12.8.21 Tax Increment Finance Board

pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible um and uh roll call this is going to be a vote uh we're not going into executive sessions

no no no reason

linda pereira here the minutes of the july 27th 2021 minutes their motion to motion second motion to approve there's a second all in favor the tax increment finance review and approval of a local tif only for residences at north and llc or its nominee mr fiola yes you want to talk about that one absolutely thank you uh good morning and uh thank you for convening this meeting um so

excuse me what you have before you is a request from a request from dwight silva who is uh representing um it's the the the title of his corporations a little bit misleading and it's probably going to be changed the title of the corporation is the residents at north river llc because if you recall when mr silva actually purchased this property years ago he was going to put residential down there there was a mill

that was currently there and that mill was subsequently knocked down if you can share this little thing here because i didn't have time i couldn't figure out google earth to make caucus but that'll show you where the proposed location is in red it's the sagamore landing project area that mill is no longer there it's been knocked down it's been cleared so what mr mr um silver is proposing is that he wants to

construct about 287 000 square feet of 297 000 square feet of a professional office space um commercial space maybe some light manufacturing space but essentially just create 297 000 square feet of um of space um spread across four different buildings that will be located on site from my perspective that's very welcome news thank you uh counselor uh that's very welcome news because right now the

city of florida for one thing we're we're challenged with right now is space availability in terms of uh being able to accommodate growth of new companies coming in local companies expansion expanding there's really not a lot of space on the market that's suitable for these types of tenancies that are looking to either move or expand to the city so putting up 297 000 square feet of space i think is

welcome news because that space will will quickly fill up and it's also going to create jobs right and that's at the end of the day that's what it's all about uh it's in that area just perspective it's on eighth street um it's sort of just south of where um what's the marijuana place down there uh the cutest sunny side and just south of the star facility and it's across across from the uh the old train yeah

the trina factory so it's it's in a good location off the highway so um he's seeking a five-year tiff uh which is you know in keeping with other tips we've given for this type of expansion pro or this type of project itself um what we have here before you is the draft of valuation um that would be represented over a five-year tip obviously it's draft and you know what i say at every tip board

is this is just a placeholder because the actual assessment of the property and the valuation the property all takes place once the property is actually uh constructed in addition to that the tax rate also probably changes over the course of five years so we don't know what the tax rate is going to be at the time when the property is uh issued a certificate for occupancy and that becomes part of the tax roll as

part of new growth so if the project was to be constructed today and if uh there was an assessment of about 4.5 million on the property itself and if the tax rate stayed at 2703 for the commercial tax rate for the next five years you can see that um you know who would be exempting 316 000 251 and he'd also uh be paying 316 to uh 251 over that five year period

uh well like i said this is subject to change based upon the valuations the total private investment that mr silver is making down there is um 19 million dollars between the purchase of the property the demolition of the mill and the construction of 297 000 square feet which you know based upon 297 000 square feet that's probably an accurate inaccurate figure for the overall investment there so

that's pretty much in a nutshell we wanted to get ahead of this before he begins construction in the in the spring this is an essential component to him moving forward i think it's a good use of the proposed land down there i think it's going to result in uh in certainly in jobs we're going to hold them accountable for a minimum of 25 jobs that's probably going to greatly exceed that in speaking with the state

uh earlier this week because it's a local tiff only and because he's not directly creating the jobs technically he doesn't have to create any jobs and it would still be approvable by the state but we're going to hold them to job accountability here because you know i just think that's the better way to go in terms of having you know some sort of skin in the game from his perspective

of tiffs in the past yes and i do like this line that uh if they are not in compliance with the amount of positions that they uh say they're gonna uh have filled yup then it becomes uh replicable correct um with that said how often do they plan on reporting so the the the tip agreement will have them reporting quarterly okay yep and that'll be to you no actually it's going to so

it's going to be we met earlier this year i think it might have been as a result of some of the the questions you had asked counselor but now there's a new process in place where the um city assessor is going to be responsible for sending out the notices for uh the you know reminding people that they need to submit the quarterly reports and then the city assessor will be meeting with

the city administrator at some point in time to review those reports to make sure they're in compliance and if they're not in compliance then the city sends out that that stuff i'll sort of be on a periphery but because i'm not a city agency they can't send it directly to me they got to send it to the city and the city's got to have direct oversight of it okay i'm okay with that okay okay

anybody else i have a question yes so i i read in the report there's going to be four buildings yes total in 19 million yep uh so this tif that we see in front of us is that in on the the four buildings the four buildings yeah that's for the 297 000 square feet so the i've been i've been going back and forth on this as to how to properly reflect this

i think he's going to construct all four visits all four buildings at once and then get certificates certificates of occupancy for all four buildings the tiff actually starts once the certificate of occupancy is is given right so if for instance he constructs building one and two and then they get their certificates and occupancy in in uh say uh september of 2022 that's when the clock would five-year

clock would begin on those if two other buildings get theirs in november that's when the five-year clock would start on those absolutely that makes sense yeah it makes sense it's just a little bit different because there's four buildings as opposed to one which we normally do or an expansion of one so yeah and i just i have to agree a lot of our mill spaces has been turned into housing and we don't have

a lot of space for business opportunities because the industrial park is being parked it's built up the little smaller industrial park down near jefferson street at the end of jefferson street that's pretty much all occupied because i've been down there um so i think mr silva's idea of doing this is a good one especially with the train coming in you might have people that want to have

secondary offices or primary offices here um so i think that's great he's going to build it because right right now what people are looking for um if we had if we had 500 000 square feet of space today it'd be occupied because that's what the demand is for now but the demand is such that people want to have one level they want to have concrete floors they want to have their loading docks on that first level

and they'd like to have 24 foot high ceilings if not higher that seems to be the new model right now everybody wants high ceilings concrete floors probably put a drain in the flaws just to be on the safe side in case with the depending on itself you can use that type of space for um for light manufacturing you can use that space for professional space you just put in a fake ceiling drop the ceiling height down

and then you can do the build out so that's what these buildings are going to represent and he's going in my mind he's going to be extremely successful once he brings these things online and as you're saying we need to be able to meet this demand that's out there to meet the you know to create the jobs yeah because that's what i hear is there a motion question he's not already building this no we

cleared the site and all the uh it looks like a lot of a lot of materials around you yeah a lot of materials you're on site already i thought he was already going now yeah he's just letting it sit for the winter yeah okay yeah at least the last two up until about two three weeks ago last time i went by there was yeah i went by and it was

loaded with stuff i said we just stuff he's yeah he's ready to go but he hasn't started all right a lot of people that are building are kind of holding off till the price of this lumber comes down yeah he's doing uh he's doing tilt-up buildings so he's got everything pretty much ready to go yeah okay yeah thanks but is there a motion to adopt this to accept this tip there's a motion is there a second

all in favor and the next one is a review for approval of a transfer of millstone uh medical outsourcing tax increment financing to arlington capital the partners or the nominee or affiliates i think that yep so in your passion in your packet probably in the back there somewhere in the package you'll see letters from millstone medical to the mayor requesting the transfer of the tiff

because all our tips the way we sit the way we have our tips worded is that you just can't arbitrarily transfer the benefits of that tiff right to another company without tiff bought approval and city council approval and the reason that we've done that is we want to make sure whoever the transferee is is that they're going to be still doing and still adhering to the provisions of the existing tif in terms of private

investment and job creation and job retention that way we got some sort of oversight of this or otherwise we'd have to revoke the tif uh in this particular instance as as noted in the communication uh this was a millstone medical which we we've we've grown that company when they first came in now geez i'm trying to think how long ago they came in probably sometime in the early 90s and they had 10 jobs

and now they got you know well in excess of 200 jobs they they bought and they expanded up at the commerce park at the end of the commerce park where the cul-de-sac is uh they put up a building there and they added a second building um and they really forged out a niche in the packaging of sterile medical products for office medical offices and hospitals and surgeons throughout the country so

they've been a very very good company for the city of fall river and employ a lot of people they have now sold the project um or coming to an agreement for the sale with arlington capital partners which is a bigger company than they are and they want to transfer the benefits of the tiff onto arlington i've sat down with matt thomas um he's reviewed everything as part of the transfer as a matter of fact matt is

put together this will come before the council next week in the form of resolutions and as well as a revised tip agreement which now will be sent to me later on today um but this is essentially the resolution that will be coming forward as

so you just sent me this early late last night so so i think this is a pretty uh standard uh transfer i don't foresee anything being problematic in here they far exceeded their job creation they far exceeded their investment in the properties the fact that this company is purchasing the business i don't think is a bad thing for the city because it actually adds more capital and the ability to grow the business

than millstone currently had so it's not uncommon that you have a small little company start off with 10 to 15 people grow it to 300 400 people and then sell it that's the exit strategy right so if you get into that position that's a good thing for those people that have done that and it's also in nine out of 10 times it's good for the company because they're staying here as opposed to relocating the jobs the

fact that they're buying the real estate here as well as the business indicates to me that they're going to be here for the long term as opposed to transferring these jobs elsewhere and the tip that they get that is being transferred is the portion of the tiff remaining that's correct it's not the fault it's not you know extending it enough for five years yeah no it's uh is there any discussion

on this do we have a guarantee that they're going to stay ken i mean how does that work i know they're buying the real estate so if they if for instance again in accordance with the tiff language themselves if they fail to stay within the prescribed um time period for the tiff and they move then they have to repay all the benefits of the tiff from year one okay by the way they

this year was the first year they went on yeah so they paid the 25 right yep you remember all that you know god god bless you he does mr gonzalez is one of the best yes he is anyone else have any comments questions concerns is there a motion motion made is there a second all those in favor unanimous is there any uh new business business it's not even new business but

just by where word of uh where comment uh we'll be packaging all this information together today and tomorrow getting it to the city clerk for uh council meeting on the of college any old business motion to return all in favor thank you gentlemen thank you