Dublin

Dublin City Council Regular Meeting December 17, 2024

Tom Wong December 17, 2024 0

Transcript Agenda for you all of you tonight. And before we get started, would you please all rise for the pledge of allegiance? And just do the reply. Alright. So first order of business, we have presentations and proclamations. The first is a presentation from visit Tri Valley. Okay. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of council. My name is Felicia Escobar, economic development manager for the city of Dublin. Tonight, it’s my pleasure to introduce Tracy Farhad with Visit Tri Valley. She’s joined by a couple of her board members, to talk to you a little bit about the proposed multiuse venue here in Dublin. This is part of the organization’s, destination strategic plan. And with that, I will introduce Tracy. Good evening, mayor, council members, city staff, and members of the audience. Tracy Farhad, CEO of Visit Tri Valley, your marketing and sales destination, organization for the Tri Valley region. First of all, I wanna just thank you for this opportunity to present to you tonight. Thank you, mayor and council members. And I want to also, congratulate our incoming mayor elect Hugh and, of course, mayor, McCorriston for staying with us, and council member will be recognized, later. And thanks to all of Dublin’s council members who have worked so hard and tirelessly on our behalf. Thank you for your service. Appreciate that. I also want to secondly acknowledge, who’s with me tonight. We have 2 of our board of directors, our executive committee member. We have mister Chris Hill of the 4 Point Sheraton, our vice chair, Chris, and also mister Chris Carter of the Bankhead Theater who is our secretary. And Chris Chris is right there. And, we also have an esteemed member of our task force in the audience tonight, but I think you’ll hear from him later. So now on to our presentation. So tonight, I’m going to share an overview of the multiuse event center process, the completed phases to date, preconceptual renderings, a proposed site location, along with our next steps. Well, 2 years ago, we engaged with the JLL Global Tourism and Destination Advisory Group to help facilitate our 5 year destination strategic plan. And after a year of research and working with a 22 member steering committee, it was determined to simultaneously delve deeper into the potential development of a multiuse venue to benefit the entire Tri Valley. These 2 reports are available on our website, visit trivalley.com. So I’d like to share a little background on the multi multiuse venue research results with you first. Well, the need for more event space was apparent and the Tri Valley sits perfectly at the Northern California intersection of 2 freeways, of course. We discovered through our market research 3 optimum user groups all vying for sustainable high end state of the art facility. And this facility needed to accommodate conventions and conferences, live entertainment, and 1 1 stop shop for sports competition to be physically viable. So here’s where we’ve come to date through the commitment of our board of directors and in support of our communities. Phase 1. Okay. It’s a big chart. It justified the level of demand for a new multi use event center. We conducted market research and competitive analysis. We engage with key stake holders and event producers. We reviewed lodging and audience projections and heard over and over again, build it and they will come. Now based upon this early confirmation, we did not wanna waste any time. So the board of directors approved phase 2 with JLL Advisors, and work continued with a smaller task force to vet sites, entitlements, and zoning regulations, etcetera. And we held monthly meetings with site owners, the cities of Pleasanton, Dublin, and Livermore, all with enthusiastic support. We prepared a 10 year pro form a and architectural renderings to make certain that the facility would be sustainable and delivered to all user groups. Okay. What we discovered through our demand and attendance analysis brought us the proof we needed to pursue this ambitious and aspirational project. Okay. In addition to the events we already bring to the Tri Valley through our sales and marketing efforts, our conservative estimates would bring nearly a 130,000 new attendees over a 185 event days booking 27,000 more overnight hotel stays for a positive economic impact to the entire region between $75,100,000,000 annually. Now where should this facility be built to maximize on our greatest economic outlook? Well, the task force and consultants developed a set of site criteria to to deliver on not only our 3 identified visitor user groups, but a 4th equally important local residential use for gatherings and vibrant retail spaces all year round. Of course, financial performance and feasibility is key. No 1 wants to be straddled with subsidizing a giant *** ***** box. We needed to be vibrant and lively all year round. We also need to entertain the groups when they arrive, be close to our hotel base, have walkable access to retail, attractions, dining, and entertainment, as well as provide public transportation options. We made the official announcement during our annual luncheon and tourism report in September of our pursuit of this iconic, engaging, visitor tour, and September of our pursuit of this iconic, engaging, visitor driving project. And here are I’m gonna show you right now some preconceptual drawings to help envision the scope of this endeavor. It actually took my breath away when I first saw it. It actually took my breath away when I first saw this rendering, and that’s probably because I love architecture and design and can just imagine everyone gathering in this space. We envision this facility to be an eye catching destination in its own right. 1, the entire Tri Valley community can be a proud of. I mean, you see here the lively ground floor dining and retail, shops and gathering spaces, And the vision of of the angled roofs along with the three-dimensional walls, they help reflect the surrounding mountains and rolling hillsides that’s all around us. This front elevation view shows an entryway emphasizing our cultural arts and heritage to both educate and inspire visitors to the Tri Valley. Now sports competitions will bring hundreds of amateur and professional teams year round. Families will rotate between watching games and having downtime in our downtowns. As our sports producers commented, no 1 will complain about the space being too pretty. And, of course, our sports, development director, Todd Dibb, says he can book this 52 weekends a year without a problem. Now the Tri Valley has become a hub of corporate innovation and development with 100 of businesses locating here. This space can convert to accommodate multi day conventions, trade shows, product launches, summits, retreats, all with state of the art technology and services. Those attendees that come for this, they will eat, drink, shop, and will discover who we are. Live theater, anyone? Well, it may not be a Taylor Swift concert. I’m sorry to those in the audience. She does, require a larger arena, than this. But with convertible seating in rapid speed, this event center can hold concert and theater lovers of up to 5,000 attendees. They will come in early. They will dine out. They will visit our wine and our beer trails, and they will tell all their friends what an amazing place this is, and then they will come back for more. Now for the proposed site, which is I know is the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Well, we started with 2 dozen sites and narrowed it down to 12, all analyzed in detail with our city partners, our site owners, the task force, our board of directors, and it was recommended and approved by our board of directors to pursue site b in Dublin. It’s gonna be here. Well, with more than 61% of our hotel rooms within close proximity, a highly visible free low freeway location, and a most welcoming enthusiastic, city staff, I might add, site b in Dublin became the front runner. Here’s an overhead view of the 12 and a half acre county lot next to the BART and County garages, and in between what has become known as the IKEA lot to the right. I guess X truly did mark the spot in this particular moment. Here’s another view looking back toward the garages, and this is from the corner of Martinelli Way and Arnold Road and walking distance to Bart, Persimmon Place, Hacienda Crossings, and easy on off freeway access. Site B also borders 2 of our other very important, district cities with Livermore close by, and this lot provides for regional integration, environmental sustainability, that hospitality infrastructure that’s absolutely essential to meeting, sports, retail, and entertainment. So what are our next steps? Well, we will pursue a memorandum of understanding with you, with the city of Dublin. We’ll collaborate with Alameda County, and we’ll begin phase 3 in the new year. And this, phase 3 will include creation of a finance package for the predevelopment design segments, traffic and environmental sub consultants work, and agreement on the management and operating structure. With VISIT Tri Valley at the helm, we’re at your service. So we anticipate phase 3 to last up to 18 months. And with the stars in alignment, projected groundbreaking in 2027. It’s enthusiastic, but I think we can do it. So I want to thank you. I want to thank, our board of directors for their steadfastness and for the city of Dublin for being so willing and able to be partners with us in pursuit of this major legacy for the Tri Valley. On behalf of our board and our staff, we’re your partners in tourism and happy to hear any comments or questions you might have. So thank you very much for the opportunity. Before I open it up for their, the council’s comments and questions, I do wanna just tell you or, let you know that I’m very excited about this. And I’ve conveyed this. This is what Dublin is missing. This is a link, a partnership with the rest of the Tri Valley. And it’s not just about sports. Yeah. We’re all sports freaks here. Right? But we, we’re looking at this from a broader perspective, the cultural events and the design work. And I know there’ll be iterations and everything, and there’s a lot of hard work. But I just want to thank you for selecting Dublin. And, now we’re going to plug in even more into the Tri Valley. And I’m sure that mister Halbert in the audience is is well aware of our desire to get going on that. So very much thank you. So I’m gonna open it up for anybody else who has any comments. Okay. I’ll let these guys go, and then we’ll do public comment. Okay. Council member. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you for selecting Dublin. Excited to see this come to fruition and, share the excitement of of several folks here. Thank you. Thank you, Kent. Yeah. I’m I’m thrilled. You know, we’ve we’ve wanted to have an a venue for, being able to do youth sports tournaments, professional sports tournaments, concerts, and, you know, the region as a whole is gonna benefit, being able to tie it all in. I know pre pandemic, we were talking about a convention center hotel here in Dublin and, COVID, you know, put the put the brakes on that and, this is even better than that and I’m really thrilled that it’s going to be a jewel of the Tri Valley, located here in Dublin and will benefit our residents tremendously as well as our local businesses and the region’s businesses and, couldn’t be prouder that you selected Dublin. Made a great choice. Council member. Yes. I too share the absolute delight in the the choosing of our city for this location. I think we all see the greatness that, that it will bring in not just, again, sports, but the arts. Wow. Huge. So important that we continue to highlight the arts and are a thriving, vibrant, premier destination spot to welcome visitors. And Dublin is the perfect place to land, and I can’t wait. So, yay. We’re competing with Las Vegas on all this, you know. And Maryland. Thank you....