CHOCVB Board Meeting Minutes 011520

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Honoring County Commissioner Penny Rich Anthony Carey thanked Penny for her last financial report and her service to the Visitors Bureau board . Anthony read the proclamation and presented to Penny . Photos were taken . Penny explained the importance of tourism as it relates to Economic Development of our community . Guest Presentation Clean Design presentation ( see attached pdf) . Clean Design ' s presentation was of the current digital and social media ( Facebook, Instagram ) advertising and website refresh . " Hoop Dreams " ad added to the "Just Do You " advertising campaign and will be running in March . Laurie mentioned on the slide showing " Picture Perfect" that the feedback is it feels a little too elite so we are adding scenes from a street festival and we have had requests from the retail community to add retail . Executive Director ' s Report Laurie Paolicelli discussed the Visitors Bureau relocation . Our building has been a part of this fantastic economic development opportunity for the Town and County under Steve Brantley' s direction and the Commissioners support . Healthcare technology company Well , currently where the old Ale House was, will be expanding into the County' s Skills Development Center and Visitors Center as soon as we will let them . That puts a lot of pressure on our Facility Management Director to get all these moving parts together. We have done an exhaustive search for a new home . Everywhere from the 1 -40 and Caraway Village to Carrboro , refurbishing the car wash , to various different places in and around town . Where it stands right now is we are moving forward to present to the Commissioners moving to the CholaNad building, 308 W . Franklin St . , originally a Trail Shop . Joe Coates owns the building . We do not know the details but they are not renewing CholaNad ' s lease that expires March 31, 2020 . The County Manager' s biggest concern is the flood plain . We have done exhaustive research and review of historic reports . There is one horrific photo out there in internet land from Hurricane Irene but none of us got through that without water damage . They have never had flooding there . The building sits higher than the parking lot and surrounding ground level . It is 4, 000 square feet of space and currently we have around 3 , 600 square feet . It comes with seventeen parking spots which rules for Welcome Centers . "What' s the point of having a Welcome Center if your guests can ' t park? " It is very ADA accessible . It has some wonderful features . It is in the heart of a commerce area and close to everything . We would not be the predatory towing mentality that currently exists there . Although we would safeguard our spots for our guests , for our veteran ' s, for the people who use our conference center . The up fit charges are all currently being negotiated . We will have two months of free rent in order to handle all the up fit . The next requirement is a construction drawing . Friday I meet with two local architects . One from the County, I don ' t recall their names, that the team is very excited about and then Josh Gurlitz who has dealt a lot with permitting and the Town and built The Franklin Hotel across the street . Years ago, Joe Coates put in a whole drain system of his own that the Town ended up reimbursing him for half to help the storm water drainage . The County Sustainability Department, Brennan Bouma , Steve Arndt, and Alan Dorman felt great after that last walk thru . Laurie asked for comments to share with Travis Myren before this is addressed on the Board of County Commissioners meeting agenda . Penny advised that the agenda comes out tomorrow so anyone who pays attention to the BOCC meeting agenda will see that tomorrow . She further advised that there is a timeline on that agenda . If things move according to plan, renovation can start March 15t and the goal is to move in June . The partnership Asset Management and Joe Coates have settled on seems to work well for both the County and Joe Coates . Penny advised that, worst case scenario in which CholaNad building is not ready we could buy some time from Well . Once Well' s lease starts , there will be a little bit of leeway because you just do not know . When you start renovating a building, you just do not know what can happen . So Steve Brantley and Travis Myren are negotiating with Well to do a month - by- month if we need it . The goal is to get Well into our building as soon as possible because they are leasing our building but will be doing upgrades to our building which is taxable . The building itself does not go back on the tax roll until they take the building but as soon as they start upgrading, that is taxable . Therefore, we want to keep that train moving also . 2 1 P a g e CHOCVB BOD Meeting January 15 , 2020