Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 5
Those haven't started but the developer is working with others who are going to build those projects out.
There are other sites in Nashua where people have expressed a lot of interest and it looks like they are
very serious in proceeding in part because and some people out of town, because of the Performing Arts
Center.
So the whole idea here is that you invest to attract other investment to build a stronger economy and in the
end, build a stronger tax base, build up tax revenues which benefit everyone. Because in the end, the
downtown is an economic engine like they say in Keene, the downtown is an economic engine for the City
of Nashua. So that, | think, Madam President gives you an overview. | apologize for going on as long as |
did, but this project has been pending for a while. | think some of the original objectives sometimes get
forgetten. | know people are interested, some people skeptical, some people highly supportive, but |
wanted to give you the history and kind of report to you where | think we are right now. If anybody has
questions for me and if that’s permitted, I’d be glad to answer them. But | guess next we go to Mr.
Cummings, is that correct?
President Wilshire
| am going to turn the meeting over to Alderman Dowd as Chair of the Budget Committee. So Alderman
Dowd.
Chairman Dowd
OK, just before Mr. Cummings comes up, | just want to explain what is going to happen this evening. We
are going to have a public hearing on the amendment to R-20-001 or it is an amendment to R-18-001. It is
only the amendment that this public hearing is about, not the bill itself to build the Performing Arts Center.
It is only to eliminate the time constraint for the funding. The Public Hearing | will be calling testimony in
favor and opposition, one at a time, | will ask people to come up to speak into the microphone. I’m asking
that you limit your comments to approximately 3 minutes. If everybody in this room spoke, that would be
over two hours. So please, | do not want people carrying on, especially if it is not related directly to this
Legislation because | will have to stop you.
Then after the Public Hearing we will close the Public Hearing and we will open the Budget Meeting. We
have a few pieces of Legislation in Budget to take up including this one. The Budget Committee will send
the Legislation to the Full Board of Aldermen with either a positive or a negative recommendation. The final
decision on this amendment will happen next Wednesday at the Full Board of Aldermen meeting.
Wednesday, I’m sorry there is a minor thing going on; hopefully nothing like lowa. So before we get started
with comments in Public Hearing, | am going to ask Director of Economic Development, Mr. Tim
Cummings, to come up and please present. He is assisted quite ably by Ms. Novotny.
Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development
Thank you Mr. Chairman, for the record, Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development and with me
this evening is the Chair of the Capital Campaign Committee, Deb Novotny. So provided you a
communication, a written Memo which | am going to read from which essentially provides a status update
on the project and analysis of R-18-001. So the purpose of the Memo | wrote to you is to provide an
update on the Performing Arts Center project. The Legislation strikes the two year time period for raising
the $4 million dollars.
To provide you some context relative to the timeline, the following is being provided in an effort to give you
a general context for the timing necessary to get this project up and running. The fact is, there was a lot of
initial upfront work necessary, creating, establishing and developing the differing entities that are the
vehicles to bring this project to fruition. First the Resolution authorizing the Performing Arts Center was
passed in the Winter of 2018. From there, getting the Steering Committee populated and functioning was
the next order of business; this took time.
