I call to order the February 5th, 2025 public hearing and regular meeting of the Committee on Administration, Finance, and Law and Public Services. The time is now 6.32 p.m. Mr. Clerk, will you kindly call the roll? Alderman Connors. Alderman Barbosa. Alderman McNamara. Here. Alderman Santiago. Present. Alderman Simpson. Present. Alderman Gibson. Here. Alderman Pabon. Alderman Smedley. Alderman Saavedra. Alderman Russell. Here. Alderman Russell is a voting member for the Republican Caucus. Seven members are present. You have a quorum. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Motion to wait. Mr. Chair. Sorry, Alderman Santiago. Make a motion to waive the reading of the legal notice. I have a motion to waive the reading made by Alderman Santiago, seconded by Alderman Simpson. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. The reading is waived. Having been properly noticed, we will begin the public hearing. Please remember to state your name, address, record, and limit your speaking time to three minutes. The item for public hearing is item number 36706, Authorization to Execute a Tax Assessment Modification Agreement with Wheezy, LLC. and L.A. Province Realty, LLC for the property located at 1 Veterans Drive and 25 Veterans Drive. Are there any speakers for this item? Are there any speakers for this item? Are there any speakers for this item? Do we have anyone online? We do not. Seeing no speakers, we will close public hearing and move on to the regular meeting. The time is now 6.34 p.m. THE ITEM ON THE AGENDA FOR THE REGULAR MEETING IS 36706, AUTHORIZATION TO EXECUTE A TAX ASSESSMENT MODIFICATION AGREEMENT WITH WEZI LLC AND L.A. PROVINCE REALTY LLC FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 1 VETERANS DRIVE AND 25 VETERANS DRIVE. MAY I HAVE A MOTION? MR. CHAIRMAN. ALDERMAN MCENAMARA. MR. CHAIRMAN, I MAKE A MOTION TO ACCEPT AND REFER TO THE FULL COUNSEL WITH A NEUTRAL RECOMMENDATION. SECOND. SECOND. MOTION TO ACCEPT AND REFER WITH A NEUTRAL RECOMMENDATION MADE BY ALDERMAN SON... MACNAMARA SECONDED BY ALDERMAN RUSSELL. And we do have speakers on the item I would like to invite up to the podium to give a brief introduction. Attorney Carrier, thanks. Yes, good afternoon, members of the committee, Mr. Chairman. Attorney Michael Carrier, 24 Cedar Street, New Britain, here for Mr. Art Shaler, Shaler Auto World, and also the manager of Weezy LLC in La Provence Realty LLC. which are the actual legal title owners of 1 and 25 Veterans Drive. You all know the area we're talking about across the Schiller Honda dealership has been here. And prior to that, Oldsmobile for 71 years in the city, tremendous corporate citizens. And we're here tonight to ask for a phase in of the increase in the tax assessment due to the major project that Mr. Shaler has been undertaking for probably almost 10 years now. Right, Mr. Shaler? Yeah. It's been an amazing go around. We actually received a tax modification agreement for this project in 2021. And then there was some latent environmental conditions that needed to be remediated, some purchase and sale agreements, and then Honda decided to change its prototype for the dealership. So everything basically had to start from scratch. So here we are four years later, and now ready to kick off the construction. And as you know, this is a gateway to the city. It'd be a tremendous boom when you're coming off the highway or going to the events at the Willowbrook Park or just coming in from Berlin. to see this brand-new state-of-the-art facility. And Mr. Shaler will speak to some of the details about it. But you're authorized, as you know, under 1265B to enter into this. And we're talking about probably north of $12 million investment in this property, and it's going to change the look. There's the existing Shaler Honda, but there's also the Shaler Mitsubishi, which is going to – that's going away and it's just going to be all Honda. And he can explain some of the details of that. But this is a corporate citizen in New Britain that's given freely to charities in town and helped out whenever they've been asked to. And so our ask is a 10-year phase-in. So starting at the 10-1, 25. would be 10% of the increase and so forth. So, all right, yeah, so with the, you know, over the period of the 10 years, it will be the full additional assessment over $12 million. So the taxes will never go down. They'll actually just increase over time because the initial investment is so much, again, that to... get hit with a $12 million increase or whatever that would equate to, you know, $8 million assessment increase or something, would be pretty hard to take on top of the cost of just getting started with this project. So if you will allow us, we'll have Mr. Shaler give you a little more detail on the project. Thank you for turning it here. Yes, Mr. Shaler, come on up if you'd like. Thank you for your time. I'm Art Shaler, Jr. I know some of you from previous meetings. I don't know how much you'd like me to share with you, but just to give you a little history of the project and why it's taken this long, we started out voluntarily wanting to add on to the building in like 2016, and then Honda announced a market study. And in the world of car dealerships, when the manufacturer announces a market study, that usually means they want you to move. and so we stopped the voluntary project we were going to do and they did indeed tell us to move to the Berlin Turnpike and that led to me fighting with them for a long time over the fact that we've been in that location since 1953 and I really don't want to leave. New Britain's been very good to us and I think we're good to it and there was no reason for us to leave. You know of course manufacturers they like big fancy roads with all the traffic on them and Uh, and I tried to convince them that with the internet today and GPS and everybody's pocket that, you know, it doesn't matter where your location is and let us stay where, where we're, where we want to stay. And, uh, ultimately I won that fight. And, uh, as, uh, uh, Michael said, we, uh, we had, we had everything ready to go. And then they said, stop, we're changing and we're coming up with a new plan. And if, and if you've been by any Honda dealerships of late, Most of them have a big blue cylinder in the front. We still have a big blue cylinder in the front of ours. Well, they got rid of that and they replaced it. This is now called blue stage is what they're calling it. So the showroom, as you can see, becomes two stories in the front. We're actually, the plan is to bring the showroom forward about 15 feet because we can't put two-story glass because our accounting office is on the second floor of the building. So we're going to go out 15 feet forward, make the glass. put the new facade on and we're going to build a new delivery area, new service drive because the service drive, if any of you have been customers and been into our service drive at the Honda dealership, that was built in 1987 when the biggest car Honda made was an Accord wagon. Now we make Ridgeline trucks and if you put a Ridgeline and a Pilot and a Passport in there, you feel like you're going to get killed. So we need a bigger, wider, longer service drive and that's going to be part of the project as well and the whole building is I mean that building is getting gutted there I mean everything that's not a bearing wall comes down and it's basically going to be a new building without knocking the building down and building a new building and at the use that what will be the used car center which used to be our Mitsubishi dealership that building is getting a facelift on the exterior so you're not going to really see too much difference there other than it's just going to be new and The entrance moves to the front, but the whole inside of the building in the front gets gutted because that building will no longer need a parts department, and we're going to eliminate the parts department and make a big showroom there. So, you know, it's going to be really, really nice when it's done, and I hope you're all supportive of basically approving what we already had gotten approval for before, but just unfortunately due to COVID, it's kind of gotten a lot more expensive. But it is what it is, you know. Thank you. Thank you. If you have any questions, if anybody wants to come take a tour at any point, you're welcome anytime. You know how to find me. And if you have any questions on any of these pictures, I can tell you this is just what the new car building is going to look like. It doesn't have anything about the used car building in there. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? Mr. Chairman? Alderman McNamara. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. How is your timetable looking if this – Once you get the good the go ahead. Seven months for that building they told me. They're already working on some of the environmental stuff now you see if you drive by the fences up and there's trucks there. So so late this year. Late this year hopefully at least that building and then what there we we will empty that building they will do that building and then We will work out of that building. We actually kind of already moved our people. We're all working out of the used car building right now just to stay out of the way so we can go all out when everything's done. Thank you, Alderman Santiago. Thank you, Mr. Chair, to you. Just one question. Just that question gave me one follow-up because now you're saying that you're only going to be able to do the Veterans I first? veteran correct one veterans drive will be done first right and then the second part will be 25 correct now this you're asking this starts in october of this year right because um and michael correct me if i get this wrong but my understanding is um you know when i told michael it won't be done until next year in terms of the whole project being done okay um when he spoke to the The sister's office, I think? They said that, well, if there's improvements this year, we're going to want an increase, and you'll get 100% of that if you don't ask for it to start now. And since that building should be done in seven months, then, you know, that's why we made the request for this year. No, it was just because my question was that, because, again, in total, it's not going to be done by this year. Correct. Just that front building, the first building. Correct. And that's approximately $7 million of the project, roughly. Okay. One, thanks for fighting to stay here. That's another, you know, appreciate the business that you bring to the city and the continuing, you know, partnership that you have. And I was here the first time when you asked for the 2016. That was my first term coming in. So I'm looking forward to seeing this. Again, Honda is a Latino. We love Honda. Well, the difference this time is this one's happening. This one, it's needed. You know any other all the way with Barbosa. You know hello. The resolution mentions that there's the project is also expected to create new jobs and keep existing ones. During the project will any of the current employees lose their jobs. No. How many new positions will be created with this new project do you know. Well the existing Honda building had 15 stalls so 15 technicians when we're done we're going to have 29 stalls so we're anticipating filling all of them i i don't know how fast we'll be able to achieve that level of increase but you know the goal is to have a technician in every stall at a minimum uh when we're done it's just a matter of you know can we can we bring all that business and when we're done you know the manufacturers don't help us pay for this they honda just gives us extra cars so hopefully the timing of that works out and we get some extra cars at a time when we got enough extra customers who want to buy them and we can generate extra business and, uh, you know, I mean that's, you know, ultimately that would be the, the goal would be 29 technicians instead of the 16 that we had, you know, when we submitted all of this. What specific benefits besides the, besides the jobs will the, um, project bring to the local community? Well, I'd say the biggest benefit is convincing them to let me stay kept me from leaving. But, you know, I don't know. I think we're, like Attorney Carrier said, I think we're pretty good corporate citizens. We're very supportive of a lot of charities in town. I've been a member of the Rotary Club since 1995. And, you know, I mean, we just, I don't know, we've been around for a long time. And we believe that it's important to do right by the community that supports us. So... How you doing? I would like to echo what Alderman Santiago said. Thank you for keeping your business here. And I got a question. You mentioned the used car dealership part of it. Are you going to – do you have plans for doing anything with that as well? Oh, yeah. That building – so what used to be Shaler Mitsubishi, that building is phase two of this. Okay. Basically the same thing that was done to this building is going to get done to that with the exception of we're not adding on to the front of the showroom and putting two-story glass. It's – We're just going to put new glass in the front and change the entrance to the middle of the front because Honda insists it be in the middle of the front of that building now for whatever reason. Now, as far as all the mechanics, they're going to be in the main building, correct? They'll be in both. They'll be in both? When we're done, there will be – we're adding six stalls to one Veterans Drive. Okay. So that will end up with, I think it's 21 – no, 20? and then 10 that currently exist in the other building will remain. Okay, so the 29 that's between the two buildings? Total. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Alderman Russell. Alderman Gibson. Once again, I will echo my fellow council members. Thank you for your support and your commitment to stay in New Britain. And thank you for all that you do to support our community. Appreciate it. You're welcome. We hope to continue to do it for a long time. Thank you Alderman Gibson and I'll echo the thanks for all you do for the community. I have one curveball question. If the Nissan merger goes through you guys going to throw a Nissan sign up there too? I wish it were that easy. They're already saturated in Connecticut. You couldn't you can't add one now. So this will stay a Honda dealership. All right. I don't know if that's going to happen. Not that it would impact my decision. Just just wondering. Yeah. No I don't I don't see that happening. All right. Thank you again. Any further questions for this speaker. Thank you for coming up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Hang back. So seeing no further discussion we have a motion to refer with a neutral recommendation. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. The ayes have it. Motion to adjourn. The motion to adjourn by Alderman Santiago seconded by Alderman Simpson and we are adjourned at 6.49 p.m. Thank you everyone. Thank you all.