Mayor and Council Meeting

See.

Good evening, and welcome to the City of Roswell special called mayor and city council meeting of Wednesday, 03/26/2025.

I am mayor Kurt Wilson.

I am privileged to acknowledge and,

with my colleagues and council members present,

council member Sarah Beeson,

council member Christine Hall,

council member Anne Pro Tem Lee Hills,

council member David Johnson,

council member William Mortland,

and council member Alan Sells, I know is on his way.

I'll now turn it over our chief executive

officer and city administrator,

mister Randy Knighton, to explain how the meeting is run. Mister Knighton. Thank you, mayor Wilson, and good evening, everyone. In accordance with section chapter 3.7

of the city code, the city council shall hold regular public meetings. The mayor can call a special call meeting,

which we had this evening.

The city council meetings and special call meetings are for the public to participate and speak on agenda items which constitute formal decisions by the elected body.

And the agenda of those items can be accessed via the city website prior to the meeting. And this is a public meeting and some items do

In order to ensure an accurate record of the meeting,

we ask that everyone observe the principles of mutual respect,

display the appropriate demeanor during the course of the meeting this evening, which should be and is reflective of this great community.

With respect to the proceedings, we ask that attention is given to the speaker, and if anyone needs to have an independent conversation, that you exit the rear doors of the council chambers to the vestibule area.

We ask that everyone would silence any phones or electronic devices at this time. The mayor is the presiding officer of the meeting and will ensure the orderly exchange of comments, questions, and discussion

leading to decision making by the elected body. We always encourage everyone,

excuse me,

to access roswell365.com

for a calendar

of events.

We also,

will note to you that there are a number of events upcoming in the city of Roswell, which promote community,

leisure, and physical activity as we all make Roswell the number one family community in America.

Mayor Wilson. Thank you, mister.

Thank you, mister Knighton. And I'm just curious. Why are you so much taller in your chair than I am? I'm trying to figure this out.

I'm I'm I I'm not sure why, but always,

you exceed in stature

in all you do, sir. Well

well, you exceed in sartorial splendor. Do we all

tonight, we're very privileged to have one of our leading residents,

longtime resident,

longtime,

great contributor to the city of Roswell.

Mister Calvin Esbury is gonna do both the invocation

and moment of silence, and then afterwards, the pledge of allegiance.

So Calvin, would you do us a pleasure pleasure of coming up and leading us in a moment of silence and invocation?

Let us pray.

Heavenly father, we just pause right now to give you thanks for this day, give you thanks for this city council, give you thanks for this city.

We don't take it for granted, heavenly father. We know that you've built a hedge of protection around us, and we thank you for that. Regardless of of what religion you're,

in as you assemble here this evening,

just ask you to focus right now on,

your savior,

your, religious

leader, heavenly father.

I focus on you, Jesus Christ. And, heavenly father, we just know that everything that's being done here is done decent and in order, and we appreciate that. We don't take it for granted. We don't take it for granted that we live in this wonderful city called Roswell,

and we know that you brought these leaders together to lead us in a way that you would have us lead. So, heavenly father, we just ask you now to continue,

with this meeting and everything we've done in decent and order. All these and other blessings we ask in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen.

Thank you, sir. Please leave me,

join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I

pledge allegiance

to the flag

of The United States Of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible

with liberty and justice for all.

Ladies and gentlemen, mister Calvin Asbury. Thank you so much, Calvin.

Well, the first item on the agenda is under administration

and governance,

and I am gonna turn that to council member Christine Hall to read the first item. Council member Hall. Thank you, mayor Wilson.

The first item is the approval of an additional advanced voting site for the November twenty twenty five municipal general election.

Thank you, Christine. Mister Knighton, would you present the item, sir? Sure. Thank you, mayor and council and,

for those, in the audience.

We received information from the Fulton County Elections Board that for the upcoming,

election,

in November, there is one advanced voting location which has been designated by Fulton County Elections Board, which is the Roswell Library here

on the City Hall campus.

The proposal is in recommendation,

to the mayor and council is to secure,

another

advanced voting location,

which is recommended as East Roswell Library.

That will be at a cost of $41,770,

which is accounted for in the fiscal year twenty twenty five budget. And with that recommendation,

we'll we'll make to the mayor and council. We'll turn it back to you, sir. Thank you, mister Knighton.

At this time, does council have any comments on this matter?

Council member Beeson.

We discussed it last night in committee, so if anybody needs to see the full discussion, and what was discussed. But I I think both myself and the rest of council, I don't think I'm speaking out of term when I say that everyone wholeheartedly

supports the investment of being able to put an additional voting location on East Roswell to be able to provide more accessibility.

Thank you, Sarah,

very much. Any additional comments from council?

Thank you, council. I'll ask if any Roswell residents would like to address this item.

Thank you very much, counsel. Final final final

words. If not, I'll ask for a motion.

Motion to approve item number one, approval of an additional advanced voting site for the November twenty twenty five municipal general election. Thank Thank you, council member Hall. Do I have a second on the item? Seconded by council member Johnson.

All council members in favor of approval of this item, please raise your hands.

Let the record show that the vote is unanimous. Thank you very much.

Second the next item on the agenda is under environmental public works. Council member sales, would you read the item for us please, sir?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, mayor.

This item is the approval to award a contract to Winter Construction for Green Street parking deck in the amount of $14,485,600

and budget amendment

in an amount of $500,000.

Thank you, council member Sells. I believe senior vice president Sharon Izzo is gonna present the item. Are you gonna be joined by environmental public works director Brian Watson? Are you doing it solo?

I'm gonna do this alone.

He will be my phone, a friend, and,

I'll I'll start with without that man back there,

we would not be here doing this tonight in in such a a glorious fashion. So,

he is definitely,

the the leader on all of this, and he's just letting me come up here and and do the celebration part. So I thank him for that.

So this evening, we get to take a giant step forward in our bond program,

to provide a little bit of background.

As you know,

we took the parking deck to the voters in November of twenty twenty two and got a very strong yes that the voters wanted a parking deck in the downtown area.

We assessed eight different sites. And last spring, we brought a recommendation to you to use to select the site at Green Street and Highway 9.

And since that time, we have been working through

a process to establish

the design criteria

and the,

concept for our parking deck in that location

as well as purchasing a number of properties

to support that deck.

I wanna talk to you first, I wanna talk to you a little bit about the procurement process we went through, which is which is why we're here this evening.

But then I'm gonna give you a little bit of, the background on the facade, the whys behind the facade,

and why winter. So let me just start by saying we had a very complex,

very careful approach to this procurement.

We started with a request for qualifications

and received nine design build firms that were interested or teams, I should say, that were interested in the project, and we shortlisted to three. And then those three were given a request for proposal,

which was built out of this process that I'm gonna tell you a little bit about in a moment,

in order to give us their proposal for our project.

It was a three phase process for those teams. We had a technical proposal that was evaluated first and independently. Once

we went through that process, we then, opened costs and evaluated their cost proposal.

And then the third piece was to do interviews with them.

And out of that process, we are recommending the winter team for the, project.

Let's talk about that a little bit. We went through the process and evaluated those technical proposals. There were eight criteria that were evaluated. You see them listed here on the screen.

The parking count

was evaluated, and the winter team brought the base deck

in for with an additional 14 spaces,

above what we had originally planned, which brought us to a total count of 350

spaces in our base deck.

For project schedule,

they came in eight weeks early, which would be a delivery of 05/04/2026.

For a project management approach, we were very impressed with how they plan to interact with the city,

what their project plan was, what their work plan was for the project,

and how we would be kept abreast of that and keep this project moving.

We also,

did an excellent job of adhering to the overall concept and aesthetics that we had set out. Obviously, when you're talking about a design build team, they're gonna come in and take a look at what you're putting out, and then they're gonna give you,

their best recommendation or proposal of what they intend to build for you. And the winter team was very much,

consistent with the things that we put out in our RFP.

Also, the materials, the durability, the maintenance were all received strong scores. Obviously, it's very important that the product we're getting doesn't become substandard in any way and meets our needs for the future.

They also exhibited some excellent site creativity

and attention to the aesthetics, which we know is critical here in our downtown area. As the mayor has said over and over, this isn't just a deck.

It's about creating an experience for the visitors to our downtown,

downtown area. This will be the first thing they encounter when they park their car here and then get out of their car and start

experiencing all we have to offer down here. So it has to be right.

The technology package fits right up in there. The user experience as far as the technology, the ability to understand that is the deck half full, a quarter full, totally full,

that information will be readily available, which will be very, very helpful to people,

visiting, our downtown area.

That was something that the winter team included in their proposal

as well as license plate recognition, which is helpful to us us to understand who's visiting our downtown. It helps to feed our our demographics and understand

how how this is working,

in an economic development point of view for the city, and that'll be interesting data for us to have to support,

what's next for the downtown and for the rest of Roswell.

And lastly, stormwater. As we all know, stormwater is a really important part of all of our projects,

and we made that one of the criteria we were evaluating based on how the team attacked that.

As you see, they were, the winter team were we received the number one score,

in the technical proposal. And then when we went on to the cost, we we discovered that they also were offering the lowest cost. And in the interviews, they they delivered also there in a number one kind of way.

Just some of the specifics of how we measured that.

The Winter team was, their overall price was 25% less than what our engineer estimated it to be. And compared to the other bidders, it was about an eight eight to 14%

reduction, so it was an excellent value there in addition to providing those additional spaces

and then also delivering on a very aggressive,

schedule for delivery.

There was, in addition to our base deck, you've heard me refer to base deck, that was a a three level deck that we had put out for for the project.

We were curious to know what would happen if we added an additional half half level, a fourth level to the deck. How many spaces could we get and what would it cost us?

Not sure it could fit within our project budget, but we thought we'd ask the question. And we were pleased to find out that that additional fourth level actually comes at a at a instead of at a premium, actually, there's a bit of a discount there. The cost per space is almost half for that fourth level that it is for the rest of the deck. So the the project team, evaluation team is recommending

that the city proceed and build that additional fourth

half half level to the deck for an additional 45 spaces, which will bring us to 395.

See, I'm always looking for Brian for the the details. 395

total spaces.

Also, we had looked at the the possibility and potential for using that, location for some regional stormwater

for, additional

potential redevelopment in the future.

What we determined was we didn't see it as a good fit. We wanted to see what the team brought back to us.

There was some cost there that that we had some concerns about, and there was also some logistics of how the conveyance would work there. So our recommendation

is not to build the regional detention.

However, we do want to provide an allowance to allow us to to use to use the site for the stormwater for the remainder of the project. As you remember, the Green Street activation project is also going on at the same time. The transportation,

folks are working with a design team on that, and they'll be getting to the conclusion of those design documents,

mid to late summer.

One of the things they have to look at is stormwater, and we think we can accommodate their stormwater on the deck site quite well and at a value to the city. So we'd like go ahead and go forward with that.

Now the now what everyone's waiting for, what's it gonna look like?

This is the, view of the deck from,

and I'll say it's from Southern Post at their traffic signal there. Looking across the street at our deck, I wanna point out some features for you because,

obviously,

there was a lot of work that went into what the facade of this deck is going to be and how does it fit within our downtown area.

We worked with an architecture

and engineering firm that worked with us. They studied our downtown area, our architecture, our buildings, our our new buildings, our older buildings, and how it was gonna sit on this site. So some of the things you see is when you when you have a parking deck, it's basically a concrete structure under there. It's a bunch of

basically Lego pieces that you're gonna get to see shipped in here on tractor trailers,

starting

August. Okay. August.

Well, August foundations.

Foundations in August and then late fall, we'll start seeing these these these tractor trailers coming in here with giant concrete

LEGO pieces that are gonna assemble the deck.

And then on top of that, we're putting a skin, if you will, to, make it aesthetically pleasing. There are any number of things we could do from very, very simple and inexpensive

to things that are very modern

and, very cool looking. The the more you do, the more expensive it gets.

We worked very, very hard with the architect on what those what those choices were.

And and this brick,

building that you're seeing up here with you see it's it's got relief to it. It's got parapets there on the top. They give it kind of a decorative finished piece.

Those very large openings from a distance look like windows,

and what they do is provide circulation in the deck. Air circulation also provides natural light, also a feeling of that I'm not in an enclosed building.

One of the places we paid a lot of attention to was on the ground level.

On the on the Highway 9 side, we're on the Ground Level, we're open to air. On the Green Street side, because there's some fall there, Green Street's a little higher, we're gonna be below ground. We paid a lot of attention to the size of the openings there, and you can see they're much larger. I was on that group of of folks that was working with the architect, and I myself

don't feel terribly comfortable in a parking deck that's very, very enclosed.

And we talked about that, and they were very quick to respond to that. The rest of the team was very supportive

of making sure that we can create an atmosphere there that feels as safe as possible, provides,

an open air feeling as opposed to closed in. So really proud of that feature.

There's also some

some steel curtains, and I'm gonna kinda

scroll ahead for you.

If you this is the view also from Highway 9 Southern Post Side, kind of at the Cubano's,

location looking back over at our deck. You see there's a,

a steel curtain,

there on the,

I don't know if I can point at this or not,

that interrupts that that that,

brick facade.

And that was just meant to be relief, something different.

We also one of the other things the team felt very important was to go with a little more of a vertical feel as opposed to a horizontal feel, which would have showed us kind of the levels more so, and this hides the the levels almost so it's like a grouping of buildings.

So I just wanted to share with you how much effort was put into this facade

and looking at how to make it the very best for our downtown area.

This this visual also gives you our surface parking there as well. You can can see that and some of the landscaping that'll go in there as well.

This view will be, the view from

if might you might have had breakfast at Fellows and you're coming out and you're starting to walk back down Green Street.

This would be the view.

This is our, stair tower here. It's also gonna be the elevator.

One of the things that we did, we talked about one of the cost savings is can actually make that open air. You can actually don't have to light it, things like that. We wanted to light this. We wanted to make it prominent.

We wanted to give it a very safe feel, a very protected feel,

and then that was another design decision that was made.

And then this last one is the view of,

of the deck from the Plumtree Plumtree Street connection with Green Street. As you recall, Plumtree is going to become a pedestrian walkway

so that as people park at our parking deck, they will come out to this location and cross over to Plumtree Street and be able to move right on down Plumtree to visit some of the beautiful restaurants and, shops that we have along Canton.

And this will be a very much a a bit of a place making that we're gonna be working on as part of the Green Street activation. I think that's all I have for you this evening, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

Sharon, thank you so much for that presentation and the amount

of tremendous work that has gone into this project by you, by Brian, by your team. You guys did a fabulous job. Thank you for bringing us this night. One of the things worth mentioning again is that winter also came in,

with a schedule of eight weeks ahead of the original schedule.

And so if approved by the council tonight,

this parking deck will be delivered to the residents of Roswell

in thirteen months and ten days on May the fourth of twenty twenty six. It will be full it will be ready to roll.

Lots to talk about, I'm sure. Any thoughts, comments, or questions from counsel

for sharing?

Jeff, are you doing your presentation now at this juncture? Yeah. Whenever you're ready. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff, are you gonna save me from having to make the long reading that I did last night? You're my very very best. Alright.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you don't know this, this is our other senior vice president, mister Jeff Leatherman.

Thank you, sir. And thank you again for the opportunity to talk a little bit about, parking and parking policy, here in our downtown district as well as,

beyond the city of Roswell and had the opportunity to to share

a similar presentation yesterday. And, just wanna open up with some some commentary about how hard we have been working and how excited I am to be working alongside of Brian and Sharon,

with this parking deck as as I have the opportunity now to lead the economic development team.

We recognize that parking

is part of our strategy and part of our strategy within the city of Roswell and, of course, in our strategy,

in the downtown area.

In a couple of slides, I'll be more specific about, our parking policies that relates to our budget. But I wanted to cover from a high level perspective,

really, the economic,

development conversation that surrounds parking,

in our downtown, but also lead into where we're headed to in the future.

You know, the city of Roswell continues to grow, continues to evolve. We also have the challenge of aging commercial stock within our community.

We have the challenge of turning,

Grayfield Development, which you see kind of in my fourth bullet point, which is older

aged,

stock of commercial property that is ready to turn and be redeveloped into something new,

into something new. And that is the work of our economic development team and our economic development strategy.

As we've talked a number of times, we have our downtown strategy, which is really focused around the Canton Street area, our downtown historic district, obviously, our midtown strategy, our uptown and East Side.

All of those areas will have some component of

parking related to it. And the reason is is as we redevelop Grayfield,

we don't have green space in the city of Roswell. There are very few properties left where you can just buy up large vast of land and put put surface parking in and put the storm water that you need. We have the challenge of infrastructure redevelopment,

and that causes great constraint on transportation

projects, on stormwater projects,

and on parking. And parking

is not a new tool that we use in our economic development strategy. It's a tool that is evolving.

The original tool that we used here in the downtown district was a tool in our zoning code to essentially eliminate or minimize

the number of parking spaces that individual businesses were required to use. That was a tool that we put forward as an economic development strategy to spur

redevelopment

of some of our older properties

right here behind us on Canton Street.

And what a great idea because it has worked. That has led us to the conversation that Sharon just presented on is a need for a parking deck is that we have seen such tremendous growth and acceleration

in our downtown corridor

that parking has become a challenge.

And so while we created an economic development tool of minimizing or eliminating the need for parking, we created a challenge and an opportunity that we needed to solve for, and building a 395

space parking deck is the solution to that.

And as we think about redevelopment, we didn't want to continue to make the same mistakes. And so we are incorporating,

parking and parking strategies into our overall

macro and microeconomic

development strategy.

A well managed parking strategy supports local businesses,

reduces congestion, and improves visitor experiences. And this is what we're working on on behalf of the businesses

and the community

throughout the entire city of Roswell. We have the pleasure of talking about Green Street today, but we are also thinking about what's happening in our midtown, what's happening on the East Side, and we will be developing and deploying parking strategy that supports businesses all over the city of Roswell.

We are focused on creating in a vibrant, well visited economic development centers,

and that goes beyond the downtown district. That is around our entire city. So you will be hearing more of our parking strategy moving forward.

As we talk about downtown,

when we adopted the fiscal year twenty five budget, we talked about parking revenue

and the idea of using our on street and surface street parking as a way

to support and manage local businesses by charging for parking, helping to turn parking spaces over that are close to the front doors of our businesses,

helping to transition customers in and around our community.

And in hearing feedback from the council, the council has asked us to slow that conversation down and be more intentional about the conversation here in and around our downtown area. And I'll give you about seven bullet points in the next few slides that will start to outline that strategy

over the course of the next couple of months. But we have to be thinking about what's coming next. And as part of the conversation that we'll be having with the community, both individually and as groups, is we have the Hill Street development.

That is coming on our doorstep, really, just to the left of me here on Hill Street, that will continue to grow economic development opportunities in our community and bring more people and bring more cars and have a need for more parking, which will be part of our strategy as we think about the West Alley Hotel

creating more density and more opportunities for economic development growth, but we're also going to have to address the parking strategy that those new projects bring to our downtown and Canton Street area. And we will be doing that alongside with a future developer of that property as we move forward. Chambray Hotel, also next Southern Post, will continue to have those parking opportunities

that we'll need to solve for. And so while the Green Street parking addresses problems and opportunities that we see now, we wanna be looking down the road in the future that this isn't just a one opportunity, a one and done, and we get to move on and recognize the great work that we've done. We have to continue to refine and redevelop our strategy both from a parking and business support alongside of our economic development strategy.

So 2025,

we'll be embarking on implementing community business and feedback opportunities. This is out in our community of the downtown district,

understanding

what opportunities and constraints parking and parking management will bring to them. We have thirteen months and ten days until the parking deck opens.

Happens to be my wife's birthday, so we'll come down and we'll celebrate on Canton Street on her birthday, May 4. It'll be fantastic.

And but in the meantime, we will be having conversations with, with our community members on what kinds of opportunities

and problems do they see with our parking plan in the downtown corridor and really engaging in that one on one group conversation

of what solutions they're looking for and how we best solve it. We will continue, and I wanna make this clear, the only places that we will continue to charge for parking is the existing locations. We've been doing this since 02/2019,

Canton Street, Elizabeth Way, and East Alley. We have those three locations

right around 80 parking spaces that we do charge for. We will be increasing and improving, I will say, our enforcement of those spaces. Right now, we don't do a tremendous amount of enforcement. In fact, none.

And we wanna be able to support our businesses

by turning those parking spaces over, making sure that the the the parking is available for our customers in our highest dense downtown area.

City staff will research and recommend options for identifying residents versus nonresidents using our park using parking technology. And this is a dialogue and a conversation that came out of our leadership retreat, but also was amongst ourselves and from the community of how do we distinguish residents versus nonresidents.

There are future policy decisions that you all will have to deliberate on. Our job will be to bring technology solutions that you can consider in those policy decisions over the course of the next few months so that as we think about the technology that's going to the parking deck, but also future areas, how do we deploy the right technology for the right solutions that you all are looking for

from a policy perspective?

Also be using that recommended technology at Old Mill Park. We have a significant challenge of just,

a high you know, think about downtown in Kansas Street, high visitation. Old Mill Park has the same challenges where you have a lot of people that wanna come and celebrate

Old Mill Park, experience it, whether it be at the waterfall visually

or in the hiking trails, and that has an impact in and around the neighborhood, in and around the community. And so we wanna use the same parking technology solutions that we're developing for the downtown area at Old Mill Park, and we will start to include

Old Mill Park and some of our policies that we will bring forward here in April as we begin to evolve the authority that we need for enforcement, which I'll touch on next. Number five,

parking ordinances to allow for enforcement at existing parking locations. And I will reiterate again, that is only for three locations, now four with Old Mill Park, but we wanna include Old Mill Park for the authority that we need for enforcement.

Kansas Street, Elizabeth Way, and East Alley. We are not using City Hall in this model. We're not using Mimosa. We're not using the old Wells Fargo lot. We're not using the gravel lot at Green Street. We are focused just on the areas that are currently signed in our downtown area as have been signed since 02/2019.

I was out on East Alley today, working on some odor issues with our businesses,

but we really do wanna transition East Alley into a pedestrian,

friendly experience. You know, Cello's redevelopment,

successful restaurant, have a tremendous amount of people that are transitioning in East Alley,

using that corridor as a transportation,

walking, biking, and even driving path.

But we've got some work to do back there. We've got some work on parking that we need to do. There's a lot of illegal parking, parkings that's blocking dumpsters. And so we'll be working with the business community and some of our employees that are working down in those areas to really,

address some of the illegal parking areas so that we can create a pedestrian friendly corridor

down that space. And that will be through a lot of conversations, as as I said earlier. We wanna be working with our business community

on the right solutions.

And then we wanna introduce the downtown ambassador program. We may include shuttles, that can move people around the corridor, but this is an opportunity to really learn from our community how they're using the downtown, what we can learn from them from a public outreach perspective, and how we best manage parking

moving forward. Because as I said earlier, we're going to see impacts of our future redevelopment. Hill Street, how are we transitioning people from our Hill Street development into the downtown quarter on Canton Street? How are we going to accommodate people coming from the Chambray Hotel to Southern Post across to the parking deck and then also onto Canton Street? So a lot of movement of pedestrians around our corridor, and our ambassador program will seek to help inform us and, by extension, the council on future policy and potentially transportation

improvements that we can make in and around our corridor.

I know we talked a little quite a bit. I'm gonna stop there for a moment,

and talk a little bit about budget.

There was a lot of conversation around $2,200,000

of revenue in our budget,

for the parking services that we expected to collect.

With the policies and the direction that we've had from council that I just outlined of slowing our implementation down, we've re reforecasted

our budget. We anticipate about a $1,000,000

shortfall in our budget projections from the original 02/2002.

That includes decreasing our overall cost and expenditures of operating a parking business in the downtown area.

And we'll be working with our finance team. We'll be looking at revenues over the course of the next, remainder of the year as well as modifying our expenses to accommodate that $1,000,000,

that we need to make up in our budget.

It's very common for us. You know, we forecast our budget. Generally, we start budget work about three or four months before the end or the beginning, excuse me, of the fiscal year, And then we're constantly evaluating and monitoring our budget progress throughout the year, and we'll continue to do that to make sure that we're delivering a budget that is balanced at the end of the year, as part of our overall strategy.

This is just a final summary of our city ordinance changes that we'll be proposing to bring forward.

Really, we're revising the on street parking ordinance to include Old Mill Park.

Also, the future of Hill Street, if we need to. We're still evaluating kind of what needs to happen there. We probably can delay that component a little bit until we have clarity on the final project.

Revise, parking fee schedule to include Old Mill Park and revise the resolution to authorize enforcement

for the existing paid parking locations. Again, we'll be bringing those resolutions forward,

and or just changes in April.

They will be focused on our existing parking locations,

and we'll continue the dialogue with our community as well. Of course, if I forgot anything that we talked about, of course, with the mayor read yesterday,

fire away with any questions. But thanks again for allowing me to give that background and feedback.

Jeff and Sharon, thank you. Excellent job, obviously, to both of you. It's hard to give you enough praise for the tremendous amount of work you guys have done and your teams have done.

I'll turn it over to council for any thoughts, comments, or questions.

Councilor Marcelles?

Thank you, mayor.

Jeff, you know, I I would suggest any anybody who's really interested to go back and watch yesterday's conversations

around this issue, but I would like to highlight a couple of things that we talked about yesterday, if I could.

We talked about the gray fields and the fact that we are,

a victim of our success, I think, were your words yesterday

in the downtown area where we used

a change in a ordinance,

to allow

growth economically, and now we're having to catch up with that from a parking perspective. And we talked about how we are

intentionally

making these kinds of questions a part of our development strategy, the meetings that you and I and several people are in on every Tuesday morning to talk about this. This is sort of central to that. So let's talk a little bit about that,

just for the benefit of the crowd here and for for,

those who watch.

Let's talk about how we are focused on making that a part of the process as we look for places. And in particular,

as as we said yesterday,

every piece of ground in Roswell is owned by somebody who's not the city, generally speaking, except for those that, you know, where where we sit in our parks.

So as we look to develop things, we are finding opportunities and bringing them together with with

particular locations, and that's that's the that's the heavy lift of the gray fields. So talk a little bit about how we're doing that. You know, we look at kind of our overall economic development strategy. You've got kind of the origination.

You know, what's the idea? What's the the manifestation of our vision for economic development and redevelopment in our community?

And and the gray field redevelopment is a significant component of that, and it's tremendously challenging. I think as council members,

Sells has said, you know, we're not developing our own property. We're out working with landowners and developers,

and they've got a they've got a vote. As you often say that they have a balance sheet. They have the opportunity to leverage their current property, how they're doing. They're generally making money on that property through its occupancy.

And redevelopment of that property comes at a cost. And, you know, when you take a property that's 30 or 40 or 50 years old and try to bring it up to today's standard, there's a tremendous cost associated with that. You've got to bring it up to the standards with stormwater, to transportation, and to others. And as you start to constrain that property,

as we've talked about relatively limited property here in the city of Roswell, roughly 18% of our property is available for commercial development and redevelopment.

Some of that has already been redeveloped it, and some of it is doing great and performing well, and some of it needs to go under a change.

And as you as you take all of those factors in play, the city can come in as a partner, and we've got some tools that we use.

We've got tools like,

impact fees that we can either change or waive. We've got tools like taxes that we could potentially modify or change in order to spur incentivize

development moving forward.

But we've never leveraged a tool like parking.

We've kind of given it away, which is similar to what we've done down here in the downtown area, where we gave the opportunity away for people to essentially just not have to build parking and let's see what happens. And we're modifying and changing that strategy to say, well, parking can be a part of this puzzle, but we shouldn't be giving it away at the cost of our taxpayers or the cost of a project. We need to think a little bit more strategically about how we would leverage a parking asset to work on behalf of a project or on behalf of the taxpayers.

That goes alongside of calculations of, okay, if you're gonna give and take on property tax and you're going to potentially bring some parking strategy into a a deal making structure,

you have to look at the holistic financial model

to understand,

does it make sense for both the city of Roswell? Does it make sense for the long term strategy? And does it make sense for our taxpayers?

All of that is baked into the work that we're doing on a regular basis with all of the projects that we're looking at. And sometimes,

you know, it takes work. It takes time to really find the right model of what works for a property owner, what works for the city, what works for the long term viability of the taxpayers,

and that future return on investment.

And no one deal is the same. And that's the challenge is properties are always a little bit different. The size of a property is different. The deal structure is always a little bit different. And so you're literally remaking the entire deal structure for every single project that you're working kind

of

strategy of what will work over here on this side is for sure gonna work on this side. No. You basically start from scratch, and you have to build that entire deal structure

from scratch because the circumstances,

the property, everything is different.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, you know,

in investment banking, there's the scatter shot approach where you're going after many, many targets

and you hope to hit some percentage of those. In our what we're doing here, these are each one a rifle shot. They have to be specifically one and and we have to win the unwinnable deals. Would you talk briefly about the work that you guys have built into the system

to evaluate the revenue opportunities and to think, as you said, holistically, sort of just

modeling from the beginning before we get into a project and qualifying capital. Can you talk just briefly about that, if you don't mind? One of the biggest takeaways that we had from our parking study,

spent some time, with our consultant, CO World, really looking at the downtown parking area. And one of the deliverables that we had from that parking study was a parking model,

a true transactional

model that we can manipulate,

as a city

to understand

what the return on investment is from a debt service perspective, but also from a charge for service or a not charge for service perspective.

So we truly understand what the financial implications of the decisions are that we're making. We have started to develop that same model across all of our operations as we think about economic development. So we take not only parking, but then we also take our, tax incentive model. We also take our future tax revenue model and build that financial calculus into all the deal structures that we're evaluating

to understand

what's the long term viability and what's the opportunities that we can create if we give on one hand what do we need to make up on the other hand in order to make a deal viable for the residents and for our community?

And sometimes that's the long term approach.

Not always do we expect a deal to pencil in year one and year two and year three. We've gotta think about year five and year six and year seven to understand as we see growth in our community, do we think that this will continue to grow and develop over time?

And are we willing to take some of the risk for the right projects within our community? And the financial analysis and the fiscal analysis allows us to do that in a very educated way so that we can predict what we believe to be the models and the outcome in the future. We're also building that based on our real world experience. We have a tremendous amount of information on, you know, what type of revenue we collect from different types of commercial

businesses already in our community, and that helps us set the baseline

for our predictive models moving forward. I I just wanna say to the residents of Roswell, this is this is really a new discipline, and I'm really, really pleased to see it. We're at the beginning of the flywheel on this, in my view. You guys have started to build

a good database of all of the tax,

results for each property, so we understand those and how they interplay and what happens if we do this or do that. And that is a new day and I'm really, really pleased to see that happen. It's good stewardship,

you know, and,

really it's it's done well and you guys are starting to get better and better at it and this project has been a result of that. I appreciate that. Well, Ellen, what you talk about is it's good governance.

And one of the things, the distinctions that I am very proud and gratified by this elected leadership,

by the leadership team under mister Knighton,

is there's been a very, very,

precipitous

and intentional,

design

and understanding

on the economic development side,

that you have to be very, very intentional and specific about what you want in economic development and about what you don't want. And then you have to bring disciplines about that to bring logic to it

so that you can actually have a process

that you can put a map on

and then build out a strategy that's gonna work in the long term. Short term as well and long term. Because often there's a misnomer

because people say, I want economic development.

You don't want all economic development.

You want specific kinds of economic development that are gonna work for your community. And that is very, very important when you talk about the structure of this great city of Roswell,

particularly when you have a model of a 100,000 people, basically.

And you have 44 square miles,

and 65%

of those square miles are taken up by single family homes.

And we have a tremendous amount of gray field development in our city with legacy land ownership. Peter talked about this in his presentation

a year ago.

And so you have to you know, the model that we've committed

to, that we believe is in the best interest of this city in the short term, in the midterm, in the long term, and this all goes into it, and this park and deck's a part of it,

is that we believe in a 120,000

model. It is the backbone

of our economic strategy. That's a very, very difficult thing to pull off. It's easy to go out and say, look, we're gonna build towards 250,000

people. That's an easy thing to do.

However, we do not believe that that's a wise course

because we believe not only would that impact the infrastructure, impact the quality of life, and ultimately would affect values on the commercial and individual property side. So we've grown on a very specific intentional strategy,

basic with what we call the 120,000

population model over twenty years.

And how do you do that and still have dynamic

and change agent kind of growth in your city? And that's what this strategy is focused around.

So not all economic development is good.

It has to be very intentional, very specific.

And the other thing that this team has gotten very integrated into is understanding the structure of the deals from beginning and vetting deals.

Too often in the past,

and

and often municipal governments and county governments and state governments

jump at economic development deals without understanding the full cost

to the taxpayers

and often get, if you'll forgive the language, taken to the cleaners.

And one of the things that this team under mister Knighton has done and this elected leadership team has done,

is they've gotten very, very,

very, very skilled

and thoughtful about understanding that every deal does stand on its own.

It has to be viable, and it has to be good for the city, not just for the short term, but for the long term. And you guys have brought real discipline to this process, and I'm incredibly proud and gratified with you of you guys. So thank you for what you've done. And that's a huge change, and most municipal governments don't participate in that kind of discipline. It's very hard to do.

So I spoke too too long. Are there other council members like to address Jeff or Sharon?

Council member Markland.

Very nicely done.

Same question for senior vice president

Aizo that we touched on last night. Can you give some examples when it comes to the builder or contractor

of other

parking garages, parking decks that they've completed, and if those municipalities

got a fine quality project at the end of the day?

Thank you. Yeah.

So they recently just completed the City Of Woodstock parking deck. So I'll talk about that one because, I would imagine

a number of us have been up there and, certainly a number of folks from from the city have been.

That deck,

was completed

in

December, I believe.

That's that's my other phone, a friend right there,

from Winter Construction who's here this evening.

We had an opportunity

to go up and visit with the, folks from City of Woodstock on Friday.

We very much wanted to make sure that the City of Woodstock,

could could could have an opportunity to share with us what their experience was with winter, and we also wanted to see their deck.

We got a very, very good report card on, winter from the city of Woodstock.

They shared with us that the, Winter team was very accommodating. They had some special requests that they needed to make during the course of the project, and I anticipate that we too will have some special requests, and they were very complimentary of their team.

They were also very complimentary

of the gentleman who was the superintendent.

Those of us involved in construction know that superintendents are critical

to,

to the experience, and, he got very, very high marks,

from Woodstock. And I also understand that Winter intends to assign him right here in Roswell, so we're excited about that.

I think he will work very hard to,

get to know our business owners and the residents down there,

making sure that they know who to reach out to.

They can obviously

always reach out to us, but I think that there's a commitment on Winter's part to,

be a very good neighbor

to,

to our our residents and our businesses in our downtown area.

They've already begun thinking through their delivery of those giant,

concrete LEGO pieces.

And we talked a little bit with Woodstock about that, about some of the challenges they had, and they were,

there's always gonna be challenges in construction. You can't anticipate everything.

And, you have to have a good team that has good communication and can work together, and they were very complimentary

of the winter team. Felt good that they had anticipated the the issue and worked very well,

with city staff and the police department there to make sure that those deliveries got in without overly inconveniencing,

folks in Woodstock. So,

they have a beautiful deck. They, gave us some advice, which was fantastic. I always like the lessons learned.

They were very open and and have established an open line of communication with us, and we actually are going to be meeting with them in a few weeks to talk about some of, their technology and and what they think is working and potentially isn't.

So very exciting. Very exciting. Good report card there.

Thanks, Sharon.

Council member pro Pro Tem and council member Hills. Thank you, mayor.

Senior vice president, Izzo, if you'll hang tight for a second. But, first, senior vice president Leatherman, I wanna say thank you again,

for last night's,

dissertation and explanation, which I loved, and again this evening. So I think that's really beneficial for our residents and future visitors, for Roswell to what to expect.

Also for,

putting in the spotlight the, ability for this body to be nimble,

with what we knew and what we were looking at during the budget season and how we were gonna approach parking as far as income and,

input,

expenses,

and how we've been able to change that as we've looked at several things, a lot of things,

certainly through you all. But, making that clear that,

we are able to

as I say, sometimes it's it's a sexy thing to make a decision right away, and it's also sexy to be able to change things as we learn more,

and how that will benefit or impact our residents and visitors. So thank you for that specifically in addition to all the other.

Back to senior vice vice president Izzo.

I I had mentioned last night, and I'll say it again because I think it's real time and very human. I had folks after the bonds were passed passed specifically,

the 20,000,000

for this parking deck,

that was November of twenty two and then say February, March. I know I had two encounters, two two people in one and one in another. There could have been others. But around March,

the following year, so

four months later, say to me, oh my gosh. We passed the bond. We've paid for the parking deck. Why are we not able to park over here? And, I think that's real. I think that's very human and very normal to say those kind of things. And,

now knowing what I know, you know, two years later,

that that's painful.

I feel like we've been, you know, biting a stick, again, being nimble and making changes and not delivering a half baked one off one thing,

in in respect to a parking deck, but also incorporating that into our green street on renovation and and

rehabilitation, I should say. But that whole project to, save some money in the long run, but also make sure that that all coalesces together wonderfully. So thank you for that, and, we're we're ready. I'm ready to park in the parking deck. Question, though. In the pictures last night, I went home and was able to marinate a little bit. I didn't take I didn't have these, but these renderings show the three levels. Correct? That's right. Okay. And then when we're talking about the fourth level to add, 45 or so, additional spaces for a half,

that's is that uncovered?

That's right. That's right. So we'll basically see this. Could you can you explain what,

possibilities

might be when when we're talking about adding an another half deck?

How will that impact the view when we have people coming in? And I'm thinking about scale and height and what that looks like, what people are used to seeing right now on that lot, and then what this will will be this will be obvious.

But how that will look? Will the Fourth Level

be another imposing level? Are those parking places centralized on the upper? And then you may not be able to explain that specifically.

We haven't seen the renderings on that, and, obviously,

we haven't done the design either. Sure.

So you're you're right to ask the questions. These renderings you're looking at were for the base deck.

So they there will be some additional height there, and the parapets will be higher than

but but I do wanna note that all of this fits within our existing code.

It is it we are not exceeding and asking for variances, so it does work that way as far as fitting within the scale of what's permitted in this area.

But you're right. The renderings themselves are gonna look a little different because we're going to add some additional height,

for that additional fourth level.

But it does fit very nicely within the deck,

and and we certainly can work on getting some some renderings,

of that,

for you. Right. Thank you very much. Thanks for all your hard work.

Thank you, Lee.

Any other counsel?

Thank you so much, counsel.

I'll now ask if any Roswell residents would like to weigh in on this particular issue.

Yes, sir. Jason Yao, long time resident.

Known to all of us. Welcome, Jason. Glad to have you here. Former candidate for mayor, we're always glad to have your perspective.

Well,

I'll try not to be too much of a skunk at the garden party then.

I've never liked this location for a parking deck because it

is further from the main strip of restaurants

than both municipal lot, which is free, and the

parking at RUMC,

which again is free. So you're gonna have paid parking competing with free parking,

and you don't have the advantage of proximity.

That said,

did you consider

an automated parking garage as

opposed to a conventional parking deck?

No?

Do you have any comments, Jason, on that? Happy to hear them. Well, I I heard that

I've been looking to see how many spaces there were gonna be, and I think I heard Jeff say 395.

Is that correct? Yes, sir. That's correct. So with $15,000,000,

it puts you at a construction cost of about $38,000

per parking space, which is 41, just to be precise. High for a conventional parking deck.

And, you know, it

Actually,

Jason, it's pretty low.

You you you you could for for not that much more, you could go automated parking. And it's automated parking tax are are safer. But,

the money that you're spending, it

I I don't know

what the the task was to

make it look

like,

you know,

is there a new brand for Roswell? Because I thought our brand was history,

but it looks like

finality might be the new brand because the HEP Building

looks like

public housing or or prison.

It

has no nod whatsoever

to any kind of historical context.

You you you effectively have $10,000,000

for site acquisition, $15,000,000

for

the,

construction. So you're gonna be at $25,000,000.

You've got a $20,000,000

bond. Where is the other $5,000,000

coming from? And where are the financial projections

that

show how

revenue is gonna be generated to pay for this? And if you're gonna convert it to a revenue bond,

you you certainly gonna need that. And

I don't think residents are gonna be happy to have another $5,000,000

going into this project,

especially when they see what it looks like.

It's

not going to be

well received

by the people of Roswell. They're gonna look at that and they're gonna go,

$15,000,000

for this?

It it it occupies such a conspicuous

place,

and it banality

is the only

operative word to describe it. That's the kindest thing you can say about that design.

And

I just

don't understand why so much money is being spent to put

an ugly building

that is so prominent

in its location,

but so

nonfunctional

in its location

for the purpose that it's being

constructed.

It it just

I appreciate that you need to have a parking policy,

but this isn't the execution

that

I had expected

in any way, shape, or form. If you've done an automated parking garage, you could have had a much more compact,

building wrapped with other uses because you don't have to worry about ventilating

the interior of an automated parking garage.

You would have more economic development

to support

the auto the the parking garage. But this is just,

you know,

out

in the middle of nowhere relative to where the demand for parking is, and yet

really

in the face

of the traffic that drives by. And it's not going to be

a well received project by the people of Roswell or or people who come here to,

to visit. It it doesn't build on the brand. It detracts from the brand.

I'm I'm sorry. I don't have more positive comments

for me, but

that's that's what I have to say. Thank you. Jason, as always, thank you. We really appreciate your feedback and your comments, and thank you for taking your time to come today. Thank you, sir.

Just for clarity,

to anybody who's listening,

the taxpayers will not be asked to spend $5,000,000

extra,

than above the $20,000,000. It's $20,000,000 general obligation bond that was passed in November of twenty twenty two, and that is the money that is allocated towards this parking deck. So,

not to dispute mister Yao's

math, but

it's $20,000,000 for the bond, and that's what the city will spend to build this parking deck.

Any other yes, sir. Miss mister Scott Long, longtime resident as well. Welcome, Scott. Always glad to see you too.

Oh, I'm excited about this.

Does the projector work by any chance? Is that something that's easy to get

This

is from

this is from November

1994,

and it's an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution,

basically, citing Tenth Street

businesses

stating that that,

lack of parking

causing them harm.

Thirty years 1994

that seems like just a few years ago

in kind of math of our age, but

it was,

more than thirty years ago. It was

the year after. And when I moved to Roswell,

bought our first house. And

since then, we've moved into two different houses since then. We've had

I was when we moved to Roswell. We've since had three kids. All three have

graduated from Roswell Schools, moved out, empty nesters. We even have a grandchild now. So

this

problem has been known by

everybody

to the point that we've gone from

newlyweds to grandparents.

It's been going along for so long.

And, but yet in the past, basically, two and a half years, three years, y'all have gone from zero to 100

and,

bought land and have a great plan and everything. So

I just wanted to, you know there's there's,

that's a huge accomplishment. I'm excited about it. It's a lot to be proud of, all seven of y'all plus,

whoever

on the council when the bond got courageously put up there in front of the president. So thanks for all your work, and,

look forward to parking the new deck. Scott, thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Thank you. We really we do really appreciate those comments very much. Thank you.

Other Roswell residents who'd like to speak on the parking deck?

I really appreciate just both Jason and Scott coming. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

I bring it back to council. Council member Johnson?

I saw mister Long walk in and had a piece of paper in his hand. I was pretty sure he was gonna show that 1994

newspaper article.

And the reason why we voted on the land to buy that we did, and the reason why we put the plan for Green Street in that we did, so that my kids

are not waiting, you know, that they don't have to run for city council to get a parking deck. So, you know, it,

I I won't talk about sidewalks. We're

working on that. But,

we're getting there. My, my point of this is it took a lot of leadership,

political hits to,

you know, buy the land that we did.

This is not a half baked project as you said last night.

Green Street's coming along.

Mister Littlefield's got some work to do on that. And I'm you know,

a comment I wanna put out and forgive me. I I should've looked this up before I came here, but I came straight from the hospital.

I've you know, I go to Avalon a lot. I park in the Avalon Parking Deck, and the distance from

not said Avalon. I meant Downtown Alpharetta. Forgive me. This is from Downtown Alpharetta's parking deck that we park at to the little green

field that they have because that's where my kids go and run around, get soaking wet in a fountain,

is

nearly the same from where this parking deck is to Canton Street.

Right? It's all about how you,

perceive it, if that makes sense. So I think, this deck is in the best economic location for the maximum,

usage, maximum efficiency for parking.

The ingress, egress when we get it all built will be incredible,

and then the pedestrian safety element will be great. So,

Sharon,

mister Watson, thank you

for your leadership on this, and I'm really excited to get this,

going. And let me know when the Lego pieces are coming in because I I'm gonna bring my kids and what let them watch it. So Any any love for Jeff?

Yeah. Any other council members?

Christine?

Just excited that it's finally here.

We've talked about it for so long. Thank you for all your I mean, it's

it's been it's been a labor to get this done, and and we know that. We thank everybody that's been involved from the city staff level. I mean, it's it's incredible. Very exciting. Thank you.

Sarah?

Okay. Alright.

Council member sales. One more quick thing. I'd like I said, go back and listen to last night. I would I'd like to shout out again,

you know, in honor of of,

director Watson's incredible Jedi mind powers. May

'26

be with

you. Any any other thoughts, comments from counsel? I'll just say one thing. Just having been in this business this government business for

now almost four years

and giving coming across a lot of different things.

And I really have to give,

Peter Surkov,

a tremendous,

amount of credit as well as part of the team.

Because Peter really raised the stakes

on

making this making it clear in terms of the process

that this was much more than just a parking deck.

And,

I I think that I think the vast majority of our residents and visitors alike are gonna be incredibly tickled by this parking deck. And,

there may be some who disagree with that, and that's part of a republic and a democracy where we disagree with one another. But I think that the I think this parking deck will stand the test of time

very successfully.

It'll be part of the successful economic development plan of the city.

And I think and I would contrast it to where I have seen some other municipal and county parking decks put in across the country.

And one of the things that Sorcough did such a good job was is saying, look, remember, this is not just a parking deck. It's not just about a parking deck. And that has been part of the planning and process

really from the beginning,

and really transitioning in really early 'twenty three,

when Peter got involved in the equation. So he too deserves a lot of credit for a lot of this,

I think, is going to be a wonderful parking deck for the city.

So I thank you team for your amazing work. Thank you, mister Knighton, and all of the city government team. You guys have done an amazing job.

Bill, we won't bring you up tonight to talk about budgets and all. I think you're gonna do that on April, and we look forward to that.

And you can talk about the dynamic nature of budgets and and how they work.

With that being said,

councilor sales, would you like to make a motion, sir? I would, mayor. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the award of the contract to winter Construction for the Green Street parking deck in the amount of

$14,485,600

and a budget amendment

b a three one six one five six five three dash o three dash 27 dash 25

in the amount of $500,000.

Thank you, council member Sales. Do I have a second?

Seconded by council member Hills.

All those in favor of the approval of this particular item just brought forward by council member sales, please raise your hands.

Let the record show that the vote from the city council of Roswell is unanimous,

and it is approved, and congratulations.

Alright.

The last item on the agenda oh,

yeah. I got

it. Sorry. Sorry about that. My bad. I'm sorry.

Last item on the agenda is under transportation.

Council member Johnson, would you read the item, please, sir? Yes. This is approval to award a construction contract for the Hardest Scrabble Road multi use trail project to SOL Construction LLC in the amount of $2,377,648.77

with a budget

authorization

of $2,000,497.640

$2,497,648.77.

Thank you,

council member Johnson.

Jeff, I guess you're gonna hear to Director Littlefield, you're here to present the items, sir, aren't you? Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

Welcome, mayor and council. Welcome to you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, yeah. The Hardscrouble

Road multi use trail project will construct an eight to 10 foot multi use trail on the North Side Of Hardscrouble

from Whittingham Place to King Road.

We are gonna work with the contractor to extend from Whittington Road to the Target parking lot as we showed last night at committee.

The invitation to bid also included an ad alternate to construct an eight foot multi use trail on the West Side of King Road from the northernmost public driveway to the Hardscrabble Road.

We received six bids submitted by the deadline on 03/20/2025.

City of Roswell Department of Transportation

staff completed a review and recommended awarding the contract to SOL Construction,

who was the apparent lowest responsive bidder

at $2,377,648.77

with a budget authorization

up to $2,497,648.77.

This budget allocation encompasses a 5% contingency

and and is aimed at facilitating

the successful completion of the project.

The bid consists of $1,921,931.17

for the Hardscrabble Road Trail construction.

$177,244

for the waterline improvements to be reimbursed by Fulton County through an IGA,

and $278,473.60

for the ad alternate on King Road.

Total funding in the amount of $2,497,648.77

is available for hardscrabble multi use trail project.

The funding breakdown

is

1,855,000

from the bicycle and pedestrian sidewalk 2023

bond project.

There's $465,404.77

from the sidewalk connectivity fund.

And then a $177,244

is reimbursable

by the city or by the county of Fulton.

Staff recommends awarding a construction contract for Hardscriber Road multi use trail to SOL construction in the amount of $2,497,648.77.

Thank you, director Littlefield.

Any count comments, questions from counsel?

I know you guys talked about it quite a bit last night, how excited you were. Your excitement gone tonight.

Can't remember how

this

this is

a a great project, and I mentioned this last night. So anybody that wants to feel hear the full blown, you can do that online. But I'd had been at a, ribbon cutting at Roswell High School for the roundabout at Hard Scrabble eight or nine years ago, and, council members Palermo and Zapata,

were there. And I approached them, and they asked me in the in the exchange what I would do in the in Roswell or in the area, at that time if I had the power. And I said, well, I would fix some of the things right here around Roswell High School just with the congestion that both,

folks

involved at Roswell High School, including kids, and the people that pass through there. So it's pretty exciting to see this come to fruition.

The other thing is that they're again, regarding Roswell High School and neighbors right there, we have cross country kids running all the time on that shoulder, and

a lot of harrowing events have taken place with either the sunlight or kids running, and you got stragglers here and there, some are out in front, some are behind.

This, I believe, will make it much more safe, and,

I commend director Littlefield for his working with neighbors right there on hardscrabble,

in protecting established properties so that folks can continue to enjoy their personal property while this construction goes on and is completed,

as far as established bushes and trees, fences, and that sort of thing, coming up with some,

creative and legitimate ways to make the project move forward and, and not compromise our residents right there. So

congratulations

to everybody over in that corridor. Can't wait to see that happen. And, again, this is nine nine months ish. Yes. Nine months. And coming to this meeting, we're three months ahead of schedule as far

as setting up the pre construction meeting to get the contract moving forward. That's awesome. So the first of the year, we'll be rolling. Yeah. Yeah. Three

weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks or three months? Three weeks ahead. Three weeks ahead. Three weeks ahead. Jeff, do you have at the April 14, but There you go. I'm in here. Jeff, do you have a a just a schematic up there to show everybody what what it looks like? Because it's so cool and so people know what's where this is going.

It's pretty big deal.

That's a bridge. That's amazing.

That's not a 120 gold in the beginning.

Yes, ma'am. Councilor Beeson. I'll just reiterate my comments from last night as well. So I I he's he's about to show you the schematic. I grew up literally right behind where this project is going to be. Shocks me that there has never been a sidewalk over there, given the fact that it goes directly into, one of the larger it one of the two high schools in Roswell, which is huge. You can see right there, there's Roswell High School, the white building roof.

And it connects also one of the larger shopping centers,

in this portion of Roswell.

So you have and also one of the largest neighborhoods in Roswell. So between the largest neighborhood,

a huge high school,

as well as, one of the larger,

shopping centers. This is huge for pedestrian connectivity, but mostly for safety, especially for our kids who do walk that stretch, especially after school. They're either walking to their after school job in that shopping center. They're walking to the LA Fitness to go work out,

or they're walking to just be able to go hang out in the shopping center itself without having to walk on a shoulder of the road. So very excited about this connectivity there. It's it's well past due and very needed.

Thank you so much, Sarah. Let me say thank you to you, counsel. I know you I know you haven't voted on it yet,

but thank you.

This is this touches this is my my neighborhood.

This is way past due, Sarah, as you just mentioned.

And, Lee, as you mentioned, it's a real safety peril for people.

So let me just say you, as a resident of that neighborhood,

thank you to each of you. Jeff,

thank you to you and your team for pursuing this and making this happen. So I'm personally very gratified and excited about this. So thank you so much, sir.

Any other comments from council? Alright. I'll ask if there any Roswell residents who'd like to weigh in on this particular matter.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you being here. I bring it back, council. Any final comments before I ask for a motion from council member Johnson? Council member Hills.

One quick last thing. Director Littlefield, will you just run back through the blue line on here, where on on King Road, will you run down through the, maybe timeline and and or,

order of events Yes. As that continues out? That The blue line, we intend on, starting construction after school is out, so during the summer

to avoid all of the conflicts with the student traffic and things like that. Plus, it gives them a longer construction time.

Once we have the preconstruction

meeting, we'll have a better idea of what the,

contractor,

how they plan on attacking this project. There are some utility conflicts that we have to work around, but there's large segments between King Road

and Whittingham Place that can get underway

while the utility companies are relocating.

Thank you. And then we you all have just your department has just,

completed everything south of the blue line down to Highway 92 and that whole intersection there in preparation of continuing south. Will you just elaborate on that? Woodstock Phase 1, which will go from 92

to Crabapple Middle School will be under construction later this year.

And then following that will be, Woodstock Phase 2, which will go from Crabapple all the way to Canton Street. So there'll be a continuous path

all the way basically from the Target Parking lot all the way to Canton Street. When's that Woodstock to Canton Street phase two? When does that happen? Fate we're in the right of way phase now and utility phase, so it would be

at the earliest late this year, but phase one will be coming before you for construction

probably

all Awesome. Beginning fall. And, Jeff, just for clarity, so we let everybody know.

So this, eight this is gonna be primarily a 10 foot multiuse trail. It will go eight feet when you when you get when you have to do it eight feet, but it's gonna be 10 feet most of the way. When do you start on this?

We'll know for sure a definitive date as soon as we have the preconstruction meeting, which after this meeting and if it passes,

then we will get in touch with the contractor to set up that meeting, and then we'll know what their

plan is to and how they wanna attack it given that they're gonna do the King Road portion during the summer

and working around the utilities. But it should start within the next month, month and a half, I would assume. And when would you expect people to be able to start using it?

Nine months after the notice to proceed. Okay. So sometime early next year. Yes. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. And and I'll just add personal note. I have friends that live just north of, Roswell High School, and I have driven over there, parked my car, and walked down to Canton Street and back many times to either shop or eat, and, and and it's an easy walk. It takes a little bit of time. You gotta commit, but it is an easy walk, and, there are plenty of walkers already on this this corridor. This is a huge network that I'm super proud that is on the way,

and I think it's gonna be a real game changer for folks North Of Highway 92 to be able to traverse across 92 safely, but also, with the provisions that are already in place right now. But just having wider space, we've got a lot of young families moving in,

that'll have young kids and have enough room to walk a couple of rest instead of single file on the existing

sidewalk. So super excited. It's doable, and I expect to see a lot more people on foot and bike, utilizing that soon. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Excited. Thank you, Lee, so much. If there are no other comments from council,

council member Johnson, would you like to make a motion, sir? Yes, sir.

This is a motion for approval to award a construction contract for the Hardscrabble Road multi use trail project to SOL Construction LLC in the amount of two million three hundred seventy seven thousand six hundred and forty eight dollars and seventy seven cents with a budget authorization of $2,497,648.77.

Thank you so much, Cameron Johnson. Customer Johnson,

Lee, I'm seeing that you wanna second this? Thank you so much. Alright. Motion is made by councilman Johnson, second by council member Hills.

All in favor of passing this motion, please raise your hands to show that you're in favor. Thank you so much. Let the record show that the vote is unanimous, six nothing, and the motion passes. The the item passes.

Congratulations to the city of Roswell. Congratulations to my neighborhood.

Congratulations to the elected council. Thank you so much, director Littlefield.

Alright. I don't know, council. We've got good news for you because I've got to ask seat chief legal officer

David Davidson now to see if he's got anything.

Thank you, mayor. I do have a recommendation for closure to discuss

personnel real estate litigation.

My apologies.

Do I have a motion for closure? I think he makes that David's fault.

So

we have to motion it. Right? But you really tell you. Motion. Yeah.

Yeah. Alright. Is there a motion for closure? Motion for closure by Councilman Johnson seconded? Seconded by

seconded by councilor herself. That may be a first.

All those in favor of closure, please signify by raising your hands. Let the record show that the vote the motion for closure passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Being that there are no other items, this mayor and city council meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much.