The Fall River Redevelopment Authority convened on September 25, 2024, approving the August 28, 2024, open session minutes and the September warrant totaling $25,195.01, both by unanimous 5-0 votes. Key financial discussions included an audit update for fiscal year 2023, which received a draft report with no glaring issues, and an insurance update detailing renewals for various properties and policies, including a $29,000 renewal for 600 Deval Street. Project updates included the City Pier, where aeration and repairs were completed, and an environmental close-out report is under review. The Authority also approved a $79,950 agreement with Fo and Bond, LLC for cathodic protection design and engineering services, with the chair authorized to sign, following a 5-0 vote. For Northfield Point, design work for revetment repair and invasive removal is ongoing, with hopes for a Seaport (CORT) grant up to $1 million. Significant progress was reported on Pleasant Street, with over $1.6 million in federal earmark funds secured for streetscape and infrastructure improvements. A team, including Mayor Paul Coogan, is strategizing the use of these funds, coordinating with Liberty Utility regarding gas line work. The Flint neighborhood's urban renewal plan faces challenges with a significant MEPA Environmental Impact Report requirement, estimated at $25,000-$30,000, which the Authority hopes to minimize. The Deval Street Corridor Master Plan saw a successful public meeting with approximately 75 attendees providing feedback on parking, trees, and housing options. Following an executive session, the Authority approved two motions related to property at the corner of Deval and Turner Streets (Assessor Map 0-22, Lot 00009) by unanimous 5-0 votes: an order of taken for a property owned by Liberty Utilities New England National Natural Gas Company Corporation, and a land disposition agreement with 577 D609 Deval Street LLC for the purchase of the property.
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welcome to the September 25th 2024 meeting of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority first item is call to order uh open meeting law statement uh person 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 meeting attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmission are being made whether perceived or unperceived by
0:24those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible uh first item is a roll call John Erikson here LZ here Rod Ron here Joan Maduras here and ke here thank you also participating Sarah page executive director John Coughlin legal council KY FL administrative consultant and Karen Martin project manager first item is approval of the Open session meeting minutes from August 28 24 any comments
0:50on these if not entertain a motion to approve motion to approve Open Session meetings from August 28th 2024 second second John Eric yes L con yes Ron rusen yes Joan madas yes an Kee yes thank you uh next item is financial report approval of the September warrant which you all have Karen I only I only had one little question on it a small thing but the um the Electrical uh bill for 1176 for an
1:23out I can't remember what was that outlet for that was the 50 amp receptical that they needed for the Narrows concert but I mean is that was that something for like food trucks or something it was for the um it was for the big trailer that they brought in for the bands okay so we so we'll use it again oh yeah it's completely reused it's a permanent fixture right on the yeah it was an improvement absolutely
1:44any other questions on the just usually Joan signs it's not signing I'm sure sure you approve that I was a couple of days behind so I've already sent her back yeah I right here Mine mine's signed oh I put yeah I put a sign copy in here around package so um motion to approve the warrant sure motion to approve warrant uh of August of 25195 and 1 Penny second second John Ericson yes L
2:11Kos yes Ron Ron yes Joan madas yes and yes thank you um administra excuse me Administration uh audit update for uh fiscal year 2023 yes so um the update from the last meeting is we got the draft report um just the end of the day to Monday night and we met with um the audit of quickly SRA and I did yesterday um we haven't really had time to dive into all the
2:43numbers but there were no glaring issues with the audit she's got the draft I sent it to Joan just before the meeting tonight she's going to take a look at it um the biggest thing is we just had to make some adjustments with the um the the flow and recognizing revenue from the um prepayments that the school has made on the 2501 South Main Street property so those were just some adjusting entries we'll have to deal
3:06with but there was nothing glaringly outstanding or came to their attention for anything so I think we'll be in good shape and hopefully close that out um probably early October so that would be the plan do we get information from them like a letter from the aor have order letter okay yes uh um insurance update um the only thing I wanted to just let you know on the insurance it's the usual
3:35time of the year we do our renewals which is why the warrant was a little higher than normal we had the renewal on the um the the premium for uh the policy for the 2501 South Main Street which that's reimbursed by the school department so I'll be billing them for that and then the um 600 Deval Street property um renewed and that was 20 it's in here isn't it that was 29,000
3:59and that includes the parking lot too that we cover and then we also updated the directors and offices insurance comes due um this month also um and the only other thing that's going to come due and it'll be in the next warrant is just our um liability policy for the developable land that we own our actual business operations policy doesn't renew until December so I just wanted to
4:23figure i' give you that update to kind of coincide with the uh the warrant but there's they all um pretty much renewed the developable land is um that one's going to be a little it's you know 191 Commerce Drive we're hoping we'll will um take that off our rols by the end of the year hopefully and then all we'll have those that lot up in Freetown which is just kind of funky land
4:48but funky land funky land like it's right along Route 24 two orphan pieces of land left over from Route 24 I don't know what you do those are like the Triangular ones aren't they yeah they like rectangular pieces that run along the highway uh Norton City Pier Karen oh okay that's me too um so since um our last meeting we've um with the ation was completed and that went well and um they
5:23also did the repairs to those two soft areas that kind of popped up after all the heavy crowds that were out there from the narrow concert and um um art event and so those got repaired and seated and it looks like the grass is now um starting to you can see some green THS on the um on the areas so that's looking good he's probably going to wait a little bit longer to get out
5:47and do the um the final cleanup but um other than that City Pier is pretty much they're doing a couple yoga classes on Monday they'll do um they did this week and next week is the last one Monday night so that'll pretty much wrap up the the event season out there and um and then we'll put her to sleep for the winter and um the environmental close out we just received the draft report
6:14yesterday Sarah and I U need to review it and get back to Joe if there's anything glaringly um concerning in there and then once he gets our call you know if there's any comments back that should hopefully get um finalized and out to mass d um by early October and we can close out and then hopefully that'll close out the environmental on the site okay um and then the last thing is
6:41um the cathodic protection um everybody got in their um board package the bid opening happened on September 29th and we had five um submissions responses to our um proposal which was good it was cins engineer years fo Ty and bond utrs in wani and after the evalu the evaluation committee was Johnny Sarah myself and Ken and we read we met and we had gone through the proposals and based on the
7:15Scopes of work um that matched best or aligned there most of them did align with um with the scope that we had put out um we decided that Bas with the scope and the price um um a best bang for our buck would be with fo and so I included in the bid package the um just kind of their introductory letter which kind of summed everything up as to who
7:42the team was and hoping to get um approval to proceed with issue them issuing them an agreement to start with the design and Engineering Services for the cathartic protection in the amount of $ 7995 um Karen just for a record what date was it because it wasn't September 29th no it wasn't you're right it was august9 it was August 29th that's very good jumps ahead of myself here what was
8:10August 29th was the day oh oh right okay have we ever used fourth before has anybody you aware of them oh yeah yeah they're a big they're a big Marine contract engineer and they they did work at City Pier around around the pier and then when we were uh putting in a proposal um to get the money to hire uh a firm to work on Northfield point because they' worked with us before we
8:41were able to get them to jump in and help us with our proposal because we needed maps and more information so we got to know the project manager through that uh cuz we had not Karen and I hadn't worked with them but Ken had and um um the Redevelopment Authority before had so so we have familiarity and happy with all the work yeah and there I mean they they do a ton of work all through
9:10here and the um the the cathodic protection company that they have working with them is very well well known in the industry and he's done a lot of work in the area also yeah they have um in that package that that you got I just put yeah I just kind of put I didn't put the whole package in there put the letter it's not the whole thing but they they had um a
9:32lot of their um references in there was pretty much unanimous we all yeah we all scored on the highest so I think they're going to do do a good job on this want a motion to approve the contract I do move forward with a motion you need a motion to approve um the agreement and that um John that chair can execute the agreement the the chair what can sign the agreement
10:02right so motion to move forward the fourth infrastructure and a b LLC bid of $79,950 to approve the agreement and also have the chair sign the agreement second second John yes con yes Ron R yes JN madus yes and ke yes okay thank you uh Karen next item Northfield uh spit um norfield not giving it up he's not g him the spit up um so Northfield Point morning fields we um I
10:35am due to get this week from beta the um the details for the um the proposed revetment repair around the property and then once we see what that is and have an idea what that is that's going to allow us to then figure out what we're really going to need for permitting and he's also going to be getting to us this week um a layout of all the invasives
10:57that are out there so we know how much we're going to need to do to go in and actually um pull those out and um which will now lead to being able to finalize like a a plan out there so still design development basically and uh as soon as we get that um hopefully I'll have some of that for the next meeting and maybe we'll have a better idea of the permitting needs also if there's really
11:19any hopefully it's all repair work and we won't need much do you remember what we were like projecting for a timetable on that the design was going to be hopefully pretty much done by the end of the year and then we were going to have bid documents ready in the idea spring were we going to for for construction we were also hoping it'd be a Cort grant that we would be applying for now but it hasn't
11:44come out yet so we don't know what's going on with that Cort Grant okay um so if we don't get grant money we'll have to maybe wait for next year so I don't know we have to kind of strategize about that okay but Ellen Cula at Seaport did get back to me the other day and say that they're expecting to put one out any day and I checked today they haven't put out the
12:11RFP for um you know the Grant application yet but one hopes that they will with the Assumption had been it would be in November how much are a grant we looking for um we're not sure without getting all the details we're not sure about what the budget but it's probably going to be a substantial Grant I mean we're probably they usually give out a million is the max right but see
12:33we may be looking for that million I'm not sure W okay I don't think we ever got a million yeah we did did we yeah for um the year that you had applied did I get a million yeah you did then we had to totally recraft what we used it for because it was for uh putting a parking lot across the site to cap it and then we capped it very differently so there was finessing yeah
13:07that was in combination with mass development and other monies at the time yeah you call that the flu flog the flu fog yeah I mean we're g to once we get more details in the N cost we'll be able to better figure that out okay um Sarah's going to speak to the uh Pleasant Street Flint her and and then the the Wall Street card or master plan so the good news on you've heard
13:37about the uh over 1.6 million allocated um through a federal earmark by uh congressman aen classus who facilitated it and that's for um streetcape and infrastructure improvements on Pleasant Street so um Mike Dion and the Community Development agency are in the process of going through all the paperwork that's required so that's really moving forward well and we the mayor called a meeting
14:14and put together a little team to work on what exactly we think we will do on Pleasant Street so uh today Ken Dan Mike the mayor Jasmine our grant writer and I met and had our first meeting to look at what might we want to do on Pleasant Street with these funds do we have other ways to add other funds to um do more um looked at um I guess what we're waiting
14:52to figure out is gas lines is Liberty utility going to be doing more in the Street which would mean we wouldn't want to be redoing the street if it's going to be ripped up so we're in the midst of just figuring out what you know what makes sense with these funds and but it's all really um Guided by our road map for neighborhood revitalization that we paid for and worked on for the last
15:25couple of years and um we got a lot of input about what should happen what the community thought should happen on Pleasant Street so it's really great that we're we have funds and we can move forward on that process I learned earlier today that the gas company is scheduled to do Pleasant Street within the next five years so I know that um Dan AAR is discussed or having conversations with him to see if that
15:53can be accelerated as opposed to waiting the 5 years out um just so that we can tap into this grant I think the grant itself is good into 2030 yeah yeah so there is some time there but obviously quicker you expend it the less risk you have of it being recalled I'm pretty sure a city sewer and a CSO product is all done on Pleasant Street right we yeah I believe
16:19they spoke to furland and I think that's with the exception of Stafford Square that's square that it still has flood and problems I think the Pleasant Street East I think is in good shape at least from what I've been told I haven't had that conversation directly with Mr furland um but there is a gas work schedule there we see Pleasant Street we talking from the Square East or we talking all Pleasant Street no we're
16:42talking Eastern EV down to um Stafford square and so given the work on Stafford Square I think it goes up Pleasant Street a little bit so you know we might be talking more like quick aan up to Eastern F okay we're going to need to figure out you know how much we're doing and how far we can go it may be that we do you know four blocks not seven or
17:11whatever it is yeah 1.6 million sounds like a lot but it's not doesn't go very far that would even do the sidewalks no especially when you get if you had architectural fees in there and plans and specs and everything else it's that's the yeah dwindles quickly is that area Enterprise Zona no um no there's a section lower Pleasant Street is an Enterprise Zone when we putting a renewal plan together we
17:36probably should have thought about that that gets a lot of investors into the area that that's um I don't think they're taking any further applications for that okay I think um that application period was only one offering and I think at the time the administration at that time did um the portion did the Waterfront um portion of Pleasant Street but also um that area around um St James
18:04and all that place over that area was a hot well too some small area fth Street or something yeah a little piece of that there's three of them yeah yeah okay that might be the downtown as well I didn't realize is that determined by the state no that's a federal quod Federal okay I don't know it'd be nice if they would extend it that there's we spoken into Congressman ARA Claus about that I
18:29think there's a you know I think there's a possibility of it being ex extended but that would have to be after January we can make it look pretty but if we want to fix it up to downtown we have to do more than just make it look pretty right I mean it that hopefully I something that it's a great program it's it's a similar to the 1031 exchange except that if you hold up a 10 years
18:53you don't have taxes on your profit so the other piece on uh the Flint neighborhood and the urban renewal plan is the fact that we're still reviewing mea's response we've gotten I think I told you at the last meeting that that day we had gotten a outline from tyan Bond about what they thought it would take to do the uh now Meep is saying you have to do uh a single Environmental
19:29impact report and what they are requiring is really significant and tyin bond uh thought it could cost around 25 to 30,000 to do this work which is what we had so hoped we would be able to avoid so Ken and I and Emily inis our consultant are going to go through the meepa um letter their long letter to us and uh What tyan bond outlined and just see what what we think um we really need to
20:12do and we may very well ask for a meeting with meepa to try to clarify what exactly we need to do so that we hope maybe we can minimize some of the work and the expense and the time and and um so that's still in process but hopefully we'll have more clarity for you at the next
20:45meeting so on to the Deval Street Corridor so we've had some discussions with we had our regular uh every two week meeting with Stan cont this morning and all of us um are feeling really positive about how well the meeting Monday night went um there was a really good turnout uh it really surprised us how many people came at quarter of five before the event so we had people just
21:21really piled up along all of our boards which our goal had been to just have people look at the boards and be able to just give a little introduction and then have everyone looking at the boards but we had so many people and everyone sat down and kind of said okay where's the presentation so we did more of a presentation than we had originally expected with um some allowing people to
21:48ask some questions and then we had everyone go look at the boards and um we got a lot of good comments um we had uh Post-its put on uh lots of the boards we got we had um comment cards and we got a lot of those so the staff at stantech are sorting through all of that and consolidating it into a report of what the comments were and then we'll be able to um discuss
22:23those and figure out uh where where we might want want to go with those but as we expected there were lots of questions about parking lots of questions about trees and you know lots of really good discussion it was really um gratifying to see how much people were thinking about it and interested and um we all felt really positive about it how many people do you think were there you know I was realizing that when
22:58I was thinking about reporting on there was 75ish any anybody have a challenge with Apartments did you hear any comments on that have what about apartments too many apartments anybody no no okay good too many did you say yeah people saying that you know well mostly market rate that's what they're going to complain about but then you know say why is this Apartments why isn't this a fun area I just
23:25wondering what the comments were well there was one person in the very beginning who said why aren't they condos and we said well they could be condos a developer may decide there's a market for condos and and do condos yeah I think that point was having more home ownership along the W fronts of rental system have the market dictates that something that prevents it yeah I didn't think about that it's prob not a about
23:53idea um Joan I'm curious what you thought no I I was I was pretty pretty uh happy with the whole thing I I thought it went well um no one uh people were positive and looking forward and I I think that was a very good thing it was yeah good um okay if there's no further matters for Open Session the chair makes a finding that open session would have a detrimental effect on the negotiating
24:25position of the public body the purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session minutes from August 28th 24 discuss strategy with respect to potential real estate transactions for properties located at cessor map 22 lot 9 on Deval street at the corner of Turner Street and at the Deval Street Corridor related to the master plan I'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session and we will
24:46return to open session motion to enter the executive session second John ER yes yes Ron Ron yes John madas yes and K yes thank you okay welcome back um I'll entertain a motion to uh execute the land disposition agreement for zero Turner Street I make a motion to approve and have the chair sign the order of Taken for the property owned by Liberty Utilities New England n national natural
25:20gas company corporation located at the corner theall and turn streets forward Mass identified as assessive map 0-22 00009 second John Ericson yes lisc yes Ron R yes J M yes yes we just did the order now you want to do the LDA so I I need a motion to approve the LDA I make a motion to approve and have the chair sign the land deposition agreement with 577 d609 Deval Street LLC
25:55for the purchase of the property located at the corner of Deval in Turner streets for Mass identified as assessa map 0-22 d009 second second John Erikson yes lcon yes Ron R yes Jo madas yes and ke yes okay there's not any other issues uh entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second second John Ericson yes L cons yes Ron R yesus yesk thank you