8.26.2026 Redevelopment Authority

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.

Attendees are therefore advises such recording and transmission are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

And do roll call. John Ericson Ron Renleberg Joan Maderas Ian Keane. Thank you. Also attending Sarah Page, executive director, John Coughlin, legal counsel, Ken Fowl, administrative consultant, and Karen Martin, project manager. Chair makes a finding that we'll go into executive session prior to continuing with the open session as an open session would have a detrimental effect on negotiating position of the

public body. The purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session minutes from July 29, 2026 and to discuss strategy with respect to potential real estate transactions for property located at 45 Anowan Street, Fall River. I'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session and we will return to open session.

A motion to enter into executive session. Then we will return to open session.

Second.

Second.

John Ericson. Yes.

Ron, yes. Benberg, yes.

Joan Maderas, yes. And Keane, yes.

Thank you.

minutes from July 29, 2026. There's no comments on these minutes. Oh, I entertain a motion to approve.

Motion to approve the July 29, 2026 open session minutes.

Second.

Second.

John Ericson, yes.

Ron Ren, yes.

Approve. Yes.

Joan Maderas, yes. Ken, yes.

Thank you. Uh you guys have the August warrant which totals $230,3518.

Motion to approve the August war $230,3518.

Second John Ericson. Yes.

John, yes. Yes.

Joan Maderas. Yes. And Keen, yes.

Thank you. Uh Karen's going to update us on Northfield site, Northfield Point. So sorry, site improvements.

Uh yes. I don't know if anyone's gone by there lately or not, but there's um good nobody been working there last week and this week. He's going to be returning to the site on September 8th. Um he had got to a point where he was getting ready that he could start doing plantings and it's just a little too early to get those plantings in. So Sarah was out with the engineer and um uh someone from

Dilva and they picked out the plants today and his intent is to go back out there September 8th and just stick with it till it's done. and he's hoping to be substantially complete by the end of the month.

So, um, so end of September because we were thinking October, weren't we?

Well, I mean, he'll be substantially complete. There'll probably be some punch list stuff that he has to do. Um, but I'm, you know, the target is to hopefully try to have it open by um, Columbus Day weekend.

Nice.

He's going to try to push with all the plants and everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the osprey nest and I'm going to be bringing to the What was that? Is that the offspring nest will be part of it, right?

Yeah, that'll be up. Yeah, he's actually got the poll and he said he might sneak in this week and and next week and put it in. What? What?

Find the bird.

Um Well, I told you there was one on the roof of Point Gloria, so maybe he's just waiting.

Yeah, but they they've left the area by now, I think.

Well, there's some that fly over my house still.

They're only seasonal last resort.

Yeah, they migrate.

They do migrate.

Yeah, they migrate.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, and then first they have to build a nest up on the platform.

Yes, they do.

But I mean it could be an eagle or something too, right? Or a hawk.

I don't think they'd have to read the directions for ospreys or I don't know if we have an eagle, right?

You see an eagle out here. We have bald eagles.

They have down the river supposedly now.

Yeah.

Oh, that's pretty cool. I never Not that I was looking for They're coming back. Yeah, they have my amount of poison.

Excellent.

It's cool.

What about the dingy ducks?

Well, geez, can I finish my update on Point?

It's almost six o'clock.

I know. Geez. Um so, uh so he's going to be back out there. Um I'm going to bring the final numbers to the board on um in September with the the change. I kind of gave you an inkling at the last meeting that there were some issues with bringing Phil on and taking unsuitable Phil off. um most of the stuff that he dug for the ballids and everything out on the spit um uh revealed kind of

unsuitable material that had to be hauled off. So um Bill, Joe, the resident engineer and and Tim have um come to agreement on most of those issues and I have an email pending with it all. So I've just got to pull it all together and we'll bring it to the September meeting. Um, so I would just I would just caution that before they take any fill off or do something like that that you get the

change order signed before the work begins.

No. Um, and then um the only other thing so the so the water line's all brought in and the electrical work will start to um go in. I think he may be out there next week actually bringing the electrical down so that we can mount the security cameras and um for the irrigation controller. So we should be in pretty good shape by the end of September out there.

Now you can talk.

Okay. Okay. I was waiting for the queue.

So there's um so we had a pre-construction meeting out at the site with Kavanaaugh Marine and um we laid out the plan. Um Kavanagh is going to actually build the dock. They're going to design it and build it to match because of the the the buy America, Build America um uh clause in this contract because it's federal money. um he you know he's got an engineer on staff and they they've studied the dock

and I actually gave him a copy of the shop drawings for um from the existing dock. So they're going to match that and that'll be submitted in for approval.

We're hoping to get the submittals in next week um on the job and he's hoping to be out there probably towards the mid um end of September um and then they'll um they're probably going to start with the moorings and then um they'll drive the piles and put the dock in. So um that should wrap up hopefully either concurrently with Northfield or shortly thereafter.

We're within that window to drive the piles right?

Yes. that doesn't that doesn't go into effect until January 15th.

So, the overall um schedule of it of the dinghyd is so they'll probably start mid to late September and they should hopefully finish um he's hoping to be pretty much done in October.

Okay.

And it's the same material for the pilings that we have.

Yeah, the green hearts. Yeah, the green hearts. Yep. Reagan's actually going to be driving those. I want to drove the other ones.

Okay.

You all set with that?

I am.

Okay. Uh Okay. 45 Anowan Street. Um as everyone knows, we finally closed on that property. I think that was since our last meeting.

No, July 17th. We closed July 17th. Oh, okay. Uh, so, um, we've made some progress getting, uh, prepared for the temporary parking, and that parking, we don't exactly know when it will be open yet, but it'll, uh, do we?

No, I've just got to get I've just got to coordinate with stripers. Striper, but that's going to be open to the public.

Yes.

And um, uh, just be no overnight parking.

There'll be uh, restrictions on that.

The gate will be open, so it'll be overnight parking. I thought we were going to sign it.

I thought we were going to sign it.

We're going to put a sign and you try you could tell.

That's what I wanted. So, what do we want the sign to actually say?

No overnight parking subject to towing or something.

Yeah. What? So, I don't know because you got uses down there that stay pretty late. Like, you got to be careful that you don't want to close it at 10:00.

By midnight, everybody's out of there, right?

Not necessarily.

I think Primo 1:00 one o'clock on Friday and Saturday.

So we say 2 a.m. I thought it might have been 2 a.m.

What do you think? 2 a.m.

So you got a 2 a.m. license?

No, I'm saying if it's 1, if they close at 1.

People hang out.

I think you just say no overnight parking and then Yeah, you probably once in a while you ask the police and somebody to go through there two or three.

Yeah, I was going to talk to the police about monitoring it and we we will have the cameras cameras are already installed and working. So yeah, that's all set.

Okay. Friday and Saturday building the 1 a.m.

Yeah.

So, do you mention the cameras on the um sign, cameras in use?

Um on the ones that Josh are putting up, it says cameras are in use.

Yeah.

What time do the narrow shows usually end? They're early.

11ish.

11.

I don't think the brewery stays open very late.

The breweries closed 9 or 10.

I don't think it's open late.

So, if you say over no overnight parking, is someone going to be nervous leaving their car there till 1:00? If you say towing, I don't think so. If it says no overnight parking means that you're leaving your car there overnight.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm trying to think of other They can move their car. There's usually plenty of spots, too.

If they happen the car, they don't feel comfortable at 12:00 that you don't you'll probably have street parking.

Yeah, you want to move it.

True.

Well, you also let the businesses around there know, listen, we're not talking to you once they leave their car overnight.

So, they can tell their customers.

Um, so what how quickly do you think it it would be open if all of that goes according to plan?

Like the strip?

I mean, we're going to we're going to be at the stripers um schedule. So, I just got to Okay.

confirm that. But we're thinking maybe a month.

I mean, because it won't take them more than a day to stripe it. So, it's just a matter as to what they've already got in their kit.

Kenny could do it in half a day.

Okay.

What color?

Spray paint. Okay.

I can put the lines down.

There's two different types of paint though. They do have a temporary paint.

They have the epoxy one that's not temporary. That's very tough to remove if you have to remove it later. Right.

So, just keep that in mind.

Yeah. Yeah. We would be probably even out, right? Um, Bright Lines is pretty good. If you ever use I use them for all my block and so Bright Lines I think that's Yeah, I think that's one of the ones I have on my list. Yeah, that's one on my list. Yep.

So then do you want to talk about the RFP for future permanent parking or are we not talking about that?

Not really at that point here.

Okay, we're not at that point. We're just doing temporary for a while. That RFP is not ready to go out, right?

You'll have to scope it.

No, because part of it we have to scope out what we're doing with the buildings.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Because you can't do a final layout. So, you have to do that buildings.

Another deal.

Yeah. I was wondering about the gates.

No, we're not going to we're not going to the gate's not going to be activated.

The gate's going to be open.

I know. But that's temporary gate, but the we're going to do a RFP for the real gate that's going for when we change the parking later.

Correct. I thought we voting on that.

Just so I understand. Thought we were going to put out an RFP for the gate.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, I'm gonna work on that. I don't have that.

Next is what I'm asking.

Next meeting.

No, probably the next meeting. Yeah.

Oh, meeting after.

Maybe after.

Yeah. You've got some foot blood work to do here. And plus going to get all the audit done, too. So, yep.

In the meantime, gates open overnight park. Yeah.

You want to talk about the herb?

Mhm.

Okay. So, the um the final draft of the urban renewal plan went to uh the department of housing HLC and um we got comments back in Associates has addressed all those comments. I'm reviewing them. In the meantime, I've been working on um the notice of project change for NEPA and addressing all the issues that NEPA is expecting to be addressed as simply as I can. I've got Emily helping

doing pieces of it. Um, Ty and Bond has advised us on how to do it and she's ready to do a review before we send it in. So, the hope is that we get something off to NEPA within a week or two and hope that that's accepted and we're done.

And um there's a question that arose um from HLC um regarding what our priority properties are. So we want to bring that to you at the next meeting because once we get something into MEPA, they're going to take a while. They have about 30 days to review it. So, so we can wait until the next meeting before we're going to be ready to submit the um urban renewal plan to the housing department. And so

we need to we feel we should get your input on what we're saying are priority properties on the acquisition potential acquisition properties that we have listed. And um we're planning to send something out to you ahead of time, both the urban renewal plan and a description of potential properties that we might prioritize so that you can give input on that before we send that in.

Can can I just ask you a question and John maybe you know the answer. I don't think the statutes require No.

So why would we prioritize properties?

And I would ask EOHLC, why are we being why are we being asked to prioritize?

The other two renewal plants just have a list. They don't have We just have a list, right? Because priorities would change over a period of time right?

So unless you're statutoily obligated to do that. I'm not sure why we would be doing that at this point.

Who's asking for it? EOHLC.

Um Maggie at EOHLC.

I don't know why she's asking that. I don't think she typically has in the past.

Is it like five or 10 or is that are they saying that?

I don't think she gave a number. So, let me look into that. That's an good point.

I'd rather just have a list.

Yeah.

Move it up and down as we as priorities change on that.

Right.

Um, and you know, we may want to talk about um, anyway, outside of uh, the housing department, we need to talk over the next few months about our priorities for properties that we want to try to work on. Um, so we need to have a broad discussion as a board at some point about, okay, we've gotten a lot of things done. Now, what projects are we going to go after? And

that could be a property in the urban renewal area. So, I think we'll have some level of that discussion, but we'll try to dellink that from the urban renewal plan.

Um, let's see. I think that's um Oh, no. I wanted to tell you um that the night owl opened uh last Sunday and it was a really fun event and our delegation was there. um mayor um lots of city councilors, school committee members, and just a lot of the community came out. Um there was a huge line to wait for the pizza. um well to get tickets to get your pizza and Dell's

lemonade and they uh they sold at least 800 slices of pizza between 4 and 8:00 p.m. between 4 and 700 p.m. So they cranked and the owner's whole family one came up from Florida to be there to help create the pizzas and be part of this.

And basically the story is that they grew up so close that I think they saw the night owl from their house. And so they have a family love of the night owl. And um the we had a countdown at you know a few minutes before 8 and at 8:00 the lights went on and the owl is all lit with neon and there's a big cool sign on the um chimney and you know

people thought the pizza was really good. He's doing all these um kind of gourmet pizzas, you know, and one's named Quicoan and um they have all different kind of fall river names. Um Senator Rodri's had a piece that was um pepperoni with hot honey and you know, Representative Fiola had a taste like all of them were over there tasting it and they all thought it was good. So, um, so that was a really

wonderful event. Oh, they had some classic CL cars, too. Um, and so that was encouraging.

Um, it just was a really delightful event in the neighborhood and, um, I think that the night owl's going to get a lot of support.

Um, so the other thing that we're working on is we got a $200,000 grant called the MTA grant and we're waiting for, you know, it's been awarded to us, but we're waiting for the funds to actually be made available. In the meantime, Karen's been getting proposals to do an ex existing condition survey and preconstruction plans, and she's working with Dan who's suggested um places to go for proposals.

Um Sarah, what what property are we talking about?

Oh, I'm sorry. The Pleasant Street corridor.

The whole Pleasant Street corridor.

Okay. We went after a special grant program that became available um for people who had gotten federal funds or were going for federal funds. And it was this new pot of money that the Haley administration just put out there. And so we went after it and we got the highest award of 200,000 which will fund the development of the plans. And we want to do a careful existing conditions um analysis

survey um which would include the trees.

The whole idea of getting more trees and landscaping on Pleasant Street is a really important issue. And so that's one of the things that they'll be looking at, but they'll be looking at signage and bus stops and just a whole lot of issues. And at the same time, Serped has been doing surveys and they're thinking about that's our regional planning agency and they they have a team um who got funded to work

with uh with the city to get community input and look at places where um there are more accidents and there's not good sight lines. when you go onto Pleasant Street. And so that's being done as well. So, we will have lots of information for the company that we hire to actually do the whole preconstruction plan and then city money and the funds that um have been allocated um through the

earmark from uh Congressman Aenclaus will fund implementing that plan.

So, it's good that we're moving forward on that.

Anything new on NMA?

Yes. So, I think that that's the um so NMA had another event um couple of weeks ago. It was um it was well attended to the extent that the vendors felt that they um did well and they were happy and um it was really nice. the Camb the Cambodian musicians and dancers came and the musicians brought a whole lot of their instruments and um they brought some food they were giving away so that people could taste

Cambodian food and that was a really nice piece of that evening market. Um on the other end of um Purchase Street in the Plaza was uh another musician who was just playing kind of folk music. Um and uh it was a nice event and um I think out of that there there definitely is a recognition that next year we may do less events in the middle of summer. But we also are

going to be working in the winter on getting sponsors for the events and um outreach has been done to some of the local banks and there seems to be interest in sponsoring some events. Um, so next year we may be able to bump them up a bit because we'll have funds to pay for more of a band or, you know, some more um, bells and whistles for these events. Um,

so the next two events that are coming up is September 26th is is another street fair. It's a Saturday from 11 to 3. They're calling it brick and brush and it's going to be um focused on artists coming and um either selling artwork or showing people how to do art.

There was a whole um uh street chalk drawing thing happening at the last event and people had a great time with that. There are some young people who did amazing drawing on the street and so that's going to be one piece of that is there will be more um shock for people to draw and um so is frack involved in that whole or Yeah.

Yeah. Frack's involved. Um but it's mostly Stephanie who um has a whole um group of artisans who she works with and so that will be um a lot of it. but she's done there's been a lot of outreach so far. And then October 17th is a harvest market and that will be 11 to3. And the other thing about that is that um Joseph had been working for a long time on the idea of bringing um

some piece of the horror festival that happens in New Bedford over to the NMA district. And the eagle has um Jerry has agreed to have the eagle available for horror movies to be shown during that day and evening. So that will link to this harvest festival in October.

Then thanks Smmith will be November 14th from 4 to 8 and that's always really successful and having it on Purchase Street is much more um it's a much better location than where it used to be held. So, um, that will be happening.

And then there's a Christmas event that will happen linked to the parade and the lighting of the tree. And the city's working on that with us. And that will um that will mean that people can see the tree lit and then walk over and go to restaurants. And you know, I think there will be carolers and all kinds of kind of Christmas fun on Purchase Street.

And then we'll be done with this whole kind of ambitious uh schedule of events and we'll spend time in the winter planning and figuring out how to make a schedule that I think will be a little more manageable. Um but I think that um the restaurants feel that they've seen increased business and really appreciate that this is happening and they you know have been supporting them and we have meetings every month in

one of the restaurants and that's you know working out well. So a lot of the goals are being accomplished there.

Thanks.

Motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjurnn.

Second.

Second.

Ericson. Yes.

Ren. Yes.

Yes.

Joan Maderas. Yes. Dan Keane. Yes.

Thanks everybody.