8.26.2026 Redevelopment Authority

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Attendees are therefore advised that such recording and transmission are being made, whether perceived or unperceived, by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

I'm going to do roll call.

John Erickson.

Ron Rusin.

Ben Seidelberg.

Joan Medeiros.

Ian Keane.

Thank you.

Also attending, Sarah Page, Executive Director, John Coughlin, Legal Counsel, Ken Farrell, Administrative Consultant, and Karen Martin.

Project manager.

Chair makes a finding that we'll go into executive session prior to continuing with the open session, as an open session would have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body.

The purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session minutes from July 29th, 2026, and to discuss strategy with respect to potential real estate transactions for property located at 45 Annawand Street, Fall River.

I'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session, and we will return to open session.

A motion to enter into executive session, then we will return to open session.

Second.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ron Roosten, yes.

Ben Fottleberg, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Dan Keane, yes.

Thank you.

Minutes from July 29, 2026.

There's no comments on these minutes.

I'll entertain a motion to approve.

Motion to approve the July 29, 2026 open session minutes.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ron Roosten, yes.

Ben Fottleberg, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

You guys have the August warrant, which totals $230,305.18.

Motion to approve the August warrant amount of $230,305.18.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Ron Lucian, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Thank you.

Karen's going to update us on Northfield site, Northfield Point.

Site improvements?

Yes, I don't know if anyone's gone by there lately or not.

But there's nobody been working there last week and this week, he's going to be returning to the site on September 8.

He had got to a point where he was getting ready that he could start doing plantings, and it's just a little too early to get those plantings in.

So Sarah was out with the engineer and someone from DeSilver, and they picked out the plants today.

And his intent is to go back out there September 8th, and just stick with it till it's done.

And he's hoping to be substantially complete by the end of the month.

So, under September, because we were thinking October.

Well, I mean, he'll be substantially complete, there'll probably be some punch list stuff that he has to do.

But I'm, you know, the target is to hopefully try to have it open by Columbus Day weekend.

Nice.

So that we're going to try to push all the plants and everything.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm going to be bringing— what was that?

Is that the osprey nest?

Yep, that'll be up.

Yeah, he's actually got the pole and he said he might sneak in this week and find the bird next week and put it in.

What?

What?

Find the bird?

Um, well, I told you there was one on the roof of Point Gloria, so maybe he's just waiting.

Yeah, but they've left the area by now, I think.

Well, there's some that fly over my house still.

They're only seasonal ospreys.

Yeah, they migrate.

They do migrate.

Yeah, they migrate.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then first they have to build a nest up on the platform.

Yes, they do.

But I mean, it could be an eagle or something too, right?

Or a hawk.

Yeah.

I don't think that's— They'd have to read the directions for ospreys.

I don't know if we have an eagle, right?

I've seen eagles.

You've seen eagles out here?

We have bald eagles?

They're down the Taunton River supposedly now.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I know it's not that I was looking for— they're coming back.

They haven't met a poise.

Excellent.

It's cool.

What about the dinghy docks?

Well, geez, can I finish my update?

Yeah.

It's almost 6 o'clock.

Geez.

So, so he's gonna be back out there.

I'm gonna bring the final numbers to the board on in September with the change, I kind of gave you an inkling at the last meeting that there were some issues with bringing fill on and taking unsuitable fill off.

Most of the stuff that he dug for the bollards and everything out on the spit revealed kind of unsuitable material that had to be hauled off.

So Bill, Joe, the resident engineer, and Tim have come to agreement on most of those issues.

And I have an email pending with it all.

So I just got to pull it all together and bring it to the September meeting.

So I would just caution that before they take any fill off or do something like that, that they get the change order signed before the work begins.

No.

And then the only other thing, so, so the water line's all brought in, and the electrical work will start to go in.

I think he may be out there next week actually bringing the electrical down.

So that we can mount the security cameras and for the irrigation controller.

So we should be in pretty good shape by the end of September out there.

Dingy ducks.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

So there's— so we had a pre-construction meeting out at the site with Kavanaugh Marine.

And we laid out the plan.

Kavanaugh is going to actually build the dock.

They're going to design it and build it to match because of the Buy America, Build America clauses in this contract because it's federal money.

He, you know, he's got an engineer on staff in there.

They've studied the dock, and I actually gave him a copy of the shop drawings for— from the existing dock.

So they're going to match that, and that will be submitted in for approval.

We're hoping to get the submittals in next week on the job.

And he's hoping to be out there probably towards the mid-end of September.

And then they'll— they're probably gonna start with the moorings, and then they'll drive the piles and put the dock in.

So that should wrap up hopefully Either concurrently with Northfield or shortly thereafter.

We're within that window to drive the piles, right?

Yes, that doesn't, that doesn't go into effect until January 15th.

So the overall schedule of the dinghy docks is— so they'll probably start mid to late September.

And they should hopefully finish.

He's hoping to be pretty much done in October.

And, it's the same material for the pilings that we have.

Yeah, the Greenhearts.

Yeah, the Greenhearts.

Yep.

Reagan's actually going to be driving those, the one who drove the other ones.

Okay.

You all set with that?

I am.

Okay.

45 Annawan Street.

As everyone knows, we finally closed on that property.

I think that was since our last meeting.

No, July 17th.

Was it before?

July 17th.

Okay.

So, we've made some progress getting prepared for the temporary parking.

And, that parking, we don't exactly know when it will be open yet, but it'll— do we?

No, I've just got to get— I've just got to coordinate with stripers, the striper.

But, that's going to be open to the public.

Yes.

Just be no overnight parking.

There'll be restrictions on the gate will be open.

So the overnight parking, I thought we're going to sign it.

I thought we're going to sign it.

We're going to put a sign.

Right.

That's what I wanted.

So what do we want the sign to actually say?

No overnight parking subject to towing?

Yeah, what's overnight?

I don't know, because you got uses down there that stay pretty late.

Like, you got to be careful that you don't want to close it at 10 o'clock.

No, but by midnight everybody's out of there, right?

I think Primo's open till 1 o'clock.

1 o'clock on Friday and Saturday.

So what do you say, 2 AM?

I thought it might have been 2 AM.

Anything?

2 AM?

Yeah.

So you got a 2 AM license?

No, I'm saying if it's 1, if they close at 1, people hang out.

I think you just say no overnight parking and then— yeah.

Probably once in a while you ask the police or somebody to go through there 2 or 3.

Yeah, I was going to talk to the police about monitoring.

And we will have the cameras.

Cameras are already installed and working.

So yeah, that's all set.

Friday and Saturday, open to 1 AM.

So do you mention the cameras on the sign?

Cameras in use?

On the ones that Josh is putting up, it says cameras are in use.

What time do the narrow ships usually end?

They're early.

11-ish.

I don't think the brewery stays open very late.

The brewery's closed 9 or 10.

I don't think it's open late.

So, say no overnight parking, is someone going to be nervous leaving their car there till 1 o'clock?

If you say I don't think so.

If it says no overnight parking, means that you're leaving your car there overnight.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm trying to think of other examples.

They can move their cars.

Usually plenty of spots too.

If it happens, they don't feel comfortable at 12 o'clock, you don't— you'll probably have street parking.

Yeah, you want to move it.

True.

Well, you also let the businesses around there know, listen, we're not talking to you unless they leave their car overnight.

They can tell their customers.

So how quickly do you think it would be open if all of that goes according to plan?

Like the stripe?

I mean, we're going to, we're going to be at the striper's schedule.

So I just got to confirm that.

We're thinking maybe a month.

I mean, because it won't take them more than a day to stripe it.

Yeah, so it's just a matter as to what they've already got in their kit.

Kenny could do it in half a day.

What color do you want?

Spray paint.

Yeah, because I could put the lines down.

There's 2 different types of paint though.

They do have a temporary paint, they have the epoxy one that's not temporary, right?

That's very tough to remove if you have to remove it later, right?

So just keep that in mind.

Yeah, yeah, we would be Probably even over it.

Brightlines is pretty good.

If you ever use them, I use them for all my parking.

So Brightlines, I think that's— yeah, I think that's one of the ones I have on my list.

Yeah, that's one on my list.

Yep.

So then, do you want to talk about the RFP for future permanent parking?

Or are we not talking about that?

Not really at that point.

Okay, we're not at that point.

We're just Temporary.

That RFP is not ready to go out, right?

No, you'll have to scope.

No, because part of it, we have to scope out what we're doing with the buildings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because you can't do a final layout.

So you have to do the buildings.

Another door.

Yeah, I was wondering about the gates.

No, we're not gonna— we're not gonna— the gate's not going to be activated.

The gate's going to be open.

I know.

But that's temporary gate.

But they— we're gonna do an RFP for the real gate that's going to be— so when we change the parking later.

Correct.

So I thought we were going on that.

Just saw my understanding.

I thought we were going to put out an RFP for the gate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna work on that.

I don't have that.

Yeah.

Next meeting?

No, probably the next meeting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Meeting after?

Maybe after.

Yeah, you've got some foot legwork to do here.

Yeah.

And plus got to get all the audit done too.

Yep.

So in the meantime, gates open overnight parking.

Yes.

Yeah.

You want to talk about the URP?

Okay, so the, the final draft of the urban renewal plan went to the Department of Housing, HLC, and we got comments back.

Innis Associates has addressed all those comments.

I'm reviewing them.

In the meantime, I've been working on, um, the notice of project change for NEPA and addressing all the issues that NEPA is expecting to be addressed as simply as I can.

I've got Emily helping doing pieces of it.

Um, Ty and Bond has advised us on how to do it, and she's ready to do a review before we send it in.

So the hope is that we get something off to NEPA within a week or two and hope that that's accepted and we're done.

And, um, there's a question that arose, um, from HLC, um, regarding what our priority properties are.

So we want to bring that to you at the next meeting because once we get something into MEPA, they're going to take a while.

They have about 30 days to review it.

So, so we can wait until the next meeting before we're going to be ready to submit the urban renewal plan to the housing department.

And so we need to we feel we should get your input on what we're saying are priority properties on the acquisition— potential acquisition properties that we have listed.

And, um, we're planning to send something out to you ahead of time, both the urban renewal plan and a description of potential properties that we might prioritize so that you can give input on that before we send that in.

Can I just ask you a question?

And John, maybe you know the answer.

I don't think the statutes require— no.

So why would we prioritize properties?

And I would ask EOHLC, why are we being— why are we being asked to prioritize?

The other 2 renewal plans just have a list.

Yeah, we just have a list, right?

Because priorities would change over a period of time, right?

So unless you're statutorily obligated to do that, I'm not sure why we'd be doing it at this point.

Who's asking for the OHLC?

Maggie at the OHLC.

I don't know why she's asking that.

I don't think she typically has in the past.

Is it like 5 or 10?

Or is that— I think she gave a number.

So let me look into that.

That's an Good point.

I'd rather just have a list.

Yeah, move it up and down as we— as priorities change.

Right.

And, you know, we may want to talk about— anyway, outside of the housing department, we need to talk over the next few months about our priorities for properties that we want to try to work on.

So we need to have a broad discussion as a board at some point about, okay, we've gotten a lot of things done.

Now, what projects are we going to go after?

And that could be a property in the urban renewal area.

So I think we'll have some level of that discussion, but we'll try to delink that from the urban renewal plan.

Let's see, I think that's— oh no, I wanted to tell you that the Night Owl opened last Sunday and It was a really fun event, and our delegation was there.

The mayor, lots of city councilors, school committee members, and just a lot of the community came out.

There was a huge line to wait for the pizza— well, to get tickets to to get your pizza and Dill's lemonade.

And they sold at least 800 slices of pizza between 4 and 8 PM— between 4 and 7 PM.

So they cranked.

And the owner's whole family, one came up from Florida to be there to help create the pizzas and be part of this.

And basically the story is that they grew up so close that I think they saw the night owl from their house.

And so they have a family love of the night owl.

And the— we had a countdown at, you know, a few minutes before 8.

And at 8 o'clock, the lights went on, and the owl is all lit with neon.

And there's a big cool sign on the chimney.

And, you know, people thought the pizza was really good.

He's doing all these kind of gourmet pizzas, you know, and one's named Kwikishan, and they have all different kind of Fall River names.

Senator Rodrigues had a piece that was pepperoni with hot honey.

And, you know, Representative Viola had a taste.

Like, all of them were over there tasting it, and they all thought it was good.

So, so that was a really wonderful event.

Oh, they had some classic cars, too.

And so that was encouraging.

It just It was a really delightful event in the neighborhood, and I think that the Night Owl's going to get a lot of support.

So the other thing that we're working on is we got a $200,000 grant called the MTTA grant, and we're waiting for— you know, it's been awarded to us, but we're waiting for the funds to actually be made available.

In the meantime, Karen's been getting proposals to do an existing condition survey and pre-construction plans.

And she's working with Dan, who's suggested places to go for proposals.

Sarah, what, what property are we talking about?

Oh, I'm sorry, the street corridor.

The whole Pleasant Street corridor.

We went after a special grant program that became available for people who had gotten federal funds or were going for federal funds.

And it was this new pot of money that the Healey administration just put out there.

And so we went after it and we got the highest award of $200,000, which will fund the development of the plans.

And we want to do a careful existing conditions analysis survey, which would include the trees.

The whole idea of getting more trees and landscaping on Pleasant Street is a really important issue.

And so that's one of the things that they'll be looking at, but they'll be looking at signage and bus stops and just a whole lot of issues.

And at the same time, SERPED has been doing surveys, and they're thinking about— that's our regional planning agency, and they, they have a team who got funded to work with, with the city to get community input and look at places where, um, there are more accidents and there's not good sight lines when you go onto Pleasant Street.

And so that's being done as well.

So we will have lots of information for the company that we hire to actually do the whole pre-construction plan.

And then city money and the funds that have been allocated through the earmark from Congressman Auchincloss will fund implementing that plan.

So it's good that we're moving forward on that.

Anything new on NOMA?

Yes, so I think that that's the, um, so Noma had another event, um, a couple of weeks ago.

It was, um, it was well attended to the extent that the vendors felt that they, um, did well and they were happy and It was really nice.

The Cambodian musicians and dancers came, and the musicians brought a whole lot of their instruments, and they brought some food they were giving away so that people could taste Cambodian food.

And that was a really nice piece of that evening market.

On the other end of Purchase Street in the plaza was another musician who was just playing kind of folk music.

And it was a nice event.

And I think out of that, there, there definitely is recognition that next year we may do less events in the middle of summer.

But we also are going to be working in the winter on getting sponsors for the events And outreach has been done to some of the local banks, and there seems to be interest in sponsoring some events.

So next year we may be able to bump them up a bit because we'll have funds to pay for more of a band or, you know, some more bells and whistles for these events.

Um, so the next 2 events that are coming up is September 26th is, is another street fair.

It's a Saturday from 11 to 3.

They're calling it Brick and Brush, and it's going to be focused on artists coming and either selling artwork or showing people how to do art.

There was a whole street chalk drawing thing happening at the last event, and people had a great time with that.

There were some young people who did amazing drawing on the street.

And so that's going to be one piece of that, is there will be more chalk for people to draw.

And Sarah, is FRAC involved in that?

Yeah.

Yeah, FRAC's involved, but it's mostly Stephanie who has a whole group of artisans who she works with, and so that will be a lot of it.

But she's done— there's been a lot of outreach so far.

And then October 17th is a harvest market, and that will be 11 to 3.

And the other thing about that is that Joseph had been working for a long time on the idea of bringing some piece of the horror festival that happens in New Bedford over to the Noma District.

And the Eagle has— Jerry has agreed to have the Eagle available for horror movies to be shown during that day and evening.

So that will link to this Harvest Festival in October.

Then Thanksmas will be November 14th from 4 to 8, and that's always really successful.

And having it on Purchase Street is much more— it's a much better location than where it used to be held.

So that will be happening.

And then there's a Christmas event that will happen linked to the parade and the lighting of the tree, and the city's working on that with us.

And that will, um, that will mean that people can see the tree lit and then walk over and go to restaurants.

And, you know, I think there will carolers, and all kinds of kind of Christmas fun on Purchase Street.

And then we'll be done with this whole kind of ambitious schedule of events, and we'll spend time in the winter planning and figuring out how to make a schedule that I think will be a little more manageable.

But I think that the restaurants feel that they've seen increased business and really appreciate that this is happening.

And they, you know, have been supporting them.

And we have meetings every month in one of the restaurants, and that's, you know, working out well.

So a lot of the goals are being accomplished there.

Thanks.

Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Second.

John Erickson, yes.

Von Driessen, yes.

Joan Medeiros, yes.

Dan Keane, yes.

Thanks, everybody.