Invited Guests/Presenters:
Jim Wachtel, Dickens & Associates
Tammie Beer, Dickens & Associates

Audience Attendance:
Valarie Whitney Daytona Beach News Journal
Michael J. Porter A1/CII
Evelyn Fine Mid-Florida Research
Sharon Mock Daytona Beach Area
Convention Bureau
Palm Plaza Beachside
Gary Brown Sun Viking Lodge
Bob Davis Hotel/Motel Association of Volusia County
Connie Sanders Daytona USA/Int’l Speedway
Chris Fagan Ramada Inn Speedway
Big John Volusia County Councilman
Chad Smith Ocean Center

1. CALL TO ORDER

Board Chairman Dwight D. Lewis called the TDC Board Meeting to Order at 10:15 a.m. With the exception of Steve McGuire, all Board Members were present.

1. APPROVAL OF MINUTES AS MAILED

Minutes for the September 15, 2001, TDC Board Meeting were unanimously approved by Board Members upon the Motion of Jim Bazemore and Seconded by Gilly Aguiar.

MR. LEWIS – Before we begin the presentation by Mr. Jim Wachtel, on the development concepts that we discussed, I have a couple of things that I wanted to comment on. One of the things is that, …I’m sure you all recognize this but I didn’t want this opportunity to go by without saying it.

We’re really in a privileged country to be able to meet and do the things that we do and work together in this atmosphere. Whether we agree or disagree, we shouldn’t ever take that for granted; and I know that you don’t. But I just wanted to say that we are very privileged and we have a great country , that we can meet and discuss our future and plans for economic development in this area and our communities. I don’t want us to ever forget that.

Also, I know that many of you saw in the newspapers some things that I had said when called by reporters as to what I thought about moving forward, or not moving forward, and I want to assure you that I am in full support of the expansion. That doesn’t mean that I think that we should go forward without being able to pay for it, and we will get into that discussion, but I want you to know that I am in full support of the expansion of this Ocean Center.

I got a call the day after the September 11^th World Trade Center episode, and was asked what we were going to do about this. I made a comment at that time, which was in the newspaper, that I thought until we knew where we were and what we were doing, that we would not be moving forward; and I still stick by that…that’s my opinion.

I think that we still should continue to meet, there’s no reason we can’t meet if we have something to meet about. Just to meet and do nothing would be kind of foolish and a waste of everybody’s time, but I think there’s no reason not to look at the design and do the preliminary work that we need to do prior to moving forward to doing anything else. I did get an e-mail from Gary Brown and received a letter from Bob Davis of the Hotel/Motel Association, supporting the expansion, supporting moving forward; and I was glad to get both of those…and to see that you guys were on-board and do support what’s going on. Because I’m sure when we get down to the brass tacks, you guys will be involved in helping to pay for that.

I do think that we would be foolish to think that things are normal, because they are not normal. We’re at a time when bombing is taking place today, we’re looking at anthrax scares, so, I think that events that are still ongoing before us are things that we must take into consideration. I’m sure that we will take them into consideration.

Frank (Gummey) was telling me something this morning that he heard on the radio— of course, I don’t know if you read it or hear it whether it makes it true, but it’s something I thought was very interesting. Would you share this with the group Frank:

FRANK GUMMEY – I was listening to National Public Radio this morning and it was said that the City of Anaheim (CA) has been put on credit watch by Standard and Poors, because of drop in their resort tax revenue.

MR. LEWIS – Anyhow, I’m sure this is something that I’m sure until we have some sort of track record and see where we are, that it’s something we should keep focused on.

Audience Question:

Big John, Volusia County Councilman

What does that mean?

FRANK GUMMEY – It means that they are going to look with care at any new debt issues and to monitor the revenues to see about their abilities to satisfy their existing debt..

Big John – Didn’t New York City almost go bankrupt a few years ago?

FRANK GUMMEY – Yes. Two decades ago.

MR. LEWIS – Does anybody else have any enlightened discussion? …

TOM STAED – I have a comment I’d like to make. We read things into things, but this Ocean Center project of which a bunch of people go way back in it; we dreamed of this area being changed. We scraped together money and professional study, the County was included, and we had a lot of three and four dollar contributions. It was a long time ago. You may not remember how this area looked back then when we started, but I do. The studies said that we needed a lot of things to make it all work. And, if you look around we’ve got most of them. The Ocean Center is not perfect, but boy it sure has worked for a long time.

The Adams Mark, the Ocean Walk Tower, the commercial section which has just begun, the new tower in sight for them, Adventure Landing, the parking garage and now the Adams Mark addition that’s coming along. A proper addition to the Ocean Center, to me, is a must do kind of thing. I totally agree that we must do it incredibly carefully. First, we have to let the dust settle, then, we’ve got to finance it with great creativity. But I think that we absolutely must complete this project and to do what we promised all of the people that made huge investments in this community and in this area; that is to finish the thing. I think that if the addition is properly designed to do the things it needs to do, is an absolute must for this community. It doesn’t have to be done tomorrow or in 3 or 4 months, but we need to do it, we need to be bold about it. We need to be very cautious, very careful, and think through all the possibilities, but we need an addition to this place to be able to accommodate larger exhibits primarily and larger meetings is a secondary part of that business.

So, I hope that we all will keep our minds and hearts open so that we can build that proper addition. It seems to me that there is a way to do it, there is no set way we must finance the thing. But I think that we can’t afford to abandon another piece of this thing that makes the whole thing work. I don’t want to see us get that type of mentality.

I think Daytona tourism is going to be stronger then we may believe. I think the drive market that we have always enjoyed and always sort of fussed about is very resilient and the drive market, when I first started in this business, went all the way up to New York and Michigan and all kinds of people drove from Canada. They will start back doing that until they feel very comfortable in the air.

I see nothing but a bright future for Daytona Beach and I don’t want to get anybody started early on, before we go through this project to figure out how to finance it., to say that we’re not going to do our ever loving best to build it.

MR. LEWIS – I agree with you. That was one of the reasons I started with the comments I made. I think this is positive and we need to move that way.

JIM BAZEMORE – Both Tom (Staed) and I were here when they broke the ground. I concur a hundred percent with what he just said, because our glass is not half empty, it’s half full.

MR. LEWIS – Before we move to Jim’s (Wachtel) presentation on concepts, I’d like to introduce Bob Mills, he’s with the Ocean Center now.

MR. HAMILTON – Bob is my new Assistant for Finance and Administration, so we’ve got an accountant and numbers guy back. He’s replacing Mike Ulrich, so hopefully that’s advantageous to us all and he will be the person you can call about numbers now.

Introduction of Jim Wachtel and Tammie Beer

Jim Wachtel introduces Tammie Beer from Dickens & Associates. Copies of presentation are passed out.

Jim Wachtel:

As we begin the expansion, the first question that comes up is "what do we need in this expansion, what do we hope to get out of this?" The Ocean Center and the County have had several studies already that attempted to define those: the C.H. Johnson Report and there was a budget estimate made by W.M. Squared, earlier this year. So, that’s our starting point. We have started by making the assumption that those are the numbers we are going for. I think that the Council and the Ocean Center and the community at-large need to continually look at those numbers and ask "do we need 145,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space. Or, do we want 100,000 or 200,000…," that should be your ongoing discussion. But, for this study, we have assumed those are the numbers that we are going to go for. We haven’t attempted to modify those numbers at all

The second question is "where do we put it and how do we get it on here?" There are other questions here that will have to be answered in the future, once we decide which way we want to go, and it’s a long process in determining this, but hopefully this is the first step in doing it.

As far as what we need, the Johnson Report, tabulations are shown on the 2^nd page, basically came up with 145,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space an additional 20,000 sq. ft., plus or minus, meeting rooms and a 30,000 sq. ft. ballroom. They tabulated these numbers, however, they did not put in a certain factor for other things that are needed within the operation of a convention center (i.e., storage, utility space, free function space).

The W.M. Squared budgetary estimates of May, actually did include those numbers. And I have identified those in a little more organized fashion, if you will, but the spread sheet that I’ve called Exhibit I, correlates with the numbers that were used by W.M. Squared on their cost estimates.

C.H. Johnson said we need about 195,000 sq. ft. That was in net usable square footage. And in order to get to that point and make that a functional building, we need to add in all these other spaces. The total really comes out in the 300,000 to 320,000 sq. ft. range. So that’s the number we have to plan for, as we actually try to put this building on the site.

The second thing that nobody has really discussed and it’s one of those issues that

you have to take an arrow in the forehead. You have to attack your problem, rather than run away from it. This is the parking problem. In dealing with the zoning and code people at the City Daytona Beach, asking how many parking places will be required for this facility, the initial indication I received was one car for every 50 square feet. And, I think this is quite a lot and I think this is a worst case scenario. But, without being able to balance off the studies and know exactly what we’re going to have to have, this is the number that I have used.

With the expansion and with the existing lot that we are taking up, we are going to have to find a place for about 4,000 cars. The existing parking lot, the new parking garage that we put in holds 1,500 cars. So we will need three times that amount for this expansion facility. As we expand, we must put this in.

Now, I say that’s a worst case scenario because it doesn’t take in the consideration the diversification factor of when you have a convention, you don’t have the exhibit rooms filled and the meeting rooms filled and the ballrooms filled. You have a lot of other diversification. And I think it will take a long negotiating process with the community and with the City to actually determine how many parking spaces we actually put in. So, I haven’t really tried to say that, we need this number of parking spaces, but we’ve identified where those garages or those facilities can go.

In addition to the parking, we all know that we must have certain site amenities that we want, as far as landscaping, as far as walkways, things that the City Code will make us do and that we want to do. We don’t want to build the building right up to the site. We can’t do that anymore, so there’s a certain amount of site that we have to take up in walkways, amenities, landscaping, utilities, and that sort of thing. I put that in at a factor of about 10% of whatever the final building comes out. So, we’ve got another 31,000 sq. ft. of land that comes on to this. Those are accurately the numbers that I think we need to be looking at in order to figure out how to sit this expansion in place.

MR. BAZEMORE – In other words Phase 1, 2, and 3, is the total amount on the left hand column, right? This, as you can see is 145,000 exhibition space, but you’re telling us that Phase 1 will be 72,000 and Phase 3 will be another 72,000, is that correct?

JIM WACHTEL PRESENTATION:

That’s correct. That was the way that, first of all, C.H. Johnson broke down the process and then W.M. Squared in the budgeting broke it down into those 3 Phase. So we just built upon their work rather than reinventing that wheel.

Presentation and Discussion of Scheme 1 – One Building Concept

This is the SITE Plan of the existing Ocean Center with the Adventure Landing, the

Parking garage, the Peabody and the two lots immediately to the West, and the Main Street area. As you can see, we basically have residential space all around us, so this is the existing fabric that we all know. What we’ve done is come up with a number of Schemes of how this space, the actual 300,000 sq. ft. can fit onto the site.

Scheme 1 shows this totally as one building. The C.H. Johnson report showed several different ideas (i.e., a single building, a campus concept, 2-story concept). What we’ve shown here is depicted this amount of square footage in a single building that’s on the site of the two parking lots in the back. We’ve included an entry lobby that ties the existing arena and facility together with the new expansion. This will be consistent throughout all the Schemes that you see. That’s one thing that the Council has said very definitely, that we want this tied to the existing building.

Presentation and Discussion of Scheme 2 – One Building Concept

Through a central entry lobby, you go into the main arena, the ballroom or the exhibition space, with a loading and utility area immediately to the north, and a storage area somewhere in here (location on the Scheme Chart). Again it shows the bulk square footage of how that would fit on the site. And you can see how tight it is on the site. It goes all the way to the sidewalk and leaves no room for much landscaping, except a few redtips, maybe here or there. So this will be very, very tight, and, it will probably not be able to fit on the site the way it is. It’s one story. So we have several other Schemes.

This is the two-story Scheme. If we can’t fit all of this square footage on the site in one story, how else can we put it on? Well, one opportunity is a two-story scheme, again with the central entry lobby, a space for vertical circulation, be it elevators, escalators, stairs, or a combination of all three at this point.

On the first floor, we have exhibition space and meeting rooms and then we have the loading and storage area. On the second floor, we put the ballrooms, the kitchen and bathrooms. Meeting rooms could go up there, at that point, but the ballrooms and kitchen is a larger block of space, so I elected to take that off the first floor and it can be a central area by itself. Conventioneers are going to meeting rooms and exhibit space pretty much consistently, so I kept those together on the first floor. So we were able to move that amount of square footage up to the second floor and here is the outline of the first floor space below.

Again, you can see how much site space we have gained on the first floor, by taking that out of the first floor foot print. It gives us more room for loading, it gives us more room for landscaping and exterior access through here (as depicted on the Chart).

LORI-CAMPBELL BAKER – I’m looking at that and in the first one it looks like you’ve taken up most of the second parking lot; and on the second floor plan it looks like its all within the first parking lot, am I wrong?

Jim Wachtel:

The second floor…, this line is the outline of the first floor…

LORI-CAMPBELL BAKER – So the second floor doesn’t have to go over the complete…

Jim Wachtel:

It doesn’t have to go over the complete parking lot. Only a portion.

LORI-CAMPBELL BAKER – I’m asking will we still lose the parking?

Jim Wachtel:

That’s correct. This is a about 50,000 to 60,000 square feet, where we have probably 200,000 square feet on the first floor in exhibition space. So, it doesn’t cover the entire first floor.

GILLY AGIIAR - You can’t really tell there…but, does it still take Wild Olive?

Jim Wachtel:

Yes, it does. That’s an assumption, and Oleander is gone. This is assuming that our site comes all the way to North Hollywood. This Scheme is getting it all in there using two story’s.

I know how much everybody hates the Campus Concept, however, it does seem reasonable to think there are some functions that we can move possibly to this piece of property that the Ocean Center has control of, part of it at least at this point, onto the South side. So, we’ve shown and the ballroom and the kitchen and that function over here (as depicted on the Chart) as a separate building, the exhibition space and meeting rooms are still tied with the entry lobby to the main Ocean Center. And, through a covered walkway or some other device of that nature, be able to attach the ballroom building to the convention building, if you will. All of these allow for individual use of one function without using the other function.

JIM BAZEMORE – Do we have all this property right now, or do we have to acquire some more?

Jim Wachtel:

I believe not…

MR. HAMILTON – We still have to acquire some more Mr. Bazemore.

LORI-CAMPBELL BAKER – What is on that property?

MR. HAMILTON – Houses and apartments.

GILLY AGUIAR – How much, percentage wise, do we own?…

MR. HAMILTON – We have about 70% of it.

GILLY AGUIAR – Jim, is that some kind of cover walkway there, or is that going to be a walk over?

Jim Wachtel:

That’s a covered walkway. So, we would have to cross the traffic in here.

JIM BAZEMORE – They will have to go through traffic?

Jim Wachtel:

On Auditorium. If you’re going from the meeting room building to the ballroom building, yes, you will have to go across Auditorium.

JIM BAZEMORE – Could you go up and span Auditorium?

Jim Wachtel:

Sure, you could do that.

MR. HAMILTON – Or close Auditorium.

Jim Wachtel:

A lot of these, and we will get to this at the end, we must think more than just these areas. We have to think of this whole Main Street to Seabreeze corridor and how we are using this. The traffic along Auditorium right now is minimal. And, one of the investigations we should look at is, how we could make it even less, or even eliminate it all together.

GILLY AGUIAR – Jim, do you have any dollar figures on the rough drafts of these Schemes?…

Jim Wachtel:

No. All of them at the same square footage, I’ll say are roughly the same costs. Obviously, you have more cost in vertical circulation for one then you would for another one, and there would be different costs for things like exterior walls here verses another. But no, we haven’t gotten into the costs on any of these.

GILLY AGUIAR – But, theoretically, with that being a two story would be quite cheaper than expanding across the street, not even including the land cost. Correct?

Jim Wachtel:

Potentially. But, I mean you’ve got elevators, escalators, you have a two story lobby…you have other costs that don’t come into a one story concept. Support structures, stairs…

CHRISTINA TRAVIS – When we get further down the road, I’d like for you to request a traffic study of the area during different times of the year, because we have a lot of congestion the way it is now. And, if we continue to close off streets, it will become more of a bottleneck, so eventually we need to get traffic studies.

Jim Wachtel:

Absolutely.

GILLY AGUIAR – I kind of think that if we went to close Auditorium, that would be the headwaters. I think the other two are no problem. But, I think if you start closing the East, West, like Chris (Travis) just said, with the bottlenecks…and that’s the back way the locals take, I think.

Jim Wachtel:

But then, there is another way to do it to…Scheme 4.

Now, this assumes that we take the building and go across Hollywood. We go West of Hollywood. This particular piece of property, or this entire parceled area, is not under the control of the Ocean Center. At this point, it is in a transitional phase. Many residents are moving out. Here, we have storage and a lot of things are going on. So, that is more vulnerable than some of the areas to the North. We have assumed and projected that maybe we can go that way, and extend this (depicted on Chart) out and make it a more linear function with a central corridor coming through; a big open exhibition space, the ballrooms and meeting rooms up front, again, still on the central lobby area.

JIM BAZEMORE – How far, if you came in on Atlantic and started walking, how far would you have to go to the other end of the building?

Jim Wachtel:

I don’t know, it’s probably about 2 or 3,000 feet, or 600 yards.

JIM BAZEMORE – It’s a country mile, I’ll bet.

LORI-CAMPBELL BAKER – I was thinking that too because I was at the Orlando Convention Center two weeks ago, and I walked forever. All I could think of was if you were in a wheelchair or walker or something, it would be nearly impossible. So, there’s no great solution to the walk is there.

MR. HAMILTON – To get into the building to the lobby area, will be no further than it is now to get into the arena.

Jim Wachtel:

This is the existing ticket booth and back entrance. So the lobby…

JIM BAZEMORE – The bottom line is that you are moving the main entrance to the center, right?

Jim Wachtel:

That’s correct. This still functions as to whatever we want it to function, as with the tramway and the ballrooms and meeting rooms up in here (depicted on Chart). However, as far as the entry into the convention center, which is here, it stays at exactly the same spot.

And you’re right, it is a long way. We parked in the parking garage today and had to walk all the way around and then up to get in. You are right, it is something that needs to be carefully addressed.

Now, we have these blocks of space and these architectures, they are not buildings yet, just blocks of space and they show how that much square footage to fit on the site and the ramifications. The next step that we go through in the planning and design process is putting this together into some kind of design. If we assume for the moment, that we will have a main entry lobby here (depicted on Chart), and closing off Wild Olive, what we do is create a traffic turnaround at each point, so people can come and stop and drop off any passengers. The tramway can then come, bringing people from Main Street, up to this area, and we come into the building at this point.

In Scheme 4, we show ballrooms here. So the ballrooms are over here and we have a covered walkway, so that as you turn and drop people off, or they come from the garage, they come directly into the ballroom. Or, from the entry lobby at the central point.

The meeting rooms are on the other side. In that we have a covered walkway, people will be able to access the meeting rooms from outside, or, from inside. We have strategically placed rest rooms and mechanical rooms that can function and work for the whole thing. We’ve put in a kitchen and we have an exhibit space back here (depicted on the Chart) with a corridor that comes back. The corridor goes all the way through. You can rent that out as two different conventions, or have three different functions concurrently, or can open this up totally into one huge exhibit space.

These exhibit spaces are accessible from the outside, so that you do not have to penetrate to the inside on all of these areas. You can go from the exhibit rooms into the meeting rooms or into the ballrooms. On the back side, you have the storage, mechanical, and bathrooms, all inter-functioning within the exhibit space.

Then you have a loading area back here (depicted on Chart) where the trucks will back in off Peninsula. They are staged at this area, staging here, taking garbage out and coming back out on Peninsula. Now, you have a building that works! It functions in here with people coming from Main Street, and you have your sidewalk plaza’s. This, then, becomes a focal point:, be it a fountain, or sculpture, or flagpoles or landscaping that direct you into this area. At this point, you start to tie this together all the way across. Obviously, this Scheme is my favorite.

We can turn this into a piece of architecture that works well with the existing building. If you were to take the main lobby and, maybe have a two-story space on top of that glass---not glass, but something else. Then it becomes a real focal point all the way from Main Street, and all the way from the north area, down where you can see it. You will be attracted to this area.

JIM BAZEMORE – How good is the sound proofing in rooms that size? I have been to some conventions where next door there was a band playing and I could not hear anything.

Jim Wachtel:

Well, obviously bands playing are a little tough. It depends upon the quality of the moveable walls that you install. You can spend a whole lot of money on those walls. It may be that we will not put them all together, rather, put a separate corridor space between them. I think we can isolate the ballrooms from the meeting rooms acoustically, easily enough.

MR. HAMILTON – Jim, I want to make sure that everyone understands that what you did thereon the South side, also happens on the North side. That opens up the turnaround, the corridor to Seabreeze; it connects to Adventure Landing, the parking garage, and it really puts the Ocean Center in the center of the overall development area with access from all points.

When Jim first bought this concept for my review and comment, I was very skeptical about it. Then as I looked at it, it really opens up a tremendous amount of development potential between the Ocean Center and Main Street, and the Ocean Center and Seabreeze; because a lot of those are somewhat blighted residential areas. In light of this, I have reconsidered and we are now on the same page. He made the sell to me and I really think it works.

GILLY AGUIAR - Jim, on that back end, when you get into this kind of square footage, are we looking at extensive space. Is there enough room back there for the trucks to go in an out? That is a critical factor, because people will need access to the loading docks to get set up. Will we have enough room to do that?

Jim Wachtel:

We have over 500 linear feet here that could accommodate 10 loading berths at a time…all sort of on a one-way path. And, there is enough depth here to really allow them to pull back and keep their circulation path in the front. Even without a lot of planning to it at this point, I’d say that we do have enough space.

JIM BAZEMORE – We all agree that we need more exhibition space. Based on what you have in this Scheme, how much additional exhibition space would be added?

Jim Wachtel:

145,000 square feet. Exactly what the C.H. Johnson Report said.

The last question in the study that I included is what impact will this make? Obviously, an additional 300,000 square feet will make a lot of impact…and when you’re trying to assign 3,000 – 4,000 cars, that will make a tremendous impact.

I think we need to look at the whole area from Main Street, at least that far, if not further South, and all the way up to Seabreeze. As you expand the convention center out to the West, you have an existing garage here (depicted on the Chart). And, there is a purported planned garage here for the Adam’s Mark and the Boardwalk Development.

These two lots could, potentially, be parking garages. I think that this city needs to…if it hasn’t been stated in public before, I’ll state it for the first time…we need to make Peninsula one way North and Halifax one way South. In my opinion, to have those two little roads being two way in this crowded residential area, hampers the development of this entire area.

So, if you make Peninsula one way North and Halifax one way South, you will have access into the garages from this side (depicted on the Chart), come back out and go in either direction. You leave this strip as residential or development type of properties and the river. You zone this and you start working as a retail entertainment area between Adventure Landing and North of the convention center, as you do towards Main Street. Now, as you are developing Main Street and the commercial activities going on here, you have a natural corridor coming next to the Peabody, right up to the convention center, into parking garages, and extend that the way you’re going here (depicted on the Chart).

If you have a convention center that looks like this, and 10 years from now you need more convention space and ask where to put it, you can simply flip the design and you put more exhibition space here (depicted on the Chart). At this point, you can double it again and you are basically into a retail area which then expands further. I think his plan, first of all, can expand within the next 5 years to give you the kind of conventions you want, but also it will allow future expansion. We all know that roads are needed and as they are opened they are too crowded. It could happen here to.

JIM BAZEMORE – Jim at this point, its Phase One that I assume we want to finance first, what will that consist of?

Jim Wachtel:

I don’t know.

We have to have 72,000 square feet of exhibition space and maybe some meeting space. Perhaps the ballroom will go into Phase One. I think we have to look at the numbers, look at the needs in more detail, and see exactly what will be done in Phase One. From there, we go on to Phase Two, and so on.

JIM BAZEMORE – In other words, we have to cut our suit with the amount of cloth we have available…that’s money.

Jim Wachtel:

I think a couple of things must happen before we take the next step. First, is to identify exactly what is wanted in Phase One, and how much it will cost. We must go through a full programming effort that says you need this much utility space, this kind of flooring, these type offices, and these type facilities.

We need to do a traffic analysis of how all this is working now and project how it will work in the future. We need to work with the City Planning Department to see what impact will be made down the road, and make sure we’re all on the same page as far as what’s going to happen 10 years from now. We want to be sure not to get caught behind the eight ball if expansion is required.

GILLY AGUIAR - Jim, the way you’ve drawn out Scheme 4, is that 72,000 where you’ve got convention and exhibit space?

Jim Wachtel:

We can make 72,000 square feet right in here (depicted on the Chart), plus the ballrooms and some of the meeting rooms, and leave some of the expansion and storage off.

GILLY AGUIAR – So, this would give us the 72,000 plus the ballrooms and meeting rooms. I don’t think we should skimp on the meeting room space because you need to have the break-out sessions. And, we don’t want to start discussing the money thing at this point. First, let’s see what we need and then figure out how, and if we can do it. But, that gives us 72,000 in that building, right?

Jim Wachtel:

That’s correct.

GILLY AGUIAR – Now those wings that you’ve drawn out there, will that be up above the retail, or would you be looking at trying to close those streets off at that point? Because, in Phase Three we would still need another 70,000 square feet, correct?

Jim Wachtel:

Correct..

What I drew here, just in this slot, is the full Phase Three build-out. So, it’s 145,000 square feet of exhibition space and everything that was shown here (as depicted on the Chart). But if you need more than that, if you go beyond Phase Three ten years from now, where do you expand that?

GILLY AGUIAR – If we did it like that with the loading at the back, you would conceivably have to build it all now, correct?

Jim Wachtel:

No.

You could build a part of the loading and the exhibition, and leave off the part here (as depicted on the Chart).

GILLY AGUIAR – But aesthetically, that would look pretty bad.

Jim Wachtel:

Well, it could be parking, or it could be some other loading. At this point, I don’t know.

Unfortunately, our airport is not doing very well. It doesn’t have a lot of flights. But, the airport was placed at a point where it could expand another 4 gates. There’s 6 gates there now, and it can go up to another 6 gates without changing much of any thing. The same kind of thought has to be given here, as far as expansion. Orlando is seeing that now with the expansion of their convention center. It is going to be a nightmare when that phase is done.

GILLY AGUIAR – Well that’s something I’d like to see us take into consideration... what are we going to have to take back down, like exterior walls and so forth. Maybe we should consider putting a loading dock on the side that we start with. Then we can swap some of the space so that when you add on, you just take it off the back of the building.

Jim Wachtel:

That may be the appropriate way to go. You put the loading dock in this area (as depicted on the Chart)…

GILLY AGUIAR – But I like all that walkway with the double glass and tying in both sides. The problem is on the Seabreeze side, the North side, the parking during the day is mostly used with the banks, so that would be a consideration we must look at. The nighttime stuff…people will walk; they’ll walk from Main Street and so forth. They’ll pay $5.00…

Jim Wachtel:

I think with all the Ocean Walk, with all Marriot (laughter)…the Adams Mark, I’m not even sure that the amount of retail and entertainment that’s being put here is going to be enough to handle the crowds that we hope will come.

Adventure Landing, and other areas to the North that can be utilized for other restaurants or entertainment venues, need to be thought of. I think we do as poor a job utilizing our riverfront for the public, as anybody around. It’s a wonderful venue and I’d like to see more development go on down there like the Wreck Bar, and things like that. This would be perfect; this would be great right off of Main Street.

I think it’s the start, it’s the catalyst for not only the Ocean Center and the convention area, but other area’s as well. And, it’s not even the start. The Ocean Walk has started it and this is just a continuation.

MR. LEWIS - Jim, this seems to be the Scheme that you recommend, but I don’t see it in our packet.

Jim Wachtel: (some conversation took place during audio tape change)

…I can develop this and send it to you.

JIM BAZEMORE – Could you mail it to us. I can understand your enthusiasm for it, and it’s a departure from our present thinking. If you could mail it so each of us could look at it, we would appreciate it.

Jim Wachtel:

I certainly could.

GILLY AGUIAR – Jim, on Scheme Two with the two-story, is that a build-out?

Jim Wachtel:

Yes, 300,000 feet.

None of these are shown as phases at this point. They are just shown as the bulk 300,000 square feet and how does it go on the site.

GILLY AGUIAR – If we were to go to the two-story on Scheme Two, what would be your thoughts on anything needed after that?…Would it be the same thing, to branch out to the entertainment areas? I like the kind of format with two ways for handicap people and drop off‘s and trams. And I like the two or three story atrium in the middle to do it. What do we end up doing with the original building?

Jim Wachtel:

You continue using it as an arena, which all the reports have said you still need. You need that function. We have some meeting rooms here that can either be utilized as they are, or, some of the Schemes was to put another corridor out here (as depicted on the Chart), with pre-function space and more meeting rooms. There’s enough space between this wall and Auditorium to add some space there.

JIM BAZEMORE – If push comes to pull, you could use the present building for exhibition space and this over here (as depicted on the Chart), if you really wanted to go big time, right?

Jim Wachtel:

Yes.

And that’s what happens now. If there’s a convention that needs exhibition space with no arena, it goes down unto the arena floor. But many of the conventions need the arena function and the exhibit space. That’s what we don’t have. We don’t have that duplicity of functions at this point.

JIM BAZEMORE – So our first priority, any way you cut it, is exhibition space.

Jim Wachtel:

That’s correct.

GILLY AGUIAR – Could Scheme Two work in phases, where you do the ground floor first, then in phase two, put in the ballrooms, kitchen and bathrooms at a later date.?

Jim Wachtel:

Yes, it could.

Or, it could work where you put a portion of the first floor in and a second floor ballroom; then, in the future, you put on more exhibition space or meeting rooms.

GILLY AGUIAR – Then you run into that loading dock thing again. I think that’s going to be a lot more expensive when you put pen to it. Because that’s a very functional area, and exhibitor’s want easy access in and out. It’s all a synergy thing and I think we need to keep that in consideration.

MR. HAMILTON – It’s also… I’ve been told…I guess I’m asking a question Jim, instead of making the statement that, when you go to a second story expansion it usually means shutting down your first floor to make that expansion happen, or, it’s very costly not to.

Jim Wachtel:

That’s probably a reasonable statement. Obviously, if you have a one-story building, you have a full roof that’s water tight and an exterior skin. If you go above that you have to tear that roof off and put a floor in. Obviously, if you tearing the roof off, you can’t use what’s below.

GILLY AGUIAR – But I think what Rick’s (Mr. Hamilton) saying is, if we try to expand…

MR. HAMILTON – It’s going to put you out of business on the ground level while the expansion on the second level is taking place.

GILLY AGUIAR – And it’s going to be much more expensive.

Jim Wachtel:

Correct.

Because you’ve got to get all your materials up from the outside and lift them over, rather than coming up through the middle. Either way, it’s been done before, it’s nothing new here. There are just positives and negatives to each approach.

MR. HAMILTON – And if you have the money, the impossible can happen.

Jim Wachtel:

Exactly.

And, if you don’t have the money … I guess the bottom line here is, all of these can be done. They have positives and negatives. I think the most positive from this approach, is for it to function for the Ocean Center as well as function for the whole city. But, there are lots of hurdles.

Audience Question:

Big John – How many people can eat in the dining room?

Jim Wachtel:

There’s 30,000 square feet, so that’s maybe 2,000 to 3,000 people. About 15 square feet per person is normal, but another function maybe you might get more people in there.

Audience Question: (directed to Board Member, Stuart Arp)

Big John – Stuart, you’re good for 1,800 people, right?

STUART ARP – 1,600.

Big John – Let’s say you gave Stuart the food for a while,…where are we at with the Peabody? We were supposed to get the Peabody in house here about a year ago. Actually, it was about 15 years ago, when we started on this project…is that ever going to happen? And, if it’s going to happen, have you planned for that to be integrated into this building?

Jim Wachtel:

We haven’t planned for it to be integrated into the building. However, if you have a focal point here that is a drop-off point, and a connection between this building, it’s right here by the Peabody. I would think that the closing of Auditorium from traffic could do nothing but help the Peabody; as far as being allowed to walk back and forth and utilize that venue more than with traffic going on there.

So, while we haven’t done anything specifically with the Peabody, it should be taken into careful thought of during the planning that goes on. It’s an integral part of this whole area, I think.

GILLY AGUIAR – The one thing on the food part of it is, you will find the ballroom used for lunches. Those running the convention have vendors like American Express and so forth; you’ve got the exhibits and meetings going on and you break-out for lunch and somebody picks up the tab. At this point, they really don’t want to go far. I don’t think the food here is going to be any adverse effect on Stuart (the Adam’s Mark), because he will get all the night entertainment.

They will want to go to the private venues. You know, the people that are coming in, the GM’s, or whoever is running the convention. The different exhibitor’s will pick up the nighttime entertainment over there at the Adam’s Mark. So, I think you really have to have something here for food so the conventioneers can do a power day. They can come in, do the exhibits and the meetings, then they can have lunch and break-out for sessions and still have the floors open. So, I think we need to keep that in there.

STUART ARP – I think that’s ideal. But, I think if you really look at it, what we need the most is exhibit space. In the total budget, if we have to phase something in later, I would suggest phasing in the ballroom.

If they don’t have exhibit space, they can’t meet. In my opinion, that’s the first and most important thing. After that we can phase in the other ballroom as a financial item later.

TOM STAED – Sadly, I don’t think we can do it all. I guess the question is, what do you really need to go forward? It seems to me that you need the exhibition space, but, how much. And, how much does it cost is a major question! And, how you get the money is the sixty four thousand dollar question.

If the government is ready to bite the bullet and pay for some of the space, if so, then you can go above what our thinking is. If they are not, then you will be limited by what the present structure owes and the revenue returns, and what additional revenues you are talking about. And that’s a very controversial issue. I’m not sure how you address that issue. I guess you’ve got to stay competitive.

GILLY AGUIAR – I like this Scheme. I like Scheme Four and Two. But, like Tom (Staed) just said, we need to look at it so that when we finish it, we have a big chameleon effect. In that way, we can be everything to everybody. We can open up all that space so we can have two or three functions going on, one in the Ocean Center and a ballroom thing. But we need the exhibit space and we need the meeting rooms. We keep saying just exhibit space. But we need a place for them to break-out and make some progress too.

If we’re going to do a chameleon, I don’t think we can afford to go straight out and do this. So, what I think I’d like to see is that we pluck it around a little. Keep that ascetic…I like the North, South and the way you drew that. But maybe we need to put the loading docks on one side so all we’ve got is one facade of a wall so that when we jump Earl Street, we’re not spending a ton of money trying to redo things.

Ascetically, it is nice to have loading docks on the West side. Obviously, we’ll have to pick half of this thing…

Jim Wachtel:

It’s been talked about in three phases. It can also be done in four or five. You will add some incremental costs, obviously, with the more phases that you do. If you can’t bite the whole bullet now, get what you need. But, you put it in the right place so that you can expand five years from now with the next piece that you can afford.

GILLY AGUIAR – In that way, it’s just a part of the wall of the building going down and maybe the ballroom goes off to the back through a corridor.

Whatever way you do it, we really need to make it where it’s least expensive as we go. If we did it with just the North half or South half, when you put a pencil to it you will see a lot more money than trying to change the outlay. Get the same effect, get the 72,000 on the first end, but do it so that when we need to set the other 72,000, it’s just the one wall out that way

Audience Comment:

Evelyn Fine, Mid-Florida Research

For the last several years, we’ve been talking to meeting planners, not only in Daytona Beach, but for other Florida destination, and I’m delighted to see that the Campus Concept has gone to the bottom of the stack. That was very important to the meeting planners that we spoke to. I wanted to mention something else as well, the issue of meeting places and break-out rooms, that sort of thing. One of the things the meeting planners told us, and these are people who use Florida and who want to come to Florida, and who would actually consider Daytona Beach as well as other beach destinations in Florida, was how important meeting space was to them. That it be compact, that it be nearby, that it be appropriate and, that it be suitable. And each time I heard exhibition space, I must tell you I flinched because of how important meeting space is to these people. It has to be proportioned, it has to be balanced, and I hope as you get further along with your design that you bring in some meeting planners and have them look at it. You may also want to take a look at some of the projects that have wanted to come to this area, but haven’t because we haven’t had what they want. And, take a look at what their needs are and what their uses are. I think that’s a piece of the puzzle we need to have and need to have before much more of the internal designing is done with it.

GILLY AGUIAR – Jim, I feel strongly about that meeting space because it intertwines. The people that are spending the money on exhibits are trying to get the clients, they are doing break-outs, teaching their products, or teaching higher education, or whatever they are in. They really look for that. I know we look for that when we do things.

I guess that’s what they tell her (Mrs. Fine). Maybe we need to have a couple of sharp meeting planners here, that you two know (re: Mrs. Sharon Mock and Mrs. Fine). Get with Jim, give him some telephone numbers so he can talk to them regarding the appropriate amount of space.

You might be able to do two…that’s another thing. If the back of the wall comes off you may be able to build enough meeting space for this side. Then, you can offset it on the other side so that it is appropriately placed for that convention. If you broke it in two, there would be meeting rooms here (as depicted on the presentation hand-out), and meeting rooms there. Maybe that’s something you can look at as you move around some of those things.

STUART ARP - Certainly, you are able to serve food at exhibit shows. But how many trade shows have you attended where you have lunch on the exhibit floor? It’s not conductive to having a speaker. If they just want to serve lunch or breakfast, or whatever, they’ll take a section or another separate exhibit room to do that; which will work out fine.

The ballroom that we do have is quite often used for exhibits. If you build this space, you won’t have to use that as much and it will be more available for lunch and breakfast, that have speakers and entertainment.

I agree with Evelyn (Ms. Fine), break-out space is critical. It’s also crucial that it is balanced properly.

GILLY AGUIAR – The other thing Stu (Mr. Arp), as you mentioned, in the old building if it came down to a big lunch, you will have 72,000 feet full in the other room. You could do a lunch in that room. You would have room to do it inside this building here. Proximity is a big thing to them. They want to do a lot of business within an 8 or 9 hour period. That might consist of 2 or 3 meetings…maybe not even meetings but sessions that people want to get information.

STUART ARP - It is critical for the Peabody to be part of this. To have that across the street and not feel like its part of this complex, is a mistake. It has a great general session capability that can accommodate opening sessions, keynote speakers, etc., which a lot of conventions have. Not to use that would be foolish because that’s a lot of labor and a lot of space to take up for large gatherings, and it’s all set up right there.

We also cannot forget that across the street, movie theatres will be also usable for general sessions. We’ve sold them for part of our groups for break-outs, because we are connected right there. So there’s another opportunity there.

LORI CAMPBELL-BAKER – I want to say that I thought the presentations were very good and well thought out. I like the idea of bringing meeting planners in to look at some of these layouts and get their opinions, and maybe find out what works best for them. Although it’s preliminary, is there a way to figure out approximate costs for each of these and then break out into phases. We could then really take a hard look at the dollars and what we must actually come up with; kind of creative thinking.

Jim Wachtel:

I think so.

Once we get to a conceptual design stage that works with meeting planners and the community…Stuart’s (Mr. Arp) functions need to be thought of in here, as well as everything else.

Yes, we can put a dollar cost, a budget on those we want to shoot for that’s good convention space. Obviously, exhibit space is not very expensive. It’s a big warehouse. But meeting rooms, ballrooms and kitchens are expensive. You start balancing those off by how much square footage is in either one of those.

GILLY AGUIAR – Mr. Chairman, I’d like for us to go around again to give Jim our ideas so he won’t do all of these.

I’ve already said, I like four and I like two as far as the Schemes you showed us. I like four the most, if we can move things around so that you’re taking off a dead wall that you can ascetically make look very nice, but does not cost very much. It’s warehouse space, and the back end of the warehouse. So all we do is take it down, do a general landscaping first, then go out and take the rest of the space. I see that as the cheapest way to do it, and the most functional way. But, that’s what we are paying you (Jim Wachtel) the big bucks for. That’s my opinion.

CHRISTINA TRAVIS – I want to clarify, on Scheme Two we don’t have to acquire any more land?

Jim Wachtel:

That’s correct.

CHRISTINA TRAVIS – Then, I would prefer Scheme Two over Scheme Four.

TOM STEAD - I think that you need 75,000 feet of additional exhibit space and the things that go with that, such as meeting rooms and some loading. You should design something that you can build that can be craftily expanded. Maybe you can do that with Scheme Four, I don’t know. I would stay in this footprint for the moment, if you could, because I think you take on another battle when you start talking about going outside of the open space footprint.

I don’t think you should waste a whole lot of time trying to build something that isn’t going to ever be financed with the situation we’re in, unless, we want to talk about financing with the general revenue of the county or the city, or both.

You’ve got to be serious…where are we going to get the bucks? And I want to see it expanded. But architects always draw beautiful facilities, and I could jump right on Scheme Four and say that’s what we want. But, it’s going to be $60 or $70 million dollars and we aren’t going to get that kind of money.

I suggest we find a way to take that concept and expand it down the road. I’m not very fond of second stories. I think they are a lot of problems. But, I also think at this stage in our game, we should stay out of the neighborhoods that we don’t already own.

Jim Wachtel:

The one caveat to that is, the convention center in phase one can stay out of the neighborhoods. That’s not a problem. However, you do have to park those people somewhere, and that is there are not many places to park them except in the neighborhoods. So, that is going to be a battle.

TOM STEAD – Well, I don’t know how many stories you can build a parking deck…

CHRISTINA TRAVIS – You can put it behind Hog Heaven…

(There is simultaneous discussion among Board Members)

STUART ARP – Can we go up on the garage over here, or is it maxed out?

MR. HAMILTON – It’s out.

STUART ARP – But, if we do five stories here, you have at least 1,500.

FRANK GUMMEY – I’ll bet you can’t get more than 250 on a floor, because of the ramps and stuff like that….

TOM STAED – Don’t we have some land over on the West side of that lot?

Simultaneous discussion by Board Members: The West side of Peabody. The East side of Peabody and the West side of the Adams Mark parking lot. You have property South of the Peabody, do you not? The City does.

TOM STAED – We have to get some dimensions on this. We do have parking. Again, you phase that into…if you add basically, 75,000 or 90,000 square feet, whatever it amounts too, of additional exhibit space and the meeting rooms, then you would have to get the parking that would accommodate that. At this point in time, you don’t have to go to 6,000 spaces or 5,000 or 4.000. You go to what you can…

STUART ARP – Does this space thing take into effect that a lot of people would be able to walk? Like, our Ocean Walk facility, even though it’s in the plaza, they could walk down here as opposed to getting into a vehicle.

Jim Wachtel:

No. Not at this point.

As I said, that was a worse case scenario. We would have to take a look at it. But, things like the Home Show, the Christmas Tree Show, and a lot of local events where people are not staying at hotels, everybody is local.

STUART ARP – But Rick (Mr., Hamilton) promised that if we built this expansion, he’d get rid of that type business. (Laughter from the members)

MR. LEWIS – I like the idea that we stay in the footprint that we have now; with the property that we have right now. If we start getting outside of that, we’re talking about some major problems and complications to the process. We may not ever get to first base.

I think the next thing we need to do is make sure to have break-out phasing options, on how we can phase it in so we don’t cause the problems that tearing a roof off and such, would cause. It will be important that we are not only able to phase, but able to phase in the best way that we can.

I also believe that, shortly we must talk about the funding, and how we are going to fund this. Right now we’ve been looking and talking about somewhere around $30 million dollars. That’s with additional bonding capacity with what we have already; and an additional one cent with the TDC. Although a decision has not been reached, I know this may not be popular with everyone.

At this point, we are just discussing where the revenues will come from. But, without that, I personally don’t think there’s any way to move forward. I think we must have that. But that discussion will have to take place. Maybe there will be a meeting where we only discuss financing. And I think that will be one that has to take place fairly quickly.

TOM STAED - We probably just need to get the positions out on the table about the financing, because you’re kidding yourself if you don’t. I don’t even know at this point in time, how I would vote to finance it. But, we’re an advisory group in the final analysis anyway. In this regard, we would recommend a vote this or that way. That does not necessarily mean that the County Council would do it this or that way. I need to look at the financing with a lot of different hats on. I think there is a very excellent opportunity that we are in with bond rates being at a historical low. And, I think there’s some money left in the two cents that going now, a good bit of money left, and a good bit of money left, particularly, if it were refinanced at very favorable rates.

The ideal would be to build it with the two cents that we now have, and refinance the position. If that doesn’t work, or get us far enough, then we have to look at where do we get the money. That’s the tough part, and I don’t know how we will do that; … at any given moment, how much will the bonds sell and what interest rate we can get.

JIM BAZEMORE – May I go back to the wish list for a moment? I like this design very much. Number one, we are moving the main entrance. If you put those fountains and drive-thru or something, you must have some pizzazz. And if you have a three-story atrium there, I think people will want to come and look at it because it will be outstanding. Additionally, to be able to tie the Peabody in as an integral part of this entire complex is important to me.

GILLY AGUIAR – After listening to everybody, I would rather (inaudible) first… because I don’t want to go into another neighborhood. Because that would probably be a nail that we would have to fight constantly. So, if we could work with Scheme Two a bit more, move the loading docks, so we can just take off the bottom floor wall and go the other parking lot.

Second, I think Auditorium will be an integral part. It’s right there at the corner of it, and something that will be a self-serving. It will not be a focal point of this project, but something we can use for a lot of different events and smaller functions. But, you have some facility problems there…you don’t have rest rooms and there’s a lot of things there that I would not want to drag in as though it’s got to be. If we’re going to take it over, we’ll spend a lot of money over there. But, in its present position, it could be a very valuable asset for overflow and different activities.

And, at some further point, once we’re up and running, and we’re getting the money, then its something to consider.

As Tom (Mr. Staed) said about the financing, we must look at that. We’re saying here that the one thing we need is exhibition space. Well that’s the one thing that doesn’t make Rick (Mr. Hamilton) money. There’s another thing that you need to do now that we have a new numbers cruncher, he has to look at this facility and give estimations of how much we would make at say 80% capacity.

For Stuart (Mr. Arp) and others, we will be putting heads in bed. Convention’s, however, are much more lucrative than concerts, but for Rick (Mr. Hamilton) it’s the other way around.

TOM STAED – Whatever they’ve done, they never spent one cent of people’s money. They have spent the Ad Tax or Resort Tax money.

GILLY AGUIAR – But, I think that number will go up, and Rick’s (Mr. Hamilton) people need to look at. When you start renting the exhibition space, you’ve got all the people you need…the traffic control, etc., and Rick’s only getting a limited amount for the space. The theory behind this type of convention philology is, we’re going to fill the town up and the money will roll over six blocks in each direction, at least. So we need to look at this from Rick’s point of view.

MR. LEWIS – We’ll set ll set financing options as part of our next meeting. We won’t address it today, but it gives everybody a chance to think about it knowing that it’s coming up, so that when you come you’ll have some options. And it will give me time to get some homework done out of the County, as to what’s being produced or what will be produced. We’ll also have another month or two to see where we are. MR. HAMILTON – One point Mr. Chairman, if I may. I think what Frank (Mr. Gummey) mentioned to me about Anaheim, CA., is a very realistic issue. From Bond counsel’s that I have spoken with and the financial guru’s of the world, it is very difficult right now for them to put a pencil on a resort tax collection with no one knowing exactly where it’s going to go. That’s a very difficult situation that I want this group to understand. You will need governmental money or someone to back it.TOM STAED – And, that may be true a year from now, I’m not sure.GILLY AGUIAR - We have a lot of work to do. One advantage we have is being one of the last areas to grow, is that we don’t have the infrastructure costs of many other places. This is something that we’ve never been through. As a nation, this could drag on for 7 or 10 years trying to take out this terrorism situation. I think we will not be down much, if any, in the long run. We’ll keep going because people came here first of all…remember when we had the signs up, "come to the affordable Florida," all over the highways. That was before Mickey Mouse took most of our people. But, I think our downturn will not compare with some places that have already sold their souls, so to speak, for the next 35 years. This year, we were voted the number one of two beaches (Daytona Beach and New Smyrna), by the tourists themselves. So, we have a lot going for us. And, the drive time people will come here, especially, since the airport has problems with the airline situation. If we can drag regional people into the drive, then that will be good too.JIM BAZEMORE - I wish to omething that I on checked yesterday. For years we have been after the Florida market and, as of today, 67% of the people that come year round come from Florida. Ninety seven percent of those people come by car. And that’s accurate.

We don’t get much air traffic anyway because it’s hard to get into Daytona Beach, first off. We have 15 million people within 4 to 6 hours away from Daytona Beach. A lot of these people, I believe may come here.

GILLY AGUIAR – Don’t forget we’re talking leisure verses convention.

TOM STAED - Most conventions are from Florida or Georgia…

STUART ARP - The Southeast. As the airport gets better, we should be able to attract more national conventions. But right now we concentrate on the Southeast. There’s a lot of business there. We have a lot of big cities nearby, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc.

MR. LEWIS – We have some positive things going for us. With the interest rates as they are, we should be able to afford a little more.

Audience Comment::

Big John - Well, first of all Mr. Chairman, I’m glad to see you’ve gotten more positive since the News-Journal misquoted you, a couple week ago. And, I’m happy to see that Mr. Staed, continues to worry about the infamous bed tax additional penny that might be talked about more eventually. I’m glad to see you so positive Mr. Stead and Mr. Hamilton as well.

Now that we’ve got a real bean counter at the Ocean Center, I mean a first-class bean counter from what I read, we should start looking at finances a lot more closely, so that we can give (?) some more accurate directions.

I prefer Staed’s comments that said, "let’s get some exhibit space built, some meeting space built," the sooner the better. And my thought is that, in that case, you will preserve some of your parking. It maybe your ballroom, instead of being removed by a street, could just butt right up to the other building and be a second or third phase. But, slam it right up to the other building; it would save you a wall and any of our building needs to not shut anything down for any length of time.

I think this Board should write to the City of Daytona Beach, because quite frankly the County has been unable to do it since (how many years now) Howard Tipton, and get an agreement so that the Ocean Center can manage the Peabody Auditorium. That should be a fairly simple thing, looking at the people sitting on the Board. I think we need to get moving on it since it has been lingering for a really long time now, and several drafts have gone back and forth to no avail.

Lastly, Stuart (Mr. Arp) sits here humble and lonely. But, he is the tip of a gigantic iceberg. It’s my understanding that HBE employs a 100 architects, or a huge number. I also know that he has the flagship hotel in Volusia County and, the largest by far. You don’t have that big of a hotel compared to the rest of the empire, is that true?

STUART ARP – That’s true.

Big John – And so, we want meeting planners, that’s for sure. But I sure would hope that Stuart would bring some of the expertise that sits behind him to the table. Because I’ll bet that there’s a bunch of people in his organization that knows what the heck to do in this situation. Thank you.

STUART ARP - In Dallas we built a 250,000 square foot convention facility, brand new from the ground up, with a hotel. In Denver, we built a convention center on a couple hundred thousand square feet of space…In Chicago, although the hotel is on hold, but we’ll build another 250,000 square feet of space with a hotel.

We might want to build it (the Ocean Center expansion), you never know.

Big John – Well, why not?!

MR. LEWIS – Stuart, I think that is a good suggestion. Maybe you could get some of your people more involved with us on this. If they have that experience and have done that, we sure would not want to overlook it.

TOM STAED – And also in the financing arena…they may have some novel idea to lease this whole facility.

Big John – Is there any consideration by this committee that the whole operation could be privatized? Has that been considered? Existing as well as future.

MR. LEWIS – We haven’t looked at that.

Big John – Is that on the table?

MR. LEWIS – At this time, it’s not on the table, but not that it couldn’t be.

IV. NEXT STEPS TO BE TAKEN (PLAN OF ACTION)

MR. LEWIS – Next steps to be taken will be the Plan of Action. I think we’ve had enough discussion as far as to where we are going.

V. OLD BUSINESS

MR. LEWIS – Is there any Old business?

NEW BUSINESS

Any New Business?

MR. HAMILTON - Finally, at Lori’s (Campbell-Baker) request, I have handed out the Marketing Plan for this year. There’s extra copies here on the table.

JIM BAZEMORE - Is there a schedule for the next meeting.

MR. LEWIS - The approach that I took in canceling the last meeting was, if we didn’t have anything to come here for it would have been a waste of time. And that would be foolish.

The next meeting was scheduled for November 14, 2001, at 9:00 a.m.

ADOURNMENT

The meeting at adjourned at 11:40 a.m.

 

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