton you want there's one thing i think you want what would it be yeah i'll be interested to see what they said yeah yeah okay i'll report on that next time after i read all their answers um and then uh leadership clayton kicked off and and like every year i went and met with them at lunch and judy goodman had already toured all of clayton with them on a bus and given them the whole history spiel and all that something she does of the goodness of her heart every single year um it's a really good group from a wide variety of companies a lot in clayton a lot of banks but it was great um we are uh myself and other pat kelly and the chief and others are are really pushing you know ahead trying to learn more and more about what can be done with the unhoused and so um you know where i i met with someone pat kelly and i met with someone yesterday morning i'm attending a meeting on thursday morning that is going to go over what's going on in the city of st louis So I got myself invited to that. And so I think we're learning a lot and the goal is to learn enough to have something substantive. I mean, the goal is to learn enough to actually make an impact, but also to have something substantive to report to the community who've been asking us for that. So if you're asked, we're working on it very hard and it's very complicated. Did you see the article in the New York Times

about how Houston, I believe it was Houston, has been really successful compared to like Dallas or something. Dallas has been unsuccessful. This is

the consultant that the city is working with, Mandy Sempleton or whatever her name is. And so I'll be meeting her on Thursday and I'll hear what she has to say about what she would recommend for the city. And my goal there is to encourage her to think more broadly than just city proper and i think that'll i think that'll be met with some you know welcome um and then um i was just going to mention the turkey trout too it was so great it was so great to see all the people come out and really it's it's it's not just clayton people but it's a girl i don't know how many people would you say

what

200 more than that i'm bad at estimating this so yeah i mean it would be great if we could think of more things to do that that have that kind of turnout that are

open streets

zero We've talked about them a million times. You know, it's community driven is the thing. It's not driven by the city. And so that's

something. Well,

you're talking

about what we can do that looks somewhat similar. The closest example I have is open streets. I'm open to other ideas. I'm not saying it's the only idea. I'm just saying. All

right. With that, I think we can be adjourned if we want to have a motion. Oh, we have a closed session. I forgot about that. All right. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead, Rick. I'm sorry.

Thank you. I move that the Board of Aldermen hold a closed meeting with a closed vote and record as authorized by Section 610.021, Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri relating to legal issues, real estate, and or personnel negotiation of a contract pursuant to Section 610.01, Section 12. and or proprietary information pursuant to Section 610.021, Section 15, and information related to public safety and security measures pursuant to section 610.0 21 parts 18 and 19.

Thank you very much. Night guys.