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Sorry, we took up all the pods. Right Take it away. You ready? You guys ready? Yes, for you, Gretchen. All right, so the city of Pelham is excited to announce and the city council signed *** resolution last night to approve the purchase of the Live Nation property from Live Nation. It's the property, it's 43 acres, the property from Oak Mountain Amphitheater, but also along the creek, and then also the property that affronts 119. So we're very excited about what this is gonna do for our entertainment district in Pelham, we think it's *** great location. Obviously right off the 65, 1 of the reasons why the city wanted to purchase this property is because Live Nation had *** plan to turn this into residential area, and this is *** key piece of property for Pelham. And so rather than letting that happen, our council, Mayor Waters and Michael Simon, our director of economic development and our team got together and said, what do, what does Pelham need? What do we want? So by purchasing the property, we will have control of the property, which is very important and we realize that the significance of having uh an entertainment district like this at this location. And will eventually put out *** request for proposals and that's the process we're gonna use for the development so Mayor Waters and I are here to answer your questions um I know you've been waiting *** long time to for us to talk about this subject, and we have been waiting *** long time. So what questions do you have for us? Greg, why tear it down? Is there *** contractual agreement with Live Nation that they don't want it competing with the new amphitheater perhaps that's being built? Why tear it down if you've already got this amazing venue that's been in place for what, for 4 years? So no matter who Live Nation was going to sell it to, part of that agreement was that it would be torn down. So that's *** decision that Live Nation made. Yes, so you have no control over that. No, would it be your preference? Would it remain? I think that having *** venue that people come to only in the summertime versus being able to expand an entertainment district where people can come 12 months out of the year and then where families can come. And where you can have *** plethora of activities and places for people to go is very strong economically for Pelham. Now I know we're in the early stages of this, but are we looking at kind of keeping this property local serving, you know, local entertainers, local events for the city of Pelham, or is this something we might want to invite people from outside the city into to enjoy also? Are you talking about as far as the entertainment? I, I think that we would work with the Pelham Art and Entertainment Group to be able to work with, uh, the, the new businesses that come in and really create *** vision for what they want it to be and and we won't be limited. I mean we're not gonna have national musical acts performing acts that are gonna come. I, I do think, and, and we've talked about this, Mayor, I, I think having the amphitheater, I know that there's *** lot of uh disgruntled fear, uh, that the amphitheater is gonna be in Birmingham. I think we can all recognize that being uh being this close to Birmingham and being part of the Birming the Greater Birmingham area, we all need Birmingham to be successful and so Birmingham's success. Helps all of us. So do you wanna, did you wanna comment on that? Well, the, the acquisition of this property is, is essential to the viability of our civic complex. *** lot of people don't realize that from the beginning this Pelham Civic Complex shared *** parking lot with with Oak Mountain Amphitheater. So we have to have the parking lot for our, our civic complex to be *** viable entertainment, uh. Venue. So, uh, that changes everything. So we really had no choice but to acquire this property for that reason and that reason only. How does the city plan to pay for this, the 5.3% and will some city services take *** back seat in order to, to make this purchase? No, we had the money our council has been over the years, all of the councils in in Pelham have been very conservative and been very good about putting away money into unrestricted reserves so we're able to make *** cash purchase. Has the city ran any numbers to figure out how much film stands to benefit economically from this? Well, we do know that it'll be stronger economically for us than having the amphitheater. How are you planning to attract more businesses to the area now that y'all are looking to develop an entertainment district? Well, I believe that having the entertainment district, so we have this vision of an entertainment district where families can come, where people can be active and engaged with the city 12 months out of the year, and we believe that when we put out the request for proposals, I love the way that the mayor said it last night. I think you said that we're only hampered by our imagination. So in our creativity and the wonderful creativity that we have in the development world in the greater Birmingham area and and frankly in this whole state so I think having the right vision and having the. Right person or persons who come and share that vision and take it and develop something that's going to be just central for the region and for Pelham. I don't, I don't think that it's gonna I don't if it's well planned. I don't think it's gonna be difficult to to get the kind of businesses that we want in Pelham and also to benefit the existing businesses in Pelham. Can you talk more *** little bit about the timeline? I know you talked about next steps, so when can we start to see things come underway? When can folks to expect this entertainment district to be ready and to enjoy? Well, we have to get through the closing first, and we're slated right now to close at the end of June, so the, the demolition. is to take place by the middle of June and then once that's cleared, we have 5 days I believe to 5 days to close after the demolition is complete, so we don't expect the closing to be any earlier than the end of June. The capacity of the amphitheater was what 10,500? Are you limited in any way from building another entertainment venue with that many seats? Yes, we, we would not be able to build *** competing venue, but we're not interested in building an amphitheater of 10,000 seats or 8000 seats or 4000 seats. We're interested in building restaurants and spaces together and other types of entertainment and. Retail we're we're really not interested in in constructing an amphitheater. We we we can have *** community stage yes *** stage is I think pretty typical in entertainment entertainment areas and arts and entertainment districts they're they're pretty common in the districts now and I certainly think that we're we're not at all restricted from doing that and we see that as being *** central part to. The open area in the district. Do we plan on opening up to residents? Maybe they have some ideas, you know, maybe, um, they come to council and share their ideas. Are they gonna play any involvement? Absolutely. Matter of fact, when Gretchen came to us some 8 years ago, she took the guesswork out of what the people want by feeling and last night if you'd been here at council meeting, you'd see that she actually gave the council *** briefing on the latest citizen satisfaction survey that simply gives them ***, *** way to tell us what they want. And uh we've always included them on what they want their tax dollars to fund and do and that we'll continue to do that. Do we have any idea what that survey says, or is that still to come? Oh no, the, the citizens survey, I, uh went over it last night, the results, but. Our residents want more parks, open space, places to bring families, family friendly businesses, walking, walking trails, more restaurants, so that that's, that's sort of the top just top lining of of what they're interested in which actually it works hand in hand with Plan Pelham, which is our comprehensive plan which we updated in 2019 so. They're they've been very consistent our residents have about what kind of businesses they want here in Pelham. When did you guys, you said you've been working on this decision for quite some time now, you've been in the works for some time, so this came before or after Birmingham had announced their partnership with Flag Nation in that amphitheater is something we've always kind of. No, we, we did not, we did not know that this was going that that *** Live Nation was going to make this announcement about the amphitheater. Certainly when they did make the announcement we did not have any information we had the, the same information that you had which was very conflicting. You know, uh, we're gonna close, we're not gonna close, we're gonna stay open we're investing in the property, so we were no more informed than the rest of the public and when they came to us and talked about putting in residential in that area which would of course have have had to be rezoned. By the council that would have had to be approved. We really saw our opportunity to jump right on that and say, you know, take control and create and and really think about what could be here and, and be able to again purchasing it is really the only way the city can have control. How will the new development integrate with nearby projects at Can and Creekside? Yeah, great question. We have been in before we made the announcement we were uh in conversations with the owners and developers of the canopy and also Creekside and it is important to us to ensure that whatever comes. Definitely we're looking at holistically and not trying to compete with the canopy and not trying to compete with Creekside and we know that both of those developers are excited they're interested and this goes for uh you know we have some some great. Restaurants along 119 and we want to get everybody involved to to really show and bring uh I use the word holistic but I think not competing with each other and making sure that it's organized and it's cohesive. Will this connect with the Campus 124 district? It does. The campus 124 is part of the district and if you. It it's gonna be developed, uh, better that right now if you go up behind campus uh up behind the canopy you come out at the traffic light at at 31, which is directly across from campus 124. Yes. What would you say to the business owners that um we've talked to in the past that were concerned about the closing that were concerned about the impact it would have on their business because of the amazing amount of foot traffic they would have during the warmer months. Well, I would say that, uh, you know, I'm, I'm proud of Pelham in that as long as the Mountain *** Theater has been here we've supported it and we've also supported the businesses that relied on it for *** seasonal income and they, they, they have *** lot of faith in us that we're gonna plan this out thoroughly to their advantage and I, I feel we can do that. The Oak Mountain Amphitheater has been *** cultural staple for decades. What do you want the legacy of this project, whatever it is to be in the coming years? The legacy of Oak Mountain Amphitheater, the legacy of this project, yes, so. ***, this would be the time for me to share my story of getting kicked out of *** concert. No? OK. I won't, I won't mention that, so. The legacy, I, I think it's, I think it's akin to turning *** page, uh, you know, uh, the experts will tell you that *** generation is approximately 25 years and we've had *** generation of, of entertainment and support by amphitheater, but now we're moving on to new possibilities and it's very exciting. I think just to add to that, you know, we have Oak Mountain State Park here and so that exit in this city is already *** place where families and individuals, couples, multi-generations of, of families have come to Pelham to enjoy what it is we have to offer and I just think this really enhances that. And you can't discount the proximity to Oak Mountain State Park and that will be *** consideration as we develop this project. For those that may not be familiar with all that you do have to offer, can you talk about the entertainment venues that exist right now with the amphitheater going away? What's currently in place that would be *** part of this entertainment district? So currently we have the business in Campus 124, so there are restaurants, *** brewery. We also have *** couple of there's uh. *** pool, *** place to play pool and we're getting an indoor golf, uh, uh, business over there which is exciting and then there's also *** new park in the back of Campus 124 if you haven't seen that and then over the canopy we have Taco Mac and then we're getting *** big bad breakfast we have. How the cycles I don't know it was interesting. uh, Justin Smith and I went over there *** couple of went over to talk them back to the to the back, uh, the, the back kind of area there. They opened up the garage doors and they have this area where kids are, are, you know, rolling down the hill and just playing and. And I think we got there at about 5:15 we were gonna go over some things from the week and my husband arrived at 6 and by 6 o'clock that place was crawling with young families and kids were all over that area so it it's so good to see and we just need, we need more of that we need more opportunities like that. Are there any stages where there's concerts in that area? No, there are no stages over there. Do you plan to incorporate some type of stage or entertainment venue where acts could come and perform as part of this new entertainment district? We're planning on we would like to see *** community stage now we haven't put the RFP together and we've got some time, but I, I expect that to be *** part of it. Yes, and when we get it, we'll share it with you. Can you just one more time kind of go over initial plans with. Demolishing the current building. What are we, you know, I know you talked about *** community stage could possibly be coming, but what do we know for sure is really gonna come in that area just one more time. Well, we don't know for sure we know the vision that we have and so as we put together the aspects of the RFP, what we're gonna be putting in there is open space is an entertainment area. It's going to be we want restaurants we want we want businesses that bring people in and give them *** reason to stay 12 months out of the year. It goes All right, thanks for coming out today. Yes, um, I'm Gretchen, G R E T C H E N DeFonti, D I F like Frank, *** N T E, and I'm the city manager and Gary with one R G *** R Y Waters plural is the mayor. Thank you.