Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Good afternoon, it is 2:01 PM on Tuesday, June 23rd, and I am calling to order this meeting of the City Life Committee.
Um, could you please take the roll?
Unidentified speaker
Ryan.
Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Zimmerman.
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Present.
Unidentified speaker
Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Thank you, Wendy.
And I do believe Councilor Ryan will be joining us shortly, but Councilor Zimmerman is unfortunately having to miss today.
And Christopher, could you please read the rules of order and decorum for us?
Unidentified speaker
Welcome to the meeting of the City Life Committee.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance of the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/city-life-committee or by calling 311.
Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the Chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The Chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption results in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should address the matter being considered.
When testifying, state your name for the record.
If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Christopher.
Colleagues, we have 4 items on our agenda today.
We need to approve some previous committee minutes.
We'll hear from some members of the public about their thoughts on various topics that we cover in this committee.
We'll spend about an hour hearing from some amazing individuals from the Hollywood Theater talking about the Hollywood Film District and work that is happening on creating a film district in our city.
And then we have a little bit of city business from the administration extending a lease for City Kids Childcare.
If there are no objections, I believe we can approve the minutes by unanimous consent.
Any objections?
Okay, seeing none.
Angelita Morillo
I'll just read that item into the record.
Unidentified speaker
Item 1, April 14th, 2026 to May 26th, 2026 City Life Committee minutes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, and we have no objections to approval.
Wonderful.
Wendy, could you read the second item on our agenda?
Unidentified speaker
Yes, item number 2, 2026-214, public input on City Life Committee topics.
We have 2 individuals who have signed up.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Wonderful.
Why don't you call both of our guests up, um, so we can hear from them?
Unidentified speaker
Uh, Galib El and Sol Kider.
Come on up, take a seat.
Please introduce yourself for the record before you begin.
Oh, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you both so much for being here today.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Would you like to start?
Sure.
Okay.
Um, I actually came not about any particular City Life topic, just something that happened in this city in my lifetime, and it was probably something that could only happen in Portland.
By the way, I'm Ghalib bin Imhotep L. I reside in District 4.
I was riding the bus and I saw a child with his mother.
He didn't have his face in a cell phone.
He wasn't watching a video.
He was reading a book.
I couldn't tell his reading level, but it looked like the interest that he held in that book was more than just the pictures.
He was really— his eyes were active.
Then he would look at conversations he would hear and things he would see, and I would see the brilliance in this young child.
That's something that I've learned to cherish in my 44 years on this planet, that brilliance in a child.
We don't see that generally in adults like we see it in children.
They look at everything.
They search with their eyes without fear, just pure curiosity.
The heart of a child, it's an inviolate thing.
And to see him with that and to see his mother nurture that, I felt it deserved some sort of recognition.
I had a dollar in my pocket.
It was the last dollar I had in my pocket, and I asked his mother if I could give him the dollar for that specific reason.
And she said, well, why don't you offer it to him?
So I offered him the dollar.
He looked at his mother for validation, and his mother goes, don't be shy.
And his entire world became available to me.
He opened up to me.
And the thing that he did before he left off that bus was something that made this entire month worthy of smiling throughout the entire month for me.
And it was no more than 3 simple words, but it was what was behind the 3 words, the reason and the understanding that I reached with that child.
He didn't receive the dollar as the gift.
He received the recognition that he was being rewarded for his existence, for his brilliance, just for being him and for being unafraid of being him, that there was a reward to that.
He got that.
Usually when you hand an adult a dollar, for whatever reason, there's stipulations and contracts involved.
There was nothing between me and this child except appreciation from both ends.
Then he looked at me with a level of sincerity that a human being can't fake, and he said, I love you.
That's— this month can't get any better.
I looked back at him and with the same level of sincerity repeated those same 3 words to him.
I know what you guys face on that dais.
Some of those things that people say to you are terrible.
I think I have provided some cause for fear or concern with some of the filings that I have presented to the dais.
So I figured, why not give you guys a reason to smile?
And for the same reason that that child walked off that bus, and for the same thing that he said to me, because I love you all unconditionally.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you so much for being here and for sharing that story.
And I—.
You said it has to do with your life in the city, but not the City Life Committee.
But I think anything that has to do with building community in our city and the way that we build the fabric of our community has to do with the work that we do.
So thank you.
Please go right ahead.
You get to follow that.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, wow, thanks.
Uh, uh, Chair Pirtle-Guiney, members of the committee, thank you so much.
Um, Chair, last year you moved $100,000 of your own office budget to protect Prosper Portland's workforce programs.
Uh, that matters.
And I want to tell you about something that doesn't cost Portland a dollar.
My name is Saul Keiter.
I'm a Salem resident and the executive director for Oregon State at Americans for Equality.
We've delivered free AI and cybersecurity training to over 1,100 residents in Washington State and just recently incorporated in Oregon.
We have an 88% completion rate for our students.
Our employee partners include Microsoft, Salesforce, T-Mobile, all of whom have hired graduates of our programs.
Now that we've incorporated in Oregon, we've begun fostering relationships with Intel, Nike, and others.
Portland just made cuts to workforce development funding managed via Prosper Portland and partners like Worksystems, affecting the EOP, the Economic Opportunity Program, Community Workforce Navigator Program, and NextGen.
The potential hundreds or thousands of residents affected as a result still need these services.
We can serve them today for free.
Thank you.
What we're asking for is 3 things.
A referral arrangement with Prosper Portland so displaced participants can enroll with us.
A community space in Portland for a free summer AI workshop/bootcamp we'll bring directly to residents, as well as providing an introduction to our Warp 1, which is an online training module.
And a conversation about next year's budget so you can have a proven partner ready when the FY28 planning cycle begins.
I'd love to connect with Prosper Portland and can be reached at saul.kider@americansforequality— that's a 4— uh, .org.
Thank you so much for your time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you so much for being here, and I think we all have your information to take notes on, but if you have anything that you'd like to share with the entire committee to make sure that we have your information, um, that way as well, you're welcome to get it to our clerk Wendy, who will get it to the full committee.
Dan Ryan
Excellent, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, thank you very much for sharing that with us.
Unidentified speaker
That concludes public input.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Wendy.
Could you please call item 3 on the agenda?
Unidentified speaker
Oops, sorry about that.
Item number 3, document number 2026-215, Hollywood Film District Capital Campaign discussion.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you so much.
And colleagues, I'll note that this was an item that was on the agenda, I believe, or on the list to put on the agenda for the previous Arts and Economy Committee.
And we had a request when committees changed from Councilor Ryan to make sure that we didn't lose this really important conversation and that we carried it over to our work in this committee as well.
So Councilor Ryan, if you'd like to give an introduction rather than me doing so, I'm happy to let you take just a moment to talk about some of the background here.
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Did we warn you that was happening?
I don't know if we warned you I was going to make that offer.
Dan Ryan
I don't need warnings.
Okay.
It's just basic life.
I'm just glad we're finally doing this.
I realize it's June, but we got there.
And I was so enthusiastic after I spent time with you I can't remember when.
I know it was last calendar year.
Mm-hmm.
But it was really clear that you were connecting all the dots.
You were connecting with all the different sectors, the neighborhood.
It was kind of hard to poke holes at what your vision was and where the plan was headed.
So I was just excited about bringing some good news to the Arts and Economy Committee.
Mm-hmm.
And now some good news to this committee.
I think Portland is ready to get behind this project.
And thank you is really my main message for all your good work.
When big projects bubble up from the community and then are delivered to us, they're organic and they're kind of unstoppable.
So I'm grateful that we're here today, and thank you for allowing me to say something.
And of course it's in our district, so— but it's so close to your district, like you can literally throw a softball.
Candace Avalos
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
Softball, that's a good word.
And, and you can land in your district from that location.
So this is kind of a D2, D3 an all-city, all-in opportunity, I think.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks, Councilor Ryan.
And, you know, we have the opportunity because we have this Neighborhood Hollywood with this Theater Hollywood where there is now a lot of other nexus bubbling up around the film industry in Portland to really think about what that could mean.
Dan Ryan
Excited to hear the update, though.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
As Councilor Ryan said, a lot happening driven by the community there.
So I'm going to turn it over to our guests.
And I think you all have a presentation, hopefully.
Wendy, do we have that ready, or Christopher ready to put up?
Okay, you guys are running it.
Perfect.
And go ahead and jump right in.
Unidentified speaker
Cool.
Well, first, I just really want to thank you for having us here.
Really appreciate your support so far.
I've met with, you know, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney and Ryan, Councilor Ryan, but I haven't met Councilor Avalos yet or Morillo.
So nice to meet you, and thanks for being here.
So today I'm Doug White, the executive director of the Hollywood Theatre.
This is Kristen Zatz-Gilbert, Councilman, who is the deputy director.
And this is Elise Taylor-Lybird from Portland Film Office and Prosper Portland.
So they're going to join and help me today.
So, you know, first, yeah, just thanks for the invitation.
And I— when we started this sort of whole idea, we've never built a district before, so we don't— we're needing as much help as we can.
But it just— it's sort of been happening organically, and it's really great to get more first, I'll ask, has everybody been to the Hollywood Theater?
Yep.
Okay, cool.
Good.
So you kind of know what we're talking about already.
So we are a nonprofit organization.
Film Forever Northwest is our sort of the nonprofit.
We also run the Hollywood Theater and Movie Madness, and we have an airport location.
And now, yeah, this next sort of step is to open up the theater to the public.
Thank you.
So the idea is creating— so not only are we— do we have the Hollywood Theater, which is turning 100?
I got my merch on today.
So it's our 100th anniversary.
It was built in 1926.
We've had plans to like renovate that for many years, and I'll get— we'll get into that a little bit later.
But then we had an opportunity to move Movie Madness, which is— you don't know what that is?
It's a video store in Southeast right now, one of the largest in the world.
We have over 100,000 square feet of space.
So we're going to be moving that to the new facility.
Yes.
There's 1,000 titles, there's movie memorabilia, we have education classes in our mini-plex there.
So it's— I'm not sure this could exist many other places than Portland, but it does and it's thriving.
So it's a great city to do something like that.
So we have this opportunity to move it across the street, and then when that happened, we've got these 2 anchors of the Hollywood Theatre and Movie Madness right across the street from each other.
It's sort of like everyone was getting very excited about that idea, and then It sort of like has blossomed into a fuller vision for an entire district that's based not only on people enjoying film, but also people in the film industry.
And Elise will talk about that a little bit later.
But we already have Oregon Film, the state film office, has moved into the neighborhood.
Northwest Documentary, another nonprofit.
We've got production companies.
So like, there's already about 8 different film organizations that have already moved into the neighborhood before we even broke ground.
So that's how excited people have been.
But I wanna just back up right now and get into sort of a little bit of the history of the Hollywood Theatre.
So basically, you know, it was built in 1926, and the neighborhood is actually named after it.
So it was kind of an unnamed place, is what I was told, and then it sort of adopted the name of the theater.
So there's this really strong connection between the neighborhood and the theater.
You know, it's, you know, it's had many different owners over the years and a lot of different renovations and changes.
Our nonprofit acquired it in 1997 and has been slowly working on it since then, improving different aspects of it as time goes on.
So, I mean, it started with like the green rooms and then, you know, we were— there's 13 different roofs on the building.
So this building is wonderful.
It's a blessing, but it's also kind of a curse.
There's just always something going wrong.
But at the same time, we're getting the support that we need to keep it, you know, functional for public coming in.
So I will say one of the worst things about it right now is the plumbing.
It's still original plumbing.
And so we have to address that.
And if you've been to the Hollywood Theatre, you understand that.
You probably wouldn't question at all why we'd need to fix the plumbing.
Thank you.
And so this is sort of, you know, this was when I started in 2010 as executive director.
So I've been there for 16 years now.
And when I sat down on my desk the first day for the job, there was a plan to renovate the theater on my desk.
So this is how long this has been in the making to actually try and restore and renovate this beautiful theater.
When I saw that, I think the budget was $12 million, you know, in 2010 to renovate it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I—.
Unidentified speaker
When I took it over, it was not in great shape.
Had a budget of about $600,000.
We had maybe 600 members total.
We just started making a lot of changes.
First with the programming.
We really changed the type of programming we were doing.
Hired Dan Halstead as our head programmer.
And then we developed a really unique model for movie theaters actually in the country, which is a A community programming model, which is we bring in outside programmers from the community to program different series.
I think we have about 15 different series that we run.
So it's really been a way to sort of bring in new audiences, and we'll talk a little bit more about it later.
But really expanding the programming was our first mission.
We started doing things like the seats.
We got new seats.
We did a new marquee.
Thank you.
And, you know, so the membership then was about 600.
We've now got 8,000 members, sort of where we've come from them, from 600 in 2010.
Our budget then too was $600,000.
Our budget is now $7.5 million.
So we've really grown over the last, you know, 15, 16 years.
In 2015, we partnered with the airport to create the only airport cinema in the country.
And I'm not sure if you've seen that, but it shows short films by Northwest filmmakers.
And it's free.
It's part of their public art program.
Dan Ryan
Chris, can I just have a quick question?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Dan Ryan
So when in 1996, '97, when it was first established, was the charge, was it on the chopping block?
Was it gonna be destroyed?
Was there a threat that it could be demolished as a building, or?
Unidentified speaker
I don't know about demolished, but it was going up for sale.
Dan Ryan
The richness were coming out to—.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, it was actually pretty much almost donated to the nonprofit.
Okay.
And so, and then they took it over to fix it up.
But yeah, it was, I don't know if it would've been torn down.
Yeah, it could have though, very easily, had we not, the nonprofit taken it over.
I think that could have been an option.
Dan Ryan
I just remember people really wanting to give money to it because of the architecture itself.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's beautiful.
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
Sorry, that was getting in my way.
And so now I'll hear where we are a decade or so later.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, cool.
Yeah, so we just opened, yeah, we're talking about the Airport Cinema, and then I talked about Movie Madness.
Yes.
Like, then we acquired that in 2018 is when we did that.
And so I'm kind of, you know, showing how, like, we've always tried to expand what we're doing.
Like, so we run a movie theater, but we also are a nonprofit with a mission.
And so we're trying to expand through education.
And we really think of Movie Madness as an archive.
It has 100,000 films in it.
Streaming services at any point, or right now, probably has about 20,000 films.
That means those other 80,000 films may never be seen again because there's nowhere to see them.
So we actually are thinking like this is a way to archive films from different countries and, you know, smaller directors or wherever so that this is really an important place for, you know, to protect the art.
So we started thinking like it was about 2018, I think we started thinking about, okay, we're ready to— now we're really ready.
We have, you know, How many members?
Like 3,000 members, I think, then.
We feel like, okay, we might be able to get enough support to start this renovation campaign, do this capital campaign.
And that's when I hired Kristen, and she came in, she has a lot of fundraising experience.
And so we were thinking, all right, well, let's get back to doing this capital campaign.
And I'll kind of let you take it from here on why it's taken till 2026 for us to start it.
Thanks, Doug.
And good afternoon, councilors, and thank you so much for having us today.
And again, my name is Kristen Zatz-Skillman.
I'm the Deputy Director for Film Forever Northwest.
And I remember my interview with Doug that day so clearly, and we were talking about the, the possibility of a campaign and how far the organization had come.
And it's been such a great privilege to be able to work on this project with our team from the ground up.
And so when I started in 2018, the mission was very clear, which was we needed to prepare our community and our organization for this project.
And as Doug was saying, we were in the midst of, of a real organizational change because we had just brought on Movie Madness into the organization.
So we were learning as an organization how to grow from being, you know, just a movie theater to building on and adding this amazing film archive, one of the largest archives of film and media in the country and in the world, I would say.
And so right away, my team and I made great strides to begin to meet as many members as we could and try to also grow membership and start getting early input from everyone, all of our members and people, stakeholders in the community, every step of the way about what our vision was for the Hollywood.
And so at the time, the plan was really just about the renovation for the Hollywood Theater.
So that was really the early groundwork that we were running.
And so we were working really hard on that, and we were prepared to begin a campaign feasibility study in early 2020.
And you know what happened then.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
So the pandemic definitely put a timeout for us in terms of planning and building towards the renovation, and we were just trying to, to survive like so many, all the other arts nonprofits in Portland.
So the Hollywood was closed for 15 months, which is the longest period of closure in our theater's history.
It's never been closed for that long.
And so what we did was, even though we weren't able to show any public screenings, we were able to just stay very well connected with our community.
So we did everything that you could think of.
We had like Zoom trivia nights.
We had— we offered private rentals with appropriate social distancing so people could still come and get, you know, their widescreen movie fix and kind of have a special moment to rent the Hollywood because that's not something that's ever available.
That was the only time that we really did that.
And we also had concessions pickups, we had movie rental pickups, we shared member recipes.
So we did a lot to stay connected.
And when we finally reopened the summer of 2021, it was just so special to see everyone come together again after such a long period of uncertainty.
And after, you know, we needed to take some time to get our operations back up and running.
And so we were able to move forward with our feasibility study in 2022, which was positively received.
And we began our major gift fundraising in 2024.
And as we had just begun that work, something really incredible happened.
If you want to speak to that one, Doug.
Yeah.
So ever since we've acquired Movie Madness, I had always looked at the building right across the street from Hollywood Theater as a potential home for it.
And it finally came up for sale.
You know, probably like once in a generation this building would come up for sale.
It'd been in the same family for 100 years.
And so and I saw, I'm like, oh, I'm so excited.
And I started looking into it and we're meeting with developers and banks and everything else.
And like, it didn't pencil out for a video store in 2026 to like buy this building and renovate it.
So I kind of had given up.
And literally the next day, one of our, you know, most loyal donors and supporters, Jimmy Brellin is his name, he called us up and was like, what's happening with that building?
I see it's for sale.
I met and talked with him, told him our situation.
He ended up coming in and buying the building, and now he's renovating it, and then he's going to rent it back to us at under market.
And we have— part of our rent will go towards the purchase price, and in 10 years we have the exclusive right to buy the building.
So he's really giving us a runway to be able to make this happen.
So that's been really exciting.
And so that's kind of— then that's when the Film District vision sort of got born.
Thank you.
Here we go.
Oh, keep going to the Movie Madness ones.
Dan Ryan
Oh, here we go.
Candace Avalos
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
So this is nothing— nothing is 100% for sure.
We're still in the planning stages.
But this is, you know, a rendering of the new Movie Madness from the outside.
Again, this will be right across from the Hollywood Theater.
So this is some ideas.
We're actually bringing the old marquee inside and it'll be above the counter.
Just another rendering of the interior.
So we're working with Guggenheim Studio, is a great local architecture firm who's helping us with this.
So we're actually also going to add a 45-seat cinema in there.
Movie Madness currently has a mini-plex in it with 18 seats, but this, we're actually going to build a proper cinema with 45 seats, and it'll be fully accessible, and we'll do first-run movies and repertory and everything.
So we're going to be doing a lot of things.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
So you can see there's kind of a layout.
You can, off to the right are all the stacks of the movies.
One reason we had to move also is because we're running outta space on Belmont, again, with 100,000 films.
And when we acquired Movie Madness, there were 80,000 films.
So in the last, you know, 8 years, we've acquired 20,000 new films for the collection.
You can see sort of where the cinema is right there.
We've got, there's gonna be a lounge down at the bottom left.
So I'll take it from here to speak a little bit about the theater renovation itself.
So this has been many years in the making.
I think, Doug, you mentioned that when you started in 2010, there had already been a building study done with a lot— most of what we're doing outlined in that plan then.
And we knew then that this was a critical need.
So the most critical piece of this renovation is that it involves a total plumbing replacement.
For our 100-year-old pipes.
And it's been really interesting as I connect with more members in the community, and so many people in our neighborhood have gone through their own plumbing replacement recently because a lot of the homes are similar in age.
So people immediately understand, like, it's not necessarily an exciting project on its face, but it's so necessary for us for our long-term sustainability and lasting another 100 years.
And so this is the first significant infrastructure renovation in the theater's history.
Um, One thing that really impressed me when I joined the team was that there really is a solid track record of, of, um, take— there were some aspects of that original building plan that were kind of carved off, that all the things that could be done without actually going into the walls and the floors and getting into the infrastructure is something that we did.
So we have the new marquee, um, the new roofs, we did the lower facade renovation.
Um, what else am I forgetting?
There's quite a few other things.
Seats.
Oh yeah, new seats.
It's already time for new seats again.
Time for new seats now.
So, um, so that's major.
Candace Avalos
I mean, that is really what needs to be done.
Unidentified speaker
And it required— because this, the theater is pretty much solid concrete construction, it involves going into the ground, into the walls, and really taking it apart and putting it back together again.
So that's why it's been so massive and why it's taken so long to be ready for this.
Another huge piece that is core to this renovation plan is improving the accessibility to meet modern ADA requirements.
So, you know, being—.
Thank you.
Being built to a 1926 blueprint, which predates ADA by many years, there are just some interesting quirks in the building that make it difficult to upgrade to modern standards that we need.
So for example, our bathrooms are currently not fully accessible for folks who are using a wheelchair.
So this time we are going to get to modernize and create inclusive restrooms that everyone can use as needed.
And in addition to that, we're adding more accessible accessible seating in the main theater.
So we're increasing our accessibility.
We're also making improvements here and there to, you know, improve the grading and make sure that everything is level as it needs to be.
So that's a huge part of what we're planning.
We're also increasing the seating capacity.
We'll be adding seats upstairs in addition to adding more accessible seating downstairs, like I mentioned.
And then we also have an opportunity because we wanted to, you know, we want to return the theater back to the community.
When people when people walk in, we want them to feel the, the changes and see what we've done because, you know, the plumbing is a little bit invisible.
So we're going to be taking the opportunity to really restore and refresh a lot of our original historic features.
So that includes our original sconces that are in the main auditorium.
We have some faux balconies and other details that we'll be freshening up.
We're going to renovate the lobby and concessions.
We'll add another point-of-sale system so hopefully we can move the lines quicker and be more efficient as an organization operationally.
And then we'll also— Thank you.
Upgrade the lighting, um, you know, new carpets, the, the works.
So we're really excited about all the things that are included in the plan.
And I wanted to speak a little bit about why preserving the Hollywood is so important and why it's so meaningful to Oregon's art culture, Portland's art community.
Um, so we opened in 1926.
Um, we opened as a silent movie palace but also a vaudeville theater.
So there was an orchestra, there was a pipe organ, um, and it was one room, it was one auditorium.
So the the main—.
What's now our main auditorium was the ground floor, and then what's now our upstairs auditoriums were balconies, balcony seating with 1,500 seats total.
And it's— the pipe organ is something that we continue to this day.
We have a community program called Pipe Organ Pictures, which is really, really fun.
Highly recommend watching that.
And what I like to say is that you can— because we were built and opened at the very beginning of really the film industry, you know, It's just the birth of the film industry is when we opened.
And we are one of the very few historic movie palaces that has remained operational all these years and also continued to exist as a movie theater.
A lot of these buildings, these very beautiful, very special buildings, have, you know, because the community wasn't able to support the theater or because it was— it might have been repurposed as something else, a lot of these places have fallen away into disrepair.
But Portland has such a strong film culture.
It has such a— there is a real value on the communal moviegoing experience.
And there are so many wonderful independent theaters in Portland aside from ours.
And so we have— it's very rare that an architectural marvel of a movie palace like ours would still be sustained all these years.
It's very remarkable and it's rare.
And so I say you can see the high watermarks of the film industry inside of the walls of our building because—.
Thank you.
Because every time the film industry innovated or changed technology or something changed with moviegoing habits, like the shift from, you know, this, uh, you know, one silent movie palace to the multiplexes with multiple screens, we've been able to adapt.
But the only reason we've been able to adapt is because of our community.
And there are still— there are generations of people that have come to the Hollywood.
Um, often, um, you know, when we play 2001: A Space Odyssey on 70mm, there will be people in the audience who attended its opening run in the '60s.
So there is a, there's a long line of hands of people who have carried the Hollywood Theatre forward.
And it's such a, it's such a privilege and opportunity for all of us, I think, to be in this moment and to have a hand in a major turning point for the Hollywood and seeing it forward for not just ourselves but future Portlanders.
So that's the kind of thing that gets me really excited.
Um, so, you know, in the '50s we had 70mm projection installed.
That still is continuing to this day.
70Mm is among our most popular programming, and, um, we, we do so well with it that I think we've had some influence in seeing the, um— you're seeing a lot more 70mm first-run films coming out because we have demonstrated, and other, um, uh, theaters have demonstrated, that the audience cares about 70mm and analog film formats.
Um, in the '80s, we were added to the National Registry of Historic Places we became a nonprofit in 1997, and then here we are today serving over 200,000 people a year in over 450 events.
And that's another thing that sets us apart is some theaters, you know, will show a first run or, or a few films for several weeks.
We're showing 3 different titles pretty much every single night.
So there's— and that's through our community programming model.
So you really do get the full film experience by coming to the Hollywood Theater.
It's really a great place thank you.
And I wanted to share some really cool historic photos.
So, um, I, I'm not sure what year this was.
This was, I think, maybe later in the '50s.
But there are so many photos in our archives of just from back, way back when to present day, where people are— the lines are just all around the block.
And then you can see just how our lobby really is a place for congregation and sharing and talking and discussing film and discussing art.
And so these these photos show what it's like every night of the week at the Hollywood.
It always is like this.
It's a— like I said, it's a wonderful, warm, welcoming space.
And so from here, I'll turn it back to you, Doug.
Great, thanks.
So, um, you know, it has this— the film district vision has been sort of coming together, and it's organically— things just kind of keep popping up and happening, and we try and pay attention to them and maybe potentially pursue them.
One thing we've been thinking about is, you know, how can we involve more people, more organizations, more local businesses to get excited about this?
Because this is a very unique thing.
There's really nothing like this in the country that's kind of be this neighborhood dedicated to film.
So have that having that in the back of our head.
I've had a lot of local businesses or nonprofits come to me saying, "Hey, we want to come to Hollywood," and so I've been working with.
Thank you.
So we've been working with Metro and some other people, like, trying to figure out, okay, where are there some empty buildings, and, like, kind of acting as somebody who can help people find somewhere to go.
And we've had a couple of those things happen.
But then this huge opportunity presented itself, which is the old Fred Meyer Rite Aid building that's across the street from the theater that's now a Planet Fitness.
I'm not sure if any of you remember, but it used to be the Fred Meyer Bargain Basement down in the basement, and it also had a Tuesday mornings.
It's a 30,000-square-foot basement that has tall ceilings.
It's got an elevator.
It's got bathrooms.
It's, you know, permitted for retail use and even some bar restaurant use.
So, and the owner, I met him and he heard we were doing— he's like, oh, this is really exciting.
He goes, this is great for business, for my building.
You know, he's like, great for the neighborhood.
And I said, so what are you doing with that basement?
And he's like, oh, I don't have the time or energy to rent it out.
And so toured it with him and I said, well, could we use it?
And he's really cool and he's like, yep.
He's like, if you want to take it over and fix it up and do whatever you want down here, then I'll give you a killer deal.
Like, you know, really, really good deal.
And so I started talking to some people, other organizations, and the interest has been huge.
So we're sort of imagining it, and this is again very yes.
It's very explorational.
We haven't gotten too far with this, but it's bringing in more people is what we're trying to do.
So thinking of calling it Hollywood Underground, and it would be basically there's 2 entrances from the stairs underneath the Planet Fitness, but you'd end up in this wonderland of film stuff happening down there, from screening rooms to a movie escape room.
There's someone I'm talking to, to the Museum of Stop Motion Animation, to like, so just like swap meets for VHS tapes.
I mean, just kind of taking over that whole space and parsing it out to different nonprofits, businesses, entrepreneurs, whoever.
Maybe there's a speakeasy down there as well.
So really excited about this idea.
We have a lot of exploration to do and see if it pencils out and makes sense.
But I know the interest is there.
Again, I've just told a few people about this.
This is kind of a new thing, and I'm already getting people calling me saying, how do I get in there?
Thank you.
So that's been, been really exciting.
So I want to turn it over to Elise now, and she's been a huge supporter of ours, and I just kind of want to talk— have her talk a little bit about from the film industry side as to how this might have an impact.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, thanks.
Again, for those of you I don't know, Elise Taylor-Lybird, she/her pronouns, and I'm the film industry project manager at the Portland Events and Film Office housed at Prosper.
That is a mouthful.
Um, I loved what you said, Councilor Ryan, about this being something you can get excited about, because I feel like this is the easy part of our job, right?
Um, a lot of what Doug and Kristen have talked about is decades of work and, uh, thought and community engagement and really taking what the community wants into this plan.
And so just deep gratitude for the work that they've done over the last couple decades on this project.
And I'm, like Doug said, I'm just here in huge support on behalf of the film industry in Portland.
We are all residents, right, of Portland, and we know that this city is made up of neighborhoods.
When you are like, what do we do in Portland?
What are the top 10 touristy things to do in Portland?
Yeah.
We hear about the Alberta Arts District or go to Hawthorne and go shopping, go see Powell's.
I want Hollywood Film District to be on that list.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Why?
Angelita Morillo
Because part of what they're cultivating is a community where not just people in the industry, but people who just love film can go and belong.
They can geek out.
You did not mention all of the memorabilia.
I have geeked out personally over the ruby red shoes.
It's, again, it's a place of belonging and community for the film industry.
He touched on it a little bit.
I just want to emphasize that something was built in Hollywood that hasn't— I don't even know if the media has picked it up, but this Hollywood Q is partially— it's food carts.
There's about 9 food carts.
It's a brewery, and there's office spaces upstairs.
So it's a place where people can come and This all happened because someone who'd grown up in Northeast Portland believed in the Hollywood District, believed in seeing more infrastructure and equitable office spaces.
He's giving all kinds of discounted rent to film industry nonprofits, and the folks there are just coming in droves.
And now there's like a waitlist to get into these office spaces.
Because again, it's a place where you feel connected to the work that you're doing.
You feel that the business owners see what you're doing and support that art.
And then it just helps that you can go downstairs and go to a brewery called The Spotlight, and then you can go across the street to the Hollywood Theater.
I also want to say that this district is making my job very easy in terms of I don't need to tell you all, you all know this, but when Portland wins, all of the industries win.
And in the film industry, as it's getting squeezed in the market with jobs and productions, we need to continue to tell the story that Portland is a vibrant, great, livable city.
And stuff like the film district just aid to that and build it up and amplify it.
Councilmember Herbold.
And so it is job creation because the more things that we can do to provide information to folks that are not living here that it's safe, it's livable, people can come here and have livable wages and work and live and, you know, all of the good stuff, productions will then follow.
And so we're really excited about the Film District.
I think that it— yes, it is a name.
I want to see it everywhere, just like I see the Alberta Arts District everywhere.
Thank you.
I'd love to see it in name, but I think that having the city's support behind it for this capital project in particular with the 100th renovations will be really important.
Yeah, I don't know what else I can touch on.
Unidentified speaker
Well, thanks.
Yeah, appreciate your support.
Yeah, and it's exciting having, you know, we've always been kind of on the other side of showing movies, but now we're having the industry that's making them is We're all together and it feels really special.
How much time do we have left, by the way?
I don't want to— make sure I cover the most important things.
Candace Avalos
We've got—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We're good on time.
Unidentified speaker
We're good on time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, we'll reserve some time at the end for questions, but you're good to keep going for a little longer if you have a little more.
Unidentified speaker
So I want to talk a little bit about the economic impact of, you know, what we're doing and some of the things that we're actually getting an economic impact study done specifically for us, but there is some other information about there.
One is there's methodology established by the American for the Arts, and we estimate the Hollywood Theater currently generates more than $13 million in annual economic impact through organizational expenses, audience spending, employment, and related neighborhood activity.
And there's additional data from the 2021 Economic Contributions of the U.S. Movie theater industry study by Cinema United, which found that moviegoers spend an average of $38.46 beyond the price of admission on dining, retail, transportation, and other local purchases associated with a theater visit.
So based on the Hollywood Theater's annual attendance of more than 200,000 visitors, this represents an estimated $7.6 million per year benefiting nearby businesses and the broader local economy.
We also attract regional, national visitors through some of our special programming and special guests like Kurt Russell or RZA.
And so we think the cultural tourism activities contribute additional spending on hotels, dining, and things.
And we're going to be doing some more research to help figure that out.
And so— and part of this has been too is like, okay, well, how much are we bringing— like, this is our project, the Movie Madness in the theater, but how much are we also bringing in other people in the neighborhood and who else, how can we include everybody.
And so we're working on that now and we are working with— we've met with the neighborhood association and everybody else.
And so I just wanted to share— these people aren't here, but some testimonials from some of these folks, if that's okay.
So I'm going to start with Jo Schaefer.
I'm actually going to read a letter she just— it's so funny.
I asked a couple of these people, like, just can you just write us a quick, short endorsement?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
And they're like, no, I'm writing you a letter.
So I've got a couple letters to read, but they're really sweet, so I kind of want to read them.
So those— this is from Jo Schaefer.
She's the interim director or president of the Hollywood Neighborhood Association.
She said, those of us who live in the neighborhood would be hard-pressed to find a better neighborhood establishment than the Hollywood Theatre.
Over the years, their imaginative programs and outreach have been amazing.
Their team has proven to be masters of engaging in the community by hosting numerous events— B-movie bingo, trivia nights, the Film by Bike Festival, and a concert venue for those attending the Veterans Day parades.
Even during COVID-19, they were able to touch base with the public by selling fresh hot popcorn and other concession items curbside.
They have partnered with the Community for Positive Aging, which is the Hollywood Senior Center, hosting a free movie once a month from 12:30 to 3, which encourages seniors to get out, socialize, and meet new people in a safe and comfortable environment.
Bar Hollywood was open in 2025 as a space to allow moviegoers to gather before and/or after attending a movie for beer, wine, NA drinks, and snacks, and minors welcome until 9:00 PM.
Uh, plans to move Movie Madness across the street from the theater is a much anticipated and welcome addition to the area, with more than 102,000 movie titles available to rent and/or buy thank you.
The theater will offer a wonderful entertainment option to those who may not be able to afford to take their family out for movie night.
This last point will be even more important to the residents of a new 225-unit low-income affordable housing project, the Hollywood Hub, located just 2 blocks away.
There are additional plans to include a family-friendly restaurant, movie museum, screening room, and educational programs to their long list of menu features for this project.
Each and every one of the points mentioned above showcase how the Hollywood Theatre contributes so it was nice to get that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Take a minute, it's hard to beat that.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, it's pretty good.
So this is Paul Clark, who runs Township Properties, owns 42nd Street Station, if you know that.
And he's— I think he's got a jacket that says Mayor of Hollywood.
He's been around forever and is really like— owns a lot of property.
He's been part of the boosters.
He's been a really great neighborhood supporter.
So he wrote, it's hard to ask about the Hollywood Theater without reflecting on its historical significance.
When the theater was built, the area was somewhat nameless.
As businesses began to develop, they used the name Hollywood to identify their locations, such as Fred Meyer.
This continues today.
Many commercial businesses relate their location as it relates to the theater.
Many of the restaurants and lounges enjoy brisk business prior to the evening showing of a picture.
It is the main anchor for the area.
Of all the theaters in Portland, the Hollywood Theatre remains true to its original mission: movies for all.
It's another nice one.
So this is from Tim Williams, who runs the Oregon Film Office.
Portland's film and media community is at the heart of the city's perception of being an international creative destination, and the Hollywood Film Film District sits at the center of that.
From idea to production to audience, it all happens in this one place.
This is from Neil Kopp and Anish Savjani, who are— the company called Film Science.
They're an independent film production studio.
They produce all of Kelly Reichardt's films, if you're familiar with her.
They said, we recently moved into our new office in the Hollywood District, drawn by anchors like the Hollywood Theatre and Movie Madness.
We see the Hollywood Film District as a meaningful first step towards something bigger, a sustained center of gravity for production and film culture in Portland.
We fully support this initiative and the growth it sets in motion for our community.
This might be my favorite one.
This is Katie Moon, who's the co-owner and manager of the Moon and Sixpence Pub.
Is her last name really Moon?
I didn't think I ever knew that.
I've known yes.
She said, I have worked in this neighborhood for 17 years, and I can say with certainty that the theater is the pulse of Hollywood.
For years, our level of business has been directly influenced by showtimes, special events, and the people the theater brings to the neighborhood.
We don't just notice when a major event is happening at the theater, we plan around it.
We schedule staff based on screenings.
We wait to make staffing decisions until we've checked movie times.
We know that solo thank you.
A sold-out show often means a busy pub before and after.
What has always stood out to me, however, is not just the economic impact, it's the people.
The Hollywood Theatre attracts curious, thoughtful, generous, and engaged members of our community.
We've always been delighted by the caliber of people who walk through our doors after a screening.
Film lovers bring conversation, creativity, and connection with them.
They help create the kind of neighborhood atmosphere that independent businesses depend on and that residents value.
Thank you.
It also feels important to mention the sense of safety and vitality the theater brings to Hollywood.
There have been countless nights that my drive home coincides with a late-night screening letting out.
Sitting at a stoplight, I watch streams of people emerge onto the street.
Seeing sidewalks filled with engaged, enthusiastic community members creates an immediate sense of ease.
The theater doesn't just bring people to the neighborhood, it brings life to the neighborhood.
The theater isn't an amenity should we move on to our endorsements?
Huh?
Should we move on to our—.
Yeah.
Okay, great.
So not only— we're going to move on a little bit here, but so we've got not only neighborhood folks are really behind it, but we've— the film industry in general, like the Hollywood film industry and the national and global film industry.
This is a really unique thing.
It doesn't really exist anywhere.
So thankfully, we've been able to get some pretty high-profile people also behind this.
And now we just want to share thank you.
This is Todd Haynes.
He's a local director.
He did May December, Carol, Far from Heaven, Velvet Goldmine.
So he wrote, the Hollywood Film District is one of the most exciting projects I've seen for Portland in years, building on the phenomenal growth of the landmark Hollywood Theater and the diverse, devoted community it has attracted.
This energy has expanded into a vision for an actual neighborhood devoted to lovers of film that reflects the vitality and uniqueness of this city and its people.
As so much of the communal experience of moviegoing struggles in other cities, here in Portland, it's exploding.
Okay, just so we won't go through any more of these, we'll just kind of show you some of the other folks.
And this is on our website, you can read more about them.
But we have Sean Baker, who just won the Academy Award for Nora, or multiples.
Kate Winslet, Gus Van Sant, Michelle Williams, Pedro Pascal, even.
Julianne Moore.
Natalie Portman.
Kelly Reichardt.
Cate Blanchett.
Jason Reitman.
Guy Madden.
Chuck Palahniuk.
Matt Fraction, local comic writer.
Yeah, so it's been really exciting to have all these people, and some of them are going to come for events.
I'm going to be there.
And they're happy to help, like, in any way they can, just because it's a very, very unique thing that we're doing.
So we'll move on now and talk about sort of our timeline and our budget.
Dan Ryan
Doug, that was some great name-dropping.
Unidentified speaker
Oh yeah, cool.
Pedro gets the best reaction.
Everything from, like, my niece to my elderly mother, like, they all love him.
Angelita Morillo
It's so good.
Unidentified speaker
So here's our timeline, sort of what's happening for us.
From September '24 to March '25, that was our pre-launch and our feasibility.
Current status is we already— we do have already $3 million committed with a top donor commitment of half a million dollars.
The Movie Madness renovations just started last— late last month, and probably will be finished in, you know, April or so of next year.
During that time, like during 2027, we— so we've already got the basically the funding in place for Movie Madness to happen, um, but we have a $6 million benchmark that we're going for.
That's our goal for the Hollywood Theater renovations and, um, trying to raise that by December of '27.
Um, we've got— and ideally we're starting renovations in about January of 2028.
We probably will be closed for 5 months or so.
We really want to sort of ramp up and prep for that.
And then, you know, we— if we beat that goal, great.
But in the meantime, if we just hit that goal, we'll be able to accomplish everything we're doing.
We are going to be applying for CREF funding at the state through Cultural Advocacy Coalition.
We got through the first round of that, but we are going to be looking for other public-private partnerships as we move forward.
Also, you know, some of the things that sort of why we're here and what we, you know, number one is to kind of get some advice and thoughts from you on the other things we should be doing or what we could be doing.
But also, um, I've never built a district before, so I don't really know what I'm doing.
And like, do I need approval?
Or, you know, so you're just saying like, like we want, like, can, how do we, do we make it officially the Hollywood Film District?
Is there working with PBOT on signage and murals and wayfinding?
And so kind of, um, inquiring and getting some feedback from all of you on that.
So do you have anything else you want to say?
Cool.
All right, well, thank you for your time.
If you have any questions, we're happy to answer any of them.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you all so much for being here and for the information.
I think when I last met with you, there were only about half as many prospective tenants as you have now and not that long waitlist.
And I think it's really great to see the progress that you've made.
Hollywood Underground was not yet a thing.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So it's incredible to see the continued progression, to see that every time there's a big thing happening and that starts to move, another big thing falls into place right behind it.
And I think that's how you build a district, right?
That actually is the work of building a district.
We can talk to you about signage and wayfinding.
But you're doing the work on the ground organically of making this a real thing.
And that's really incredible to watch happen.
I think the first thing you need to get that help navigating through PBOT and other pieces of the city infrastructure is a champion.
I'm guessing that you have a champion sitting right next to me here, given that he asked to have this on the agenda, but I think you will have a number of folks who are interested in this on council.
Dan Ryan
I'd like to share.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, I could share that.
And I think we can help offline with some of those navigation pieces and talking through what the opportunities are there.
I do want to make sure we have an opportunity for questions, comments, thoughts from folks who are up here, and either anything else you want to learn from our guests or any advice you have for them.
Councilor Avalos?
You're first in the queue.
Do you want to kick us off there?
Candace Avalos
Yeah, sounds good.
Uh, thank you so much for the presentation and for sharing your vision, um, with us today.
I lived in the Hollywood neighborhood for a few years, and so I spent a lot of time at the Hollywood Theater and just the surrounding neighborhood.
So I definitely agree that this is, you know, really pivotal part of that neighborhood, and, um, I love the vision you're describing to kind of expand to like a film district.
I have some, some questions and thoughts on that.
I think also I just— what I appreciate about projects like this is that they remind us that economic development isn't just about industrial land or office towers, right?
Culture is economic development too, and the places that people choose to visit and build community and spend their time are the same kinds of things that help neighborhoods thrive.
So I appreciate that vision.
And how it will contribute to more than just, you know, the neighborhood benefit, but also to the broader city, especially with all of those celebrities that you, you have in your corner.
So I guess I just wanted to get a sense from you all.
I mean, I'm, I'm hearing that you're in the middle of a capital campaign.
I heard at the end you were saying you want a public-private partnership.
So can you just tell me a little more about what you're looking for from the city at this like, are you looking at policy support, financial participation?
You know, help, help me understand where you see the city, um, coming into this conversation.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, great.
So I think, um, exactly what, uh, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney was saying, like getting connected.
I have been having a lot of meetings with PBOT and Metro and TriMet and everybody, but like getting just a little bit more connected and a little bit more support behind us to sort of explore some of these ideas that we have of, you know, even like there's been talk of changing some traffic patterns around the theater because right now Sandy encourages you to drive right through Hollywood, not stop at all, and making it safer for pedestrians.
I've probably had to dive out of the 5 cars over the time that I've been there on Sandy, you know.
So can we create a scramble or something in front of the theater?
Like things like that would be really helpful.
Of course, financial.
Yeah, we, I mean, we have a big budget to raise and so thank you.
Candace Avalos
Yeah, and also agree that having a champion to help you navigate the city would be great.
I think you've got some colleagues to my left here, but happy to offer any support where I can.
Unidentified speaker
Cool.
Candace Avalos
And I think and, we're going to go ahead and move on to the next item on you the agenda.
Know, I think in general, like, talking about the financial aspect of it, if the city is to invest in something like this, for example, how would we communicate— I'm not saying it doesn't, I just want in your own words— how would we communicate the primary public benefits for Portland residents beyond preserving these fabulous institutions?
Like, how would— how are you all describing the impacts?
I know you obviously shared a lot of that in your presentation, but just kind of want to hear more sure.
Unidentified speaker
Um, so thank you, that's a great question.
And so I— what we— the way— the reason why I personally am so excited about this project, and I was a Hollywood Theater member before I was ever a staff member, is that this project really is like a Venn diagram of multiple interests.
So there's the first, the historic preservation piece.
Um, the theater itself, if you look at the architecture, it is an architectural marvel.
It's one of a kind.
Um, there is— it's very So it's really important that we preserve it and keep it standing strong.
Second is obviously the film and the arts piece of it.
You know, I believe that film is one of the most accessible art forms that is available to our community.
I know that growing up in the background that I did grow up from, like in a mountain holler in Tennessee, movies were a window and a path forward for me.
And it gave me an opportunity to engage with culture in ways that maybe weren't immediately available to me and where I grew up.
And so I always carry that with me when I think about the importance of film.
And then the third piece of it is the community aspect.
You know, this is a gathering place.
This is— many people that I speak with say that Hollywood is their church.
Like, that is the level of reverence that many people have for this place.
And it isn't just about the movies that we watch, it's about having a safe, welcoming place where we can connect and talk and spend time, and then we go our separate ways, but then we come back.
And so I— and then there, of course, there's the economic development piece.
So I feel like this is a project that I think many people can, can kind of, you know, think about what their own values are and what is most important to them in terms of helping co-create the kind of community that we all want to live in and can kind of invest there.
And so that's, that's what I think is my short speech about the value of this project.
Thank you.
Yeah, and I just want to expand on that a little bit.
So like, for me, my favorite thing about the theater and then this whole film district, uh, is the same thing, is that the audiences and the communities that are there on each and every night, because they're so different sometimes.
Like one night, um, you know, we have the Latin American Film Festival and we partner with them and they do their own programming.
The next night we have a motorcycle film festival and it's full of bikers.
And the next night we have the Eco Film Festival and it's environmentalists and we show a lot of indigenous films.
And that community comes out.
We have the Black Film Festival.
We have, you know, all these different series and all these different groups of people, and everyone kind of feels like it's home for them, which is really special.
And I just love that it's not the same 100 people coming all the time.
You know, every night it's a— because we're showing a different film or a different event every night, it's just always different.
And then watching a movie with people was just much more powerful than watching it at home alone.
Standing in the back of the auditorium, seeing everybody react together, and then watching everybody in the lobby afterwards talk about what they just saw and process it is very meaningful.
And I think what we're doing is just expanding that and like putting that on steroids and saying, okay, now we're just going to, you know, have— now we're going to maybe, you know, Movie Madness that's happening there in the lounge, and then maybe Hollywood Underground and people connecting over a shared love of something, but it's more thank you.
Candace Avalos
Fun fact, my first job was at a movie theater, and they put the bubbly Black Tina in charge of doing events for the movies.
I had no idea what I was doing, but, you know, I knew then that, like, movies are more than just the movie, right?
There's an experience, there's culture.
We would— our movie theater happened to have a lot of Bollywood movies, so we did programming around Bollywood.
I love Bollywood.
For the community.
So I have a special place in my heart for this kind of work.
And one of my questions I think you answered, which is just like, you know, what, what would be the success, right?
Like if we're looking back after 5 years and you get this all done, you get the film district, what would— how would you measure success?
And I feel like your last comments answered that.
So I agree that I've really loved going to the Hollywood Theater, not just for a regular movie, but also the kinds of events that you all put on, doing a Q&A after, doing a whole experience.
So I'm supportive and very curious to see what comes next and happy to tap me in to help along the way.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yes, thank you, Chair Pirtle-Guiney.
It's great to see you, Doug.
It was last July, so it was almost a year ago that I was there.
Wow.
Unidentified speaker
Time flies.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
I've had jobs like yours and they're really hard, difficult to pull off.
And I have a question about that later.
And then it's great to see the partner, Elise.
It's great to see you in general from Prosper Portland.
I think what I wanted to get at is, one, I have a question because the Portland Fashion Institute is in your neighborhood and they're having their 50th anniversary.
And I think they're a resource in the city that we forget about.
And they're not far from you.
And so I hope that you all can figure out what that partnership looks like.
I think you benefit from each other being in the same neighborhood.
Yeah.
There's something about, you know, opening nights and fashion that go together with film.
Unidentified speaker
So we actually— and we actually have a series called Fashion and Film where people get dressed up, they— somebody presents on the fashion in the film, Eden Dawn.
And then, so it might be interesting to kind of bring them in on that.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, that seems like fits like a glove right there.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Dan Ryan
Okay, so that's good to hear.
When you mentioned the capital campaign goal and you have $3 million to $6 million, I always was pretty quiet until it got well past the $3 million because my experience was the last part was often the most challenging to raise.
And then the other part that was always difficult, one, I inherited after a capital campaign and I was the development director after it and the capital campaign didn't prepare for the fact that our operations expenses would go up based on the new largesse.
And I'm sure you're thinking about all this.
So is the $6 million, does that factor in some of those initial new expenses for operations, or is that a conversation that you're having?
In other words, being the development director after that was a nightmare.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
Because we had to suddenly raise like a million more and no one projected for that.
Yeah, so back to the donors, because they're like, we already gave you money for the capital campaign.
Unidentified speaker
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing, even while you're— when you're going through the capital campaign, that you don't get your annual fundraising because they're only giving to the campaign.
And so balancing that is a challenge.
I think we— yeah, we have a pro forma budget for once we reopen.
We've got— thankfully, we're going to be increasing revenue.
We're going to be adding another till at the concession stand, and actually some upstairs, what we're doing is adding about 50% more seats in each auditorium.
We're also going to generate extra revenue there, plus Movie Madness, that's a whole other 45 seats there too and a screening room.
We're incorporating all that in and it seems to be penciling out.
We are— our finance manager is doing a really good job of sort of— and our treasurer of parsing all that out.
I have seen other nonprofits go on the big capital campaigns.
And it sort of ruined them when they got a new big building donated, but then they couldn't afford to deal with it.
But I'm feeling pretty good about our future.
And I think with everything happening in the district and with the Hollywood Hub going in and with, you know, the Hollywood Q opening up, and it just feels it's just getting, you know, more and more busy there, which I think will be good for our bottom line.
Dan Ryan
I'm not surprised.
We had a little bit of a conversation about this a year ago, so I could tell I can tell it's been well-formed, and, uh, and I wanted you to express that to all of us.
Um, when you mentioned the scramble crosswalk, scramble is, for example, I think this is what you mean.
So Powell's Bookstore, West Burnside, where all 4, you can walk in all 4 directions.
Unidentified speaker
Exactly.
Dan Ryan
Okay, that's what you would like in that hub area.
Unidentified speaker
I mean, I want to talk about it.
I don't know enough about that to know if that's worth it, but I, I just have seen—.
Dan Ryan
No, I think you want that.
Um, but, but I think it's also like, I want I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, especially if we have the Hollywood Underground, then I mean, people are going at all 3, you know, all 3 corners.
And so they'll be crossing, they could cross diagonally and just get all the traffic to stop.
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
What can be said on West Burnside?
People are pretty determined to get to their next destination.
And I think that it does help that that stop exists that allows that to occur.
Yeah.
And so that's why I wanted to bring it up more as a make sure I was really hearing you right.
Yeah.
And then when you say that you want to build a district, first of all, there's no better way to build a district than what you've already been doing.
So the fact that you've attracted like industry to the area, you did what government couldn't do for you.
So now it's more like we just have to figure out how to meet you where this momentum and enthusiasm is.
And I'll work with my partners in D2 and others to follow up on what that looks like.
You know, there's always the sign toppers, of course, Yeah.
But there's more than that.
And I think it's important that we just figure out in these new roles as legislators how we work with the city administration to see that through.
And so I think what today I'm getting is your clear vision, and you've all 3 presented that really well.
And you can tell this has even evolved from a year ago.
And so I just want to thank you for having that clear vision.
Having demonstrated success in one year's time.
And as someone that had to put pipes in a 1930 home when I bought it in 2001, and that was so not glamorous because you spend so much money and everyone's like, what do you mean you spent all that money in your house?
No one can tell.
But it's such a big deal.
And so I'm glad that you're focusing on infrastructure in your campaign, and that's a big part of the initial phase.
Yeah.
Everything you explained was wonderful.
Thank you for being persistent, keeping it going for this long, 100 years.
And it was a real big story in 1996, '97 when I first moved back that there was a threat that, you know, who's going to— what are we going to do with this space?
And so I think a lot of us were thrilled that a nonprofit took over and the preservation could begin.
But then what you've done since then, and now even where it is today, is is really exciting.
So I can imagine that your campaign will continue to be successful.
And I think the city, I think that the city is here to meet you where you are and allow you to be successful.
But this is like the kind of microeconomies that we need throughout the city.
Mm-hmm.
And no matter how much there's been a trend towards people wanting to desire to have work from home, for example, The need for connection, the need for place-bound industry continues to take off because like minds, like industries like to be around each other and they like to see each other in person.
So you're onto something that's very valid.
And, you know, I know the big example is Nike, but there's no accident that we have other microeconomies that are connected to that, even large ones.
There's no accident that Adidas Thank you.
This is here because of Nike North America.
A little concerned Under Armour is pulling away, but the fact is it's really big on the macro settings but also in neighborhoods.
And I think that you're on to something, and I really appreciate your creativity and your perseverance.
This is a Portland story that we need to really lift.
I'm excited to do what we can to basically not get in your way and help amplify with the necessary gifts that government can add on top of that.
So I want to make sure that we stay in touch.
Unidentified speaker
Great.
Well, thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
I know that the theater and the film district are the star of the show today, but Elise, I want to ask you a question about something that you said about the industry more broadly.
Sure.
Um, you said kind of casually, actually, in the middle of the rest of of your piece of this, that building this district will make your job easier.
And I've been around a lot of the conversations at the state level about the film tax credit and the fact that Portland has always been able to draw, um, more than our fair share of the industry with less than the subsidy that a lot of other locations put in.
Um, I guess Portland and Oregon exactly.
But I also have heard that that's petered off a little bit and that we've had a harder time over the last few years.
So I'd love to hear anything you can share with more detail about how the work of developing a film district in a more formal way in our city might help bring back our outsized opportunity yep.
For the jobs that come with production in our state?
Because those are often living wage jobs that help support both local businesses, but also local independent actors, producers, contractors working around the industry.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you for that question.
And you are listening.
I love that.
So yeah, I mean, what you're referring to is our incentives is, uh, pretty on par with about 20 other city— or states, excuse me— in the United States, um, which means we're not competing against New York or Los Angeles or Texas or Georgia.
We're about mid-range with $20 million for our state incentive.
Um, for example, in 2020 when the pandemic happened, we got very lucky and had Top Chef, which kind of, um, alleviated some of the pain points and the growing points for our industry, meaning people thank you.
And just with the way that the studios are squeezed and they're just— we are— our bread and butter in Portland and Oregon in particular are independent films, and that's kind of our sweet spot, and we do it really well.
In fact, most people, including the governor, has said that we punch above our weight, which I love that because we truly do.
People move here and they're talented, and then they live here because they fall in I think right now what I'm referring to is a little bit of what I think a lot of industries in our city in general are trying to continue to change the narrative about Portland.
There's still places that you go and visit and they ask, is it safe?
You know, are we going to be okay?
And our job is to change the conversation.
It's not just about incentives.
You don't come here for the incentives.
You come here for the landscape and the talent and the crew and the people.
Thank you.
People and the culture.
Um, but when people do bring up the livability and the safety and all of that, it really helps when the rest of the city is doing well.
And by well, I mean our tourism, so our heads in beds, our numbers are growing, our events, our foot traffic, and really our small businesses.
So when all of those things are thriving, um, which I believe the Hollywood Film District will continue to make those things thrive, like small business and it doesn't necessarily become a, oh, do they have the incentive?
It becomes a, you know what, I've heard amazing things about the city of Portland.
Let's go figure out how to film something there.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Great, thank you.
That's, that's helpful context to have.
And I, of course, I have to assume that any positive narrative is positive and helps with that, but a positive narrative about the city of Portland and the city's economic development that the film industry elsewhere, especially out of Hollywood South, a positive narrative that they're paying more attention to because it's about our Hollywood, probably goes even farther than that type of work in other parts of the city.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I just wanted to chime in quick about— I talked to Tim Williams about this too from the Oregon Film Office, and he really thinks like the idea of like you're picking which city you're going to so not only do you have the incentives and everything else and what the city's like, but it'd be pretty enticing for the cast and the whoever else crew that are coming to be like, oh, you get to hang out in a film district when you're not working.
And so he just kind of thought having this here, and if it's vibrant, that it would just make it more attractive because it would be a more like a fun place or an interesting place to do your work.
And then you're probably going to bring and have more qualified talent.
I think that's a great idea.
So we're hoping it can contribute to the— it wasn't our goal to do that, but we're thinking, oh, this might contribute to the industry.
So it's kind of becoming part of the goal now.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Great to hear.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I also want to thank you for getting support from other parts of the neighborhood and not just the businesses in the neighborhood, but representatives of the residents as well.
Often things like this move very quickly.
Thank you.
Businesses move better, move easier when there is neighborhood support.
We all know that, but people look to the businesses first and the residents second.
And to see that you already have the neighborhood association on board, that you're working with the senior center, which serves a lot of people in the broader community, but also in that neighborhood, is a good sign to me that this isn't just driven by those who are hoping to be in on the profits, which is important certainly, but is not the only piece of that neighborhood, but that you're talking to the people who live there as well.
And so I think as you look to the city for help on what does it mean for this to be a formal district, I hope that you continue to bring in residents in the neighborhood.
Mm-hmm.
I know we will certainly hear from them as well.
And they'll be feeling the impacts of changes, whether it's traffic, whether it's street signs, whether it's their neighborhood being rebranded.
And so we want to make sure they're on board.
I really appreciate the fact that you're already doing that work.
So thank you for bringing that forward.
Unidentified speaker
You mentioned it too, that Chad and Dana Reneker, who are doing the Hollywood Q, they actually live in the neighborhood.
And then Jimmy Brelund, who's our kind of angel investor, we call him, he lives like a couple blocks too.
So what's interesting is people investing in the neighborhood are also the residents.
And so it's been, it feels really good.
It's not outside people coming in.
It's like we're all kind of there and trying to improve it together.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That's fantastic.
Colleagues, we have another agenda item and we're actually right at time right now, but are there any last-minute questions before we let our guests get on with the rest of their afternoon?
Okay, thank you so much for being here, for bringing forward the details.
And I think you have interest from at least a couple of us up here in helping you with the navigation of the city.
And we will assume that we'll hear from you more as you move forward with the campaign in more formal ways as well.
Dan Ryan
Great.
Unidentified speaker
All right, thank you so much.
Appreciate your time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, colleagues, we have one other item on our agenda.
Wendy, could you please read item 4 for us?
Unidentified speaker
Yes, thank you.
Item number 4, document number 2026-216, extend lease with Urban Office and Parking Facilities for the City Kids Childcare and Development Center space by 5 years, amending CLM Contract 10014.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
And colleagues, we will be hearing from Ron Zito and I believe Pauline Goble about the need to renew this lease and what we're looking at in terms of benefits to the city and changes in the lease, lease terms.
Ron, do you want to kick us off?
Unidentified speaker
I think we're going to start with Pauline to kick us off.
Thank you though.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Perfect.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, councilors.
My name is Pauline Goble, and I'm part of the Bureau of Fleet and Facilities real estate team.
And I'm here with the Director of Human Resources, Ron Zito.
His program— or the bureau— his bureau manages the program, the City Kids program, and the Joyful Noise operator contract to run the program.
And we are here today to request the authority authority of— or excuse me.
Oh, thank you.
I was wondering where that went to.
Oh, thank you so much.
Thanks.
Yeah, and we're here today to request that council obligate the funds for a 5-year lease extension for City Kids at Crown Plaza.
And so for a little history, the City Kids program was established in 2000 at the Portland Building, and that was to support the city's Employer of Choice program.
And it was, uh, at least was, was entered into with joyful noise for running the program, where it remained at the ground floor of the Portland Building through 2016, when at that time, due to the Portland Building reconstruction project, the daycare had to be relocated.
So at that At that time, it was— we became aware of a vacant daycare available, or city— excuse me, childcare facility available at Crown Plaza.
And so after a feasibility study was conducted to confirm the viability of relocating operations from the Portland building to the Crown Plaza building, we entered into a 10-year lease with the landlord at Crown Plaza, and included in that lease the lease was a 5-year option to renew, and so that's why we're here today, is we are looking to extend the child care program, the space at Crowne Plaza, for an additional 5 years to operate the child care, the City Kids program.
So, Ron.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Pauline.
Unidentified speaker
Yep.
And good afternoon, councilors and committee chair.
For the record, Ron Zito, interim Director for the Bureau of Human Resources.
And where Pauline just shared some details on the history of the lease agreement, I wanted to briefly emphasize the value of this program, which is in many ways both an employee benefit and a community asset.
For more than 2 decades, CityKids has supported working families by providing accessible, high-quality childcare in the downtown Portland area.
While the program was originally established to support city employees, it also serves families who work throughout the downtown core.
And so that helps contribute to the vitality of our and then secondly, it's also an arrangement that supports workforce recruitment and retention for our organization.
Having access to quality childcare near the workplace, it reduces stress for working parents and supports the retention of experienced staff.
In addition, this agreement establishes priority enrollment for city employees, particularly those working downtown.
And then finally, CityKids also complements other family-friendly benefits we offer at the city, including city-paid parental leave that lasts 6 weeks and that's just exactly when City Kids allows folks to come into that program.
So by maintaining this arrangement, the city continues to support employees, working families, and the broader goal of making downtown Portland a place where people can work, raise families, and access childcare services.
And so for those reasons, we believe extending the current lease remains the most practical and cost-effective option for continuing this important benefit and option for our community.
I believe at this point we'll open it up for any questions you have about the program or the lease itself.
We actually also have representatives from Joyful Noise here with us today if you have any questions for them as well.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Great, thank you so much.
And do we have anybody signed up for public testimony?
I'm asking at the most inopportune time.
I'm so sorry, Wendy and Diego.
No, there were no signups.
Okay, then why don't we launch right into questions and discussion.
Councilor Avalos, go right ahead.
Candace Avalos
All right, thank you.
Yeah, I have a couple questions about like how city employees access this program.
So first, can you help me understand the practical benefits city employees receive from City Kids beyond the priority enrollment?
Are families paying standard market tuition?
Do they receive any reduced cost benefit as a result of the city's Yes, Councilor, there is some benefit there.
Unidentified speaker
In fact, I almost want to call up Val, Alice, and Courtney to help speak to the program if I could.
I'm not sure who's best suited to come join us.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Please come right up.
And just before you introduce the program, if you can introduce yourself, that would be great so we have that for the record.
Hi, go ahead.
Hello, I'm Valerie Moreland.
Unidentified speaker
I'm the director at City Kids Child Development Center, and this is my executive director Alice Smith with Joyful Noise, and Courtney Zaggert, her successor, will be taking over in August.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Perfect, thank you so much.
Go ahead, Ron.
Candace Avalos
And Councilor, I just want to reemphasize, you asked for sort of what's the priority consideration for city employees, any, uh, access or benefits they would have beyond the, the public well, yeah, mostly I'm asking, it sounds like you have the priority system, which I'm aware, but are families paying standard market tuition or are there any reduced cost benefits for city employees as a result of us investing in this program?
Unidentified speaker
Families pay the same tuition rates regardless of whether they're a city employee or from the public at large.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
So do we— I'm curious about what kind of data we keep on this.
So do we have any information on income levels or job classifications of families that are using CityKids?
And I'm asking because I'm interested in understanding, you know, whether this resource is accessible to employees across our workforce, including our lower-paid employees, or whether that cost remains a barrier even with the priority enrollment.
Unidentified speaker
Well, I think we've been able to offer child care across the spectrum.
We tap into ERDC monies from the state Childcare Initiative monies through the Multnomah, Mount Hood.
Mm-hmm.
We have our own tuition assistance programs, and we're now accessing Preschool for All.
And so the, you know, children 3 and above by September that live in Multnomah County will come for free.
So I think we've been able to really offer quality care to many of the communities, not just great.
Candace Avalos
Yeah, I was going to ask about Preschool for All.
That's good to hear that we'll be able to tap into that resource.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absolutely.
Candace Avalos
And yeah, I mean, I'm asking this because this childcare is one of the biggest challenges, as we know, for working families.
And I really am grateful for this longstanding commitment that the city has made through CityKids and appreciate that, you know, For this particular ordinance, we're trying to continue that care, and I definitely don't want to disrupt that care, but I think it's just a good opportunity to take a step back and just look at how we're maximizing the value of this investment, especially for city employees.
I mean, we're dealing with a lot of labor contracts, a lot of struggles of meeting the needs of our employees, and this feels like an opportunity to look at what that could mean to expand those So, you know, there's the, uh, the base, you know, cost for the lease, right?
But then, um, hearing, uh, that one Preschool for All is going to be available, I think is good.
Obviously, you know, I figure you have different kinds of scholarships.
But yeah, I just— this just piqued my interest as this came on the agenda of like, where are there opportunities for us to offer more of that?
Um, you know, I used to work at PSU.
We have the Helen Gordon and it's kind of a similar, I think, model to what you all do, but was just very cost prohibitive.
And so just trying to figure out ways that our employees can truly benefit and not just the employees that are in the upper echelons of the pay ranges, you know what I mean?
Unidentified speaker
One of the things I would add is that, so we have 4 centers.
2 Are federally sponsored, one's sponsored by Metro, and one's from you.
And we have different That sponsorship encompasses anywhere from free rent, janitorial, and utilities to some, you know, those benefits have changed over the years.
We've kind of absorbed more and more of that, but it's allowed us to bring in higher quality staff, pay them a higher wage, better benefits, and also keep City Kids rates are probably one of the lowest in the metropolitan area tuition-wise because we don't have to pay for some of those costs.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Got it.
That's good to know.
Yeah.
Um, and yeah, I would love, you know, back to my question on like data, I think I'd love to get that information out right now, but it's just something I would love to learn.
Also, you know, if there are city employees that want to use CityKids but are unable due to cost or availability, would love to know how we're tracking that unmet need because again, I feel very strongly that this is an urgent benefit benefit for working families.
And because we have it in-house, you know, it feels like a good opportunity to ask those questions about how we could expand that for families.
I think those are all my questions.
Let me look.
Unidentified speaker
Also, so that you know, we've averaged in the mid-70s enrollment for city employees, you know, so it's been substantial.
Candace Avalos
Mid-70s, what?
That's number of Percentage of enrollment.
Oh, percentage of enrollment.
Unidentified speaker
For city employees has been in the 70s over the last 25 years.
It's kind of averaged that.
I see.
Candace Avalos
70% Of city employees are using the service, is that?
Unidentified speaker
Sorry, yes.
I'm not saying it accurately.
But out of our total enrollment, 70% are city families.
Candace Avalos
Got it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
Have averaged approximately 70-something percent.
Candace Avalos
Got it.
Unidentified speaker
And just for context, councilors, there's about 80 or 90 slots available at this location downtown.
And we make up a vast majority of those in terms of enrollment.
Candace Avalos
Got it.
And then also, could you just tell me a little bit about, I'm aware, I remember when the Portland Building was getting renovated and it seems like that was the reason to move it, but just curious if there's any discussion about moving that back in the Portland Building at some point.
Unidentified speaker
Not that I've been involved in, Councilor.
I don't think so, no.
Candace Avalos
Okay, I was just curious.
Yeah, thank you.
I definitely plan to support on extending the lease and would love to continue conversations about how we can make it more accessible and expand it.
And especially with Preschool for All coming online, let's make more if we can.
So thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Ryan, would you like to go ahead?
Dan Ryan
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
I'm so sorry that I missed your presentation, and I, um, anyway, I'm sorry I missed it.
It was really quick.
Of course I want to support extending the lease, but I think it's an opportunity for us to just ask more questions about how this is such a benefit for us here at the City of Portland.
And some of mine are similar to some of the questions Candace— Councilor Avalos asked.
And in fact, you did ask the questions connected to Preschool for All, so thank you.
The business model for Troy Joyful Noise is based on a subsidized lease, but that's really where my understanding of this whole business model kind of ends.
So I pardon my ignorance, but what would the cost of tuition be if without the city subsidy?
Unidentified speaker
A guesstimate would be probably four or five hundred dollars more a month.
Dan Ryan
Four to five hundred more a month.
Per month?
Unidentified speaker
Per child.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Per child.
Angelita Morillo
Per family.
Dan Ryan
That really puts it into context, just how— what an expense it is for families in general.
Unidentified speaker
It's really expensive.
Dan Ryan
So that's the subsidy.
So what is the actual— what's the cost that I would have to pay if I—.
Unidentified speaker
My kid went there right now?
Yeah, infants, $2,169 a month for 5 days a week for infant through 2 and a half years old.
And that That tuition rate is lower than many of the for-profit corporate chains.
Dan Ryan
Because of the subsidy.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absolutely.
Dan Ryan
And how do other childcare centers operate if they don't have subsidies?
They just have to spend it at that market rate that's much higher than that?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that they pay the wages that we pay.
I don't think they have the benefits that we pay.
Okay.
I think that they have to, So, uh, I mean, it's tough.
There's very little money to be had in child care.
And so, um, I can't answer that for other companies.
Dan Ryan
That's okay.
I'm just trying to understand because this is a big issue for parents and it's, it's a big issue for work-life.
It's even been one of the biggest issues with, with COVID when, when people were able to go home.
One of the big reasons why they wanted to continue to work at home was and I think everyone knows that.
And so it's just important for me to understand this from that perspective.
Have we ever had to deny city employees who want to get into the center because we've had capacity issues?
Unidentified speaker
You haven't denied anybody?
No.
Dan Ryan
And that's why we closed the Portland building one, because there wasn't the need?
Unidentified speaker
Oh, next door?
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
No, that was simply because you were remodeling the building.
Okay.
It was re— the building was being reconstructed, so—.
Dan Ryan
Oh yeah, but it was never, it was never thought that they would remain there.
Unidentified speaker
We actually had a space there.
They had a dedicated space for the childcare center.
I think there were a couple of variables about that.
There was a computer system underneath, and I'm pretty sure they didn't want to have any kind of water accidents that might—.
I'm sorry.
Dan Ryan
Adam to the rescue.
Unidentified speaker
There.
Excuse me.
Dan Ryan
Okay, I think I'm bringing up a very fascinating topic, and I didn't realize it when I asked the question.
Unidentified speaker
The logistics of it were strained, and then how long the project would take to actually get going.
And we were going to be just down the road for a short while.
That turned into a much longer while, and then we decided that with all that investment, we would stay there, and it wasn't that far away from City Hall and Portland Building.
And so we've just stayed where we are.
Dan Ryan
Got it.
Okay, um, thank you.
Thank you for being transparent.
Um, I seriously had no idea.
Yeah, and so that was helpful to listen to.
Did you already know that?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Um, I, I knew why we left.
I did not know that there were maybe some complications beyond square footage of real okay, I thought it was like it had to do with, um, capacity issues.
Dan Ryan
And so anyway, it's so helpful to get this real information.
Unidentified speaker
Um, Councilor, is— I just want to add that now the new location is about 2 blocks south from here near the Keller Building, right behind.
Walkable.
I was lucky enough to go on a tour of the facility.
Beautiful facility built out specifically for the needs of child care at varying ages.
So you should come.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, I, I'm— I really do want to see it.
And I, I promise, staff that's listening, please make sure that I go visit, um, the, the childcare centers that's only 2 blocks away.
Yeah, um, I, I think I was a little bit surprised at the answer about how expensive it still is, and I apologize for being insensitive to that.
Um, and so we had the the preschool for all conversation.
And so it seems like that's needed, but is there a sliding scale for employees?
So if you're a director of a bureau, do you pay more than somebody that has a job that— no, there's just one size fits all price.
Unidentified speaker
That's right.
And it's also really hard to budget if you had like, sometimes there's a 2-tiered rate, you know, if you have siblings, the second one comes in at At a smaller tuition rate.
But that's just very difficult to project who's going to enroll, how many children are going to— how many families are going to come in with siblings, whether, you know, whether you're going to subsidize city employees at a lower tuition rate by charging higher to the public.
It's just more simple to just have one tuition rate structure.
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
And I thought I heard this earlier.
It's, it's open to the market.
It's not just for city employees.
Unidentified speaker
Correct.
But we prioritize city employees on the waiting list and their siblings.
Dan Ryan
Always.
Unidentified speaker
Or their families.
Always.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
Yeah.
But you don't bump someone out that doesn't work at the city based on people from the city wanting it.
You just prioritize them on the waiting list.
Unidentified speaker
Correct.
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
All right.
I have a lot more understanding of what this is.
And of course, since I'm on this committee, I just had to be curious and ask questions.
Um, the extension does seem like the right thing to do, and thank you so much for being here.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Um, I have just a couple of questions, and the first was what percent of city employees— well, what percent of your, um, kids are kids from city families?
We got that answered.
I appreciate that.
Um, I want to touch on that in a minute.
This is a lease renewal.
Are there any changes to the terms in the renewal that we should know Rick, do you want to come up and—.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, here.
I can—.
Okay.
Hello, councilors.
Rick Dyer, for the record, with BFF.
No, the only terms that were changed were the financial terms, the new rent rate, Yeah, that was the only material change.
Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And is that rent rate— I know we have it in here— is it consistent across all 5 years?
I think we have total numbers in here, but not an annual number.
Yeah, it's consistent.
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
You're right, you're right.
It's a 3% annual increase.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It's a consistent increase from now to 5 years.
Unidentified speaker
Yes, correct.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
And everything else is staying the same.
And then do we have an automatic renewal at the end of those 5 years, or will we need to renegotiate if we want to keep the program in this location?
Right.
So we should expect that there may be, if there are questions from councilors about the program, the location, the possibility of co-location, again, I heard a couple of people I know that would be an impact to the program.
We don't want to take something like that on lightly.
But any questions like that that we have, we should expect to have those be timely questions about 3 years from now.
Is that accurate?
2 Years from now?
Unidentified speaker
We looked at the market in terms of this particular, and it mentions in the ordinance itself, but we did a survey of the market to see, well, is there an opportunity to relocate?
Is there any reason to relocate the entire program?
We think— and the feedback we received from the community is that, yes, there are some opportunities to relocate.
However, the least stressful opportunity was to stay in place if we could negotiate a favorable lease.
Dan Ryan
I think that's a good point.
Unidentified speaker
Lease with the current landlord.
They were motivated to retain us, so the terms were— we felt were compatible with what we would go outside, and it was at least disruptive to stay where we were.
We think that we didn't try to negotiate an additional extension because we think 2 things.
One is they're more than likely want to work with us to retain us.
They see us as an asset to their building, to And secondly, that the market may have some opportunities.
So around year— the year 3 mark, we'll go back out and start to look again in anticipation of a renewal time and see if there is an opportunity, like there's been intimated now, to maybe pick up and relocate if there's more motivation to do that.
So we think we've reserved our opportunities to look at whatever's coming up down the road.
Thank you.
And just stay with one 5-year exercise, one, the renewal option now, and not add another.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Great, thank you.
And just for some context, because I don't know about my colleagues, but I'm not an expert in where the commercial real estate market is right now, how does a 3% increase a year compare to— Market.
That's very market.
That's very average for what we expect in the market over the next 5 years.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you.
I think those are my only I don't have any questions on the lease, which is the document before us, but I will just comment on city subsidies for childcare.
I appreciate the lower rates.
Are those— are your costs for the full 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM hours that you operate?
There's not additional before and aftercare costs?
No, all-day program.
Colleagues, that is truly a deal then, because the prices that you are listing are what affordable but still within the realm of average programs that I see cost for an 8:00 to 3:00 or 8:00 to 4:00 day.
So the fact that you're not paying for those aftercare programs and beforecare and you're still getting that price is pretty remarkable.
It is not lost on me though that we are subsidizing importantly that cost is important, and the pay and benefits for childcare workers is important.
And actually, I don't want to pass by that too quickly.
We know that this is an industry where families can't pay enough to support a living wage for the workforce, and there is a mismatch there.
And this industry will never support families and providers without public subsidy.
We know that.
That just is the reality for this industry.
Thank you.
This is one way to do that.
And also, it's not lost on me that we're talking about a pretty significant subsidy that's supporting 60 to 70 families of city employees.
So I do think that at a time that is not now, when we're not cutting $160 million from our budgets, we may want to think about how it is that we support families more broadly with childcare, either through some sort of sliding scale subsidy on the city end to support families who want to use the program, because I would guess that if we do that, we would fill all the slots, or through some other method.
And that's, you know, I'm saying this, Ron, with you sitting there, because often these are BHR and negotiation pieces.
Mm-hmm.
But I think there are probably conversations we need to have there in the future about how we make sure that this pretty significant chunk of money is helping more than just 60 to 70 families of city employees.
That doesn't affect my willingness to extend a lease today, but as we think more broadly about the program, I think we can be doing more for our staff.
Thank you all for being here though, and thank you all for the program that you run.
I know it is a very high-quality program that people are interested in getting their kids into both the City Kids location but also your locations that you partner with other public employers— employees on.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Ryan, did you have something more?
Dan Ryan
Just a quick question.
I think that you put it in perspective with how many city employees are utilizing the service.
A little over 60, you said?
Okay.
And what was it pre-COVID?
What was the number roughly?
Unidentified speaker
We're closer to 75.
Dan Ryan
So it was only— it was 75?
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
At times, yeah.
We've definitely struggled since COVID you know, with the downtown locations.
I have the one federal center down, um, at, uh, 1st and 2nd, Stark and Grand, or, um, Harvey Milk now.
Both centers have had challenges, but that's why we were so anxious to join with Preschool for All, because now we're running Oh, wow.
That's great.
So, and we're not just serving the downtown core, we're really serving broader communities at large.
So I feel like our outreach between the 4 centers is really significant.
Well, and let me add that as they get ramped up on the PFA program, that takes up— you have 40 slots for the PFA program allocated, right?
And those are governed by the county.
So they say who can go into those 40 PFA slots.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
And so what we discussed with the team is that, well, does a child have priority access?
City kids will always have priority access.
How do you ensure that?
And they've told me that because they're not at capacity, that they always make sure that they have a little capacity in there.
So they're not— they're licensed for more than they're actually budgeting for.
So they always have a little room to grow.
So if they had a need for another Another child to come in, they're never 100% full.
Angelita Morillo
Right.
Unidentified speaker
We can always bump children up.
We've got probably in our— what had been a kindergarten classroom is now an older preschool classroom, and it can have— we can have a group size of 20 children in there.
We're currently capping it at 10.
So if a city employee wanted to come in, we can bump children up into that classroom and And the point of that is they've never turned down a city kid trying to come in.
Candace Avalos
That was helpful.
Dan Ryan
I'm glad we had more dialogue on that because earlier I thought I heard it was just prioritized on the waiting list.
I didn't realize that you could go to this extent to get them into the program.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
There—.
Unidentified speaker
If there is a city kid that wants to come in, right, they've never had a waitlist.
You've always had a slot open that a city kid could fill.
Well, it used to be that we had a 3-year waiting list for city— for everybody at all the centers.
But at this point, if a city employee wants in and they're able to enroll, we have spaces for them.
Like, we have filled all our spaces for the fall except for the Those 10 oldest child— oldest, that oldest classroom, there are 10 spaces that we are just running 1 teacher with 10 children instead of 2 teachers with 20 children.
So we have the ability to wick children up into the age groups to make room for anybody else that would come on the waiting list.
Thank you.
It's a little complicated, but we are making— we are able to service city employees as they come.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Colleagues, any other questions about the City Kids program or about the lease extension?
Okay, um, we are being asked to refer the lease extension to full council with a do pass recommendation.
Would anybody like to make that motion?
Dan Ryan
So moved.
Unidentified speaker
Second.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Wendy, could we call the roll?
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Sorry, who was the second?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Morillo.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Zimmermann's absent.
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The motion is approved with 4 ayes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Perfect.
Thank you all so much for being here.
Thank you for allowing us the privilege of asking some additional questions about the program as well.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks for your time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That is our last item of business today.
Uh, our next meeting will be after the recess, and with that, we are adjourned.