2026-10-12 - City Council Work Session

00:17Decide on slater in August.

00:20So with that, I will turn it over to mr. Keel for council's update. We have a lot of slides, but I know we're gonna get through it. Please don't look at the clock on the wall. I will keep you all on time because it is not working because it says it's 02:45 and it is not it's three. She says the battery's already gone to the hunt. Apparently we're just getting rid of everything in this.

00:40Alright James, thank you very much for being here. Thanks for the opportunity council, you've got really kind of four things we're gonna go over real quick. Before I jump into it, I do want to point out Jasmine Curtis.

00:54My deputy director, Kat Moreland, my finance and compliance administrator, Andrea Gray public engagement, and William Flake who does a lot of our actual capital projects is here, so a lot of the work that I'm presenting on are things that that they have done. So slide please. And they've all received a lot of awards this last year, so you have a great team. We.

01:14We have, we have received. You're good. Yeah, that's right. Sorry James. So Kat received a 40 under 40 award earlier this year and she is the 5th person at Greenlink.

01:34To do that and we don't know of any other transit agency in the country that's had five people selected from staff for that many 40 and 40 awards. So we're doing something right here.

01:47So four things to go over, one fair, the TDP, a bus stop update, and then just where we are on some vehicle expansion and replacement. Next slide. Alright, so we'll start with one fair. So, next slide. Thank you. So one fair was approved.

02:05For last month by the board, it will go into effect in in January. So the concept is simple, it's $2 to board the bus, you get two transfers to use in, in 2 hours for the one fare card. Basically, we're gonna transition away from cash as planned so with with your one fair card is two.

02:25Dollars you get two transfers using the unit system. If you're using cash, there are NO transfers. It's quick, that's the other nice thing about this is that we're trying to do everything we can to increase on time performance, so the less time somebody's interacted with fair box is going to hopefully increase our on time performance and then ultimately we're doing away with a number of our week.

02:45Passes and monthly passes and switching over to fair capping where all of those things just happen automatically. There's nothing the user has to do. All of these things just happen.

02:54Automatically. So the goal for the customer is to switch over to the one fair card, which is supported with our you know system. You do have the option though that if you want to use a tap to pay credit card, you can use that. So MasterCard, visa, Google pay, Apple pay, all work with the platform. We're gonna continue to accept cash.

03:14That we're ultimately trying to do everything we can to switch everybody over to.

03:19A one pair card or the Umo app. Next slide. So think about it with the concept of one way trips, it's $2 toward the bus. We're trying to also transition away from change with this as well. So, you get free transfers if you're using Yumo app or one fare within 2 h if you.

03:39In cap to pay, it's good for 90 min, so there's a a 30 minute discount or an incentive ultimately to again use one fare and we're going away with paper tickets. So right now if you get on the bus and you put in $2, it spits out this magnetic card that is good for 90 min and you can go put it in another bus and.

03:59Transfer. Those things have gotten incredibly expensive, it's a lot of maintenance to keep up with, so we've also got some savings on maintenance as well.

04:07If you're getting on with cash, it's $2. There's NO transfer. Every time you board it's $2 period. So there's NO longer transfer options with cash. Again, it's pushing people towards one fair. And then with the Umo account or the one fair park, which you're really one and the same, you've got daily maximums of you're not gonna be more than $5 a day $15 a week.

04:27$850 a month. And again, all of that happens automatically with the system. We're gonna continue to offer our senior and 88 discount of 50 %, so they will be paying a dollar if they're using cash and students. It varies between a 20 and 25 % discount just depending on where you are tiered in the program. Next slide. This also is going to impact.

04:47So right now a pair of transit ride is $3. That ultimately is going to go to to $4 but up to $6. It depends on how many basically routes that you're transferring from. So think about it if somebody's in Simpsonville and they're trying to move all the way up to from a university, they're gonna take route six oh one up to the connection point with 05:10, get on five.

05:0705:10 to the terminal and then from the terminal get on five oh three.

05:10So there's three routes that would have crossed for that system. So the 1st one is $4 and then it's a dollar for each connecting piece through there. So our ecolane system is gonna automatically do that for them. So there's gonna be basically a change from $3 to $4 on but depending on how far in the system you're going, there will be an increase there.

05:30Slide? I forgot William does put in these fancy animations on slides. That's what I was talking about. So we received public feedback for 60 days. Ultimately the board did approve that on 24 September and we're starting that.

05:50Technically on 1 January, it'll actually be January second because of the holiday, and then beginning basically the week of Thanksgiving through the end of the end of January we're providing free one bear cards. After that there'll be a fee to use that or you can download the app, download the apps free creating the accounts for you. So that's what's going on with one fare.

06:10Now with the transit development plan, we did a CDO way in 2017, our comprehensive operations analysis. We did a transit development plan in 2018 COVID and planning and growth happened like we have data in 2021, and now here we are in 2026 ultimately looking at this time specifically for the next five years.

06:30What we need to do to improve the system. So basically seven different areas of engagement that we move through, so update basically on on each of them will move into existing conditions.

06:41Ultimately, our on time performance is at 83 %. Our target is 85 %. Unsurprisingly, brightership, highest on five oh seven Augusta and five oh two white horse and continuing to see growth there.

06:58And then ultimately, if you look at our people, 76 % don't have a vote, have a vehicle available and ultimately 78 % of people wouldn't be able to get to where they're going if we didn't have green link and 79 % of our people are using the bus three or more times a week. So some updates on, on where we are.

07:18Are in in July of this year we added two more routes on 30 min frequency and then we have funding that began in September to add two more routes will begin in January. We have those people in process for them to train them to get ready for a January relaunch. Next slide. So ultimately as if we look at the system for where we.

07:38We have good strengths and where we have gaps, The white horse are our strongest four doors. Five oh two is best for reliability and productivity. We've got a very loyal ridership base and 30 min frequencies we're already seeing improvements in ridership on. Our board will actually see the Q1 the most recent updates for ridership later I guess in.

07:58Next week later this month.

07:59The big gaps is 60 to 70 min headways. Obviously we're cutting that down with our 30 to 35 min headways. The goal is to go back to a 60 min headway whenever we get the transacity priority system up and running. We have been inching closer and closer to our on time performance goal. So Roman connectors that is, you know, basically.

08:19The Riff connector are the the weakest performing as it relates to ridership and ultimately there continues to be.

08:26There continues a zero car and glow property households that we were not able to match with coverage, which part of what we're addressing ultimately in plan that we'll get to that or two. Next slide. So basically with service planning, we are looking at reliability frequency and coverage. So if we jump into what we actually came up with with the TDP next slide.

08:46There's a number of changes that we're proposing.

08:51So the 1st, and we're gonna focus on traveler's rest. So right now basically we go up to Herman University, turn around and come back. We're actually proposing to go into basically downtown traveler's rest serve the Walmart Super Center in traveler's rest and also the hospital system health North Greenville.

09:09With with that update. Additionally, we're looking at adding some additional service on Pleasantburg where we currently don't have it. So it'd be easier for me just to get up and point this out. Right now excuse me, five oh five goes up around and comes back. We're actually.

09:27Proposing to take and just go up basically past a house of raker and turnaround and continue down pleasantburg. But underserved area here on pleasantburg, it would be a good opportunity for service. This area on Rutherford doesn't have any riderships so we're better off switching that over here.

09:45And then you'll see an expansion of service on Pelham Road all the way down to 85 down to that Walmart super center turnaround in there. Next slide. We're also proposing to make some changes over in the Maria area, so right now there is their service that.

10:05It's basically a loop route over there proposing to put that on bi directional meaning it goes up and down the same corridor. So it would still be basically on 60 min frequency, but in doing so, you're able to get service on both sides of the road. So you see that both impacting old uncommon.

10:22And cedar lane. And ultimately with some changes that we want to make to Anderson, it would put more service back on white horse. It doesn't have a lot of that doesn't have bi directional service right now and then we would basically be using the song bridge community as a turnaround point for changes to make there. Next slide.

10:39Where you see a lot of potential is as it relates to Mauldin right now, so we're actually proposing two additional routes out there, route six oh three and route six oh four. A lot of it would serve our bridgeway station is along the east buffer corridor, and also extending service further down Woodruff road.

10:59Down to butler. So there would be some significant route changes there. We also have service on Haywood Road from basically Lawrence up to the mall.

11:09So there's basically like in a nutshell, six surface changes that we're proposing with this. The real question is how did we get here? A lot of community engagement, we'll move on to next slide, 911 participants in the survey, 607 comments, and out of the survey and 8080 3 % completion rate for the entire survey.

11:29On the engagement.

11:32We listened, we basically built these concepts, put them back to the community 888 people participated in the survey and six public meetings, and then we also had direct engagement down the training center, so if you compare our previous TBP with the TBP, the amount of public engagement was significant from from where we were.

11:50And all of that is in addition to the stakeholder that we had together. So if you look at capital costs here, basically what you're looking at is vehicle costs here with all these service changes, whether it's frequency or additional service, in total, if we were to flip switch today, we've got about $11 million in capital costs for for new vehicles.

12:10And that is basically taking under the assumption that a new bus right now is out of the bucks. The cost of of equipment is.

12:16It's not getting any cheaper. If you move on to the next slide, if you look at the operating costs though, operating costs are a little over $2 million. So it's not a lot to chew off as it relates to actually putting all these things into place. I think $2 million in general is a very attainable number to be able to achieve in the next five years. So.

12:36We move on to implementation planning, we ultimately took these concepts, gave them the community, gave them into the steering committee, and then took a number of quantitative vectors that were population employment, household low property, zero car households, land use mix, and snap access, which basically just comes down to access to grocery shorts and food, and we ranked all six of these changes.

12:56And the 1st thing to point out will be the Eastern area, which is about five oh five putting it on pleasant bird. Pleasantburg is is the easiest and the best thing to do right now.

13:08As you move down, you see the change of Pelham Road being the next option and then woodruff and Mauldin. The one thing I'll point out though is there's only two points to separate those two, so they're very closely ranked. Traveler's rest comes in 4th place within the split of basically five oh four and five oh six coming in basically at 30.

13:28Four and 35 respectively at the next business. So, a pretty strong indication of of what, what order we should implement all of this.

13:37Slide. So ultimately six recommended developments that end up with expanded transit coverage, spend and frequency, expanded reliability. Again, we're seeing connections to more jobs, healthcare and now what the TVP doesn't really go into a lot of detail on is BRT.

13:57Regional connections in the pickens county easily greer and mountain man, and then autonomous medicals. Next slide.

14:04So let's talk about BRT for just a minute just to make sure we're all on the same page. Next slide. So BRT is is basically if you take a light run symptom and just do it with the bus. It's got its own dedicated lanes for the most part. It's got elevated platforms meaning that there's NO stepping on the bus. You just ultimately step on it like you would subway vehicles.

14:24And ultimately it links into that operates separately from the fixed route system that we have in.

14:30Next slide. So there is a system that is currently right now in planning and should hopefully be let in the next year in Charleston. 1st just for some some comparison on numbers, they're about $29 million a mile in Charleston. We've got a 22 mi system that they're planning on implementing right now up in Raleigh they've got another system that ranges depending on where they.

14:50That system between 28 and 34 million a mile.

14:53So part of the reason that you don't see this in here is there's NO revenue generating system that we have in Greenfield, the GTA has access to to generate this kind of money. So that being said, if you go to the next slide, there are a couple of potentials that the data indicated that it would be good corridors for it. In practice, we know that some of this probably isn't going to happen.

15:13Then you see.

15:15You know Wade Hampton connecting onto Augusta, we know that BRT is never going to exist on Augusta. The great concept, that's ever gonna happen. Wade Hampton probably is the easiest corridor to put transit on, but you also see pelhem, as, as being some like light consideration on.

15:35A lot of it though is I'm gonna be on Lawrence that ultimately connects kind of up towards traveler's rest, and then.

15:43The Haywood piece over to West Greenville. So I think if you look at all of this, you do have some potential in the future for Wade Hampton, but not next slide. So that really wraps up where we are with the TDP. Again, the board has already had the presentation. They've been waiting on the final draft.

16:03After the report, so they will adopt that hopefully next week. Next slide.

16:09You're good. Alright, let's talk real quickly about bus stops. So we got a pretty significant raise ran a couple of years ago. It's $5.8 million almost $5.9 million to upgrade about 80 % of the stops in the system with shelters, benches, solar lighting trash cans, digital signage, and we also.

16:29So when I threw some money from DOT, which we received and now we've got about nine and a half million dollars that are working good on stock infrastructure. So next slide.

16:36So if you look at the shelter package, which is the shelter that you see there that's lighted, the crash can digital schedule or schedule holder, there's 45 of those that have already been installed to date. Next slide.

16:52If you look at just essentially the solar lighting package, which is the two seat bench of the solar lighting, there's a hundred and 45 stops that will be a part of this upgrade. Next slide. The basic bus stop, which is just a bench, hundred and 13 have been upgraded to date.

17:09And then if you where we are right now with this entire program, 24 shelters, 44 lighted bus stops, 46 benches, and 57 are lined up for construction this fall, so we're gonna be basically working on this through 2029. We've got 63 in design right now that will hopefully be.

17:29Instructions spring and then 94 more after that. So.

17:33A lot of bus stop improvement. We had some folks from SCDOT OPT office here today. My my goal for Greenlink is to have the most ADA accessible system in the state. That, that is where I want to take us to. After we finish this, we've got about 1100 stops that we just wanna retrofit and upgrade.

17:53Next slide.

17:55Quickly, vehicle replacement and expansion cause eventually when I come back, I'm going to ask you all for money all understand why that is. So if you look at next slide, if you look at where we are on replacement, we're gonna start running into vehicle needs and.

18:15Ultimately with 2028 whenever we start meeting to replace vehicles. Some of these we can overhaul, if you look at the 2021 line, that's a good overhaul year, but we're gonna have to replace the proterra vehicles in 2031 sooner. And then there's a number of these vehicles there that we're gonna have to replace sometime between now and then.

18:35Next slides. Next slide. We do have an Uber innovation grant that we're working on to ultimately add some what is effectively some micromobility microtransit in in downtown greenville. We are working through contract negotiation with that as a $50000 grant, so it will only last for a few months, but it'll provide some good data.

18:55Thank you to Eva for working on that contract with us. Next slide, we've got two more things to cover.

19:02We've got the GSP skyconnect, which we should have buses in production in June of 2028, probably take delivery of them something the Q3 28 and hopefully go live with the actual service in 2029. So we've got four routing options to get generated for that, NO one outside of my office.

19:22Knows yet. I'm gonna meet with Shannon to talk about.

19:25Routing in downtown Greenville, so that meeting will be have things soon. And then last update, just kind of an update. Project too. As nothing going on with city greenville, nothing going on greenlink either. So we are like we are right now.

19:45Are working on the contract for the grant with USDOT.

19:50I will hopefully have, I'm hoping to have it completed by the end of the year and then we will start putting together multiple scopes of work to engage consultants on, on that project. So we still there's more that we don't know than we know right now, but we are making good, good progress on that. So thank you James excellent presentation. Thank you very much and thanks.

20:10Thank you to the team too for all your work on that because I know it was a team effort. All right, we have just a couple minutes for questions. I saw council Member Dowe and council member DeWorken and then the mayor and then council member Belge so we got about 5 min, council Member Dowe. Okay I have three. Okay. Did you mention you're still the timing you hadn't done the preemptive signalization yet. Y'all haven't been brought online with.

20:30We have not we're close what tells me they got EVP set up, it's working, we're next on on the agenda, so hopefully in the next couple of weeks sort of phasing that in. Okay.

20:43For the bus replacements, what would be your preference of what fuel to buy these days? Whatever flavor of money the federal government's handing out. So they specify what you buy. In other words, they're gonna tell you whether it's electric C and D but not diesel. Well, I mean.

21:01It can be diesel now, so beginning next year, there is a new diesel engine that Cummins has has built that will meet all of the clean diesel requirements. Okay. It's $40000 of charge now for clean diesel. I mean my direction is compressed natural gas, but you know a lot of the reasons you have so much electric is.

21:21Because that was what the money from the federal government was going forward so at that time. Correct. I mean it just but there was a time when we said there will be NO more diesel buses purchased. Correct. Correct. The goal is is CNG. The question is, is that are where are we on federal policy with what what we can and can't buy, right? Just remind me get.

21:41Getting those raise grants funds here took a while.

21:45Was that not We had kind of a late start to doing the bus stops, it's you you win the grant, but you don't get the money too quickly. Raise is very different than our normal funding. It's not doesn't have pre award authority, which means pre award authority means that I can start spending in as soon as they say I've got it with raise, we can't spend the dollar until you have the money. So that we were a little behind on just eight months last time to get.

22:05That contract negotiated with DOT. Okay. Different administration. I don't know I'm just let me go faster or slower. Alright, last question, how would the county sales tax impact the viability of the transit development plan?

22:17Would it the adult answers, so if any money that is generated from a potential sales tax is in addition to the current allotment, we could basically implement the entire, this entire TDP, right? Well, that would fund vehicle replacement and that would fund that. So.

22:37So so if the county chose to, you know, so the what 7 %? It's 3 % I'm sorry, 3 % 7 % 3 % of the revenues are to be dedicated to transit. Yes. If those as decided by the county are incremental to their already.

22:56Three and a half million. Three and a half million annually towards transit. That's one thing. Yes, that's transformational. Yes. If county council elects to say NO, we're not gonna do the existing three and a half million, we're gonna allocate the three and a half to you. That is a bigger number. So it's about a 600000.

23:16Dollar incremental with the passage of the tax and all of that is at the discretion of the county council, correct?

23:22The the the number is specified as I understand it in in an ordinance that would be passed in this so that they would have to provide that to GTA, right? It's the three and a half is the question. Whether or not they continue the three and a half they've been doing is what's at their discretion. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Okay council member DeWorken. Oh, thanks.

23:42So I saw the other route going up and down North Pleasantburg. Yes. So we've got a number of Miracle Health facilities on North Pleasantburg along with some affordable units on North Pleasantburgh. How much do you I assume you have communication with these providers when you're developing the routes and the stop, particularly the stops along.

24:02Those routes. So.

24:04The route development, everybody had a chance basically to come to the table and say NO we want or don't want. With stop development, it very much is where where are the trip generators at? So in a lot of cases, we'll either reach out to somebody and look for a location or they'll reach out to us. Did did we reach out to them? They have been at the table on a number of other initiatives that we've had.

24:24Communication going on. And ultimately until we have a way to pay for it, we don't want to and lead people to believe that it's going to happen.

24:30Okay. Well, that maybe part of a good conversation moving forward about making sure those individuals can access transit without having to worry about the barrier of cost. Okay. Thank you. All right, council member I mean mayor and the council member belge. Okay, that's a lot to unpack, but really congratulations.

24:50Planning and what the progress has been made and talking about adding outs and routes on the.

24:55A 30 min service expansion, really fantastic. You said about $2 million for operations. Usually the capital we kind of always usually scratch that one pretty early to the list, but the operations is often the problem. But did I hear that right though 2 million for that whole package? Essentially yes, and that's between the county and the city and the.

25:15That's for their general operation. That that would be the ideal funding. Okay, well That's a decent number. I mean, it's not like listening to, you know, $10 million, like sometimes in years past we had to listen to. That's really great.

25:27On the shelters of the city, or the shelters in general, we're particularly just in shelters in the city, so I would love to see my map or something of kind of what the game plan is for shelters of the city. We still have a lot of unsheltered bus stops around to kind of get speakers places so love to see some of that. Okay.

25:46The Uber service plan, thank you for looking at that. I think that could be a real good supplement for bus service. It'd be interesting to see how it plays out. Yeah, it's very popular than Atlanta and out in the greater Atlanta area, they're really using that Uber service and at 1st the bus system was kind of scared of it as a competition, but now they see it as a gap filler and everybody's very happy with it all across the board.

26:06Development site on on Mac Avenue down there. Thank you for letting us look at that. I, we do, it is time to get engaged with the city on the planning side in particular about what we see on that site. You're interested in obviously the operations center down below. We're interested in everything above it, probably gonna look at a parking garage and probably a combination of mixed use above.

26:26I want to see some retail in the corner, so we got a lot of skin in the game in terms of trying to figure out what it should look like.

26:31But we have a lot of interest in development sites in downtown right now, so it's a good time to get some conceptuals and to start looking and inviting people to look at the look at the site. Great, it's good time for that. And, yeah, that's fine. Great job, great job really lot to say again. Thank you very much and then we'll.

26:51With council member Belge. I was saying I like mo. Super quick. Beat, it's done super easy. I just had a question. I covered my bust up one, just had a question about the You said they get a discount.

27:04That's with cash or not, right? So, so alright, so if you use cash on board it is $2 every time you bore unless you qualify it under the elderly program and that would be a dollar. And well NO say if you're a student, you need to basically it's either a buffer.

27:24The two bucks. If in order to qualify for veterans, you've got to get the Umo card. Any of our special programs we've got to have some sort of verification. Yes. So yes. Thank you. Thank you. And James, as you're looking at going into more 30 min routes.

27:43Remind us of how you were able to get 30 min routes to begin with. How are, how are we able to get those into surface? Well, ultimately it had to do with funding from you all, right? I mean, it's city of Greenville funding that is funding office, right? So, I mean, there was some county money that helped but like what happened this year is often the city.

28:03So to your next presentation so we can echo what the mayor said.

28:13I wish everyone could go back in time in 2006 and see that bus system. And see it today. It is amazing. There are pitches that I have seen of that bus system I'm telling of the old one oh we had a.

28:33Those days are gone.

28:39Those measures on. 30 min service. He didn't cover it, but if you look at the TDP TDP summary, I think there are a lot of people say nobody writes a bus and then if they don't have the But during their study.

28:56The, the workforce support of the transit system is critical. Yeah. In other words, the people right in the bus are right in the bus to get to work. Yes. And so this expansion is critical as a workforce need. It is a great healthcare source because they are people know what time to get there and they.

29:16The fact that they are able to apply for little grants that help them get.

29:21Bus service closer to where they live so they have the walk so far. I'm telling, got a good thing going, but don't forget to write that sentence in there because of that. Alright mr. Mayor to echo what Dory said, and in years past on all the surveys.

29:39Number one complaint when people trying to get to work was the transfer system? It was so complex, so crazy, so did they do to simplify that is a great thing, huge step forward because I remember that was always the number one issue. So it's NO automated and cumbersome. Yeah. Thanks James. Thank you James. Great job. Thank you. Thank you.

30:03Eric, if you want to go sit between Tina and Brandon will do that. Hard act to follow, guys, by the way. How you doing? Good on. Hey, everybody. As y'all know, we usually hear a review an update from Eric at least once a year on the work of next gen, who is a great partner with this.

30:23City. So I appreciate you all being here. And so Eric Weissman, who is the CEO of next gen, is here to have conversation with us today. And I think you have some guests and visitors that you roll on. So with that I'm gonna turn it over to you. Thank you. Leslie's driving, we've got about 10 min for presentation. I'll leave about 10 min.

30:43Sweet. Well, thank you. Yes, I'm joined by fellow, your fellow board members, so Shannon is on the board. Frank Mobbley, our board chair, Gary Shipman, Tony Nulti, then the next gen team.

30:55Riley Leah and Sam, thank you all and Sam is another partner in arms. Let me go to the next slide. So yeah, again, thank you for the time. Thank you for your support over the years, and this is my I'm going into my 6th year, of this, which is kind of feels like.

31:15Like it's been six weeks and sometimes it feels like it's been 60 years. But.

31:23Yeah, just without entrepreneurship, we believe that economic development stagnates and there's one organization next gen that wakes up every day and cares about how Greenville shows up to support its entrepreneurs. So our mission very simply, we help the entrepreneur community grow, our vision, what we see is a robust ecosystem where people can.

31:43To Scale and build a business in a place they love to live.

31:47I'm gonna go over a lot of what we do, but not gonna talk too much about the programs that we provide. Growth labs, office hours, sudge, which is our startup drinks is next week, right, Leah? 21st at hanger 208I always wanna say hanger 18 for some reason, but hanger 28, but we do a great job of bringing the community together.

32:07Mentor program et cetera etc. Go ahead to the next slide, but don't just take our word for it. Hopefully you all saw that we were featured by time magazine.

32:16As one of the top incubators and accelerators in the country last year, and this was next week. And that was based in large part on the strength of our alumni network. So this is not just the things that we do every day, but it's the aggregate over time where they actually reached out to people that went through the.

32:36The programs and said, you know, what are you doing? How, how are things now? But that was a great testament, and we were one of only two in North or South Carolina to be so recognized. There you there you're talking. Okay. Okay.

32:50So go ahead and next one. So next gen does three things. We steward the broader entrepreneural ecosystem. We support high growth entrepreneurs in their teams through a series of about a dozen program services and events, and then we measure the impact. We have our finger on the pulse. Is any of this working? If so, what?

33:08Which branches do we need to prune? Which plants do we need to fertilize, where are the gaps, where are the overlaps in the, in the entire ecosystem? Go ahead, next slide. So we sit at the center of this network. There are over over 70 different nodes, different events, different support organizations that represent what we refer to as start up greenville.

33:28We're the only organization that really cares about what all is going on. As Gary as fonder was saying, we're we're the honest broker. We really don't care where you sit within this ecosystem. There's NO wrong front doors to the ecosystem, but now that you're in, we want to help you grow. We want to help you really thrive and and build out your business.

33:47So, while we are massive in reach, we have a really low overhead, we're capital efficient, you know, from a, from a small, a small team, but we are at the center of this entire upstate ecosystem. Go ahead and next slide. Thank you. So from our last year's impact report, we worked with between a hundred and four.

34:07There'll be 357 companies at any one point in time. Last year they represented a hundred and $20 million in revenue. We asked these companies these three killer questions. Are you making money?

34:19If yes, what's the range? What are we talking about? What dollars, if you're not, how can we help? Second question is, are you raising money? If yes, what's the range? Where's that money coming from? What should it look like? If you are, if you're not making money, if you're not raising money, how can we help? And then the 3rd question is, are you hiring? And if so, what's the range? What are these jobs looking like? What about we focus on higher paying jobs?

34:39So from the hundred and $20 million in revenue, those companies just last year went on to raise $50 million in funding. You can see the average wage $91000 65 % higher than, than the county. Those numbers represented 50 % increase from last year.

34:58We estimate that those companies pay around $850000 in city taxes per year. So just that figure alone, that's a 340 % return on your investment and just that figure. So that's not how much money they go and and and buy lunch and all of that, that sort of stuff. But from an ROI standpoint.

35:18That really kind of hits that home. For every dollar that the city invests invests in next gen, we turn that into $3.

35:25Whether that's through matching grants, whether that's through additional funders that that we bring on board because the city is involved, you know, take a look at that at that impact that you have. So this the the story here is that we are very capital efficient. Go ahead.

35:40So from a peer comparison standpoint while South Carolina is. Greenville is ahead of its peers. South Carolina is 7th out of nine southeastern states in terms of venture investment. When I got here six years ago, I heard the phrase, thank God for Mississippi which was a news to me and I.

36:00But you know, I'll say again, that's not a strategy. That's not a strategy so there's room for improvement here and I don't think we need to be number one, but I think we can improve where we are and we need to care about where we are and where how we move up that statewide support of entrepreneurs support organizations, I jokingly say we're gonna be the 47th state out of 50 to figure.

36:20This out. That's the path that we're on. The PCPI, the per capital personal income for South Carolina is also below the national average. So these are things that that need improvement. But the good news is that Greenville is is working on that. Next gen was recently selected this year by the Department of Commerce to lead the EIX Venture studio.

36:40That is a 14 week program we're halfway through seven weeks, so next week will be the midpoint check in, we're bringing those companies back here. It's six technologies, three from Clemson University, two from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and one from USC that we're in a pure venture studio model pairing them up with existing founders to.

37:00Try to burst businesses around the energy industry here in South Carolina. We are a frequent recipient of relentless challenge grants. That's another Department of Commerce vehicle that allows us to get projects off the ground and get them them moving and running. And we are in the midst of productive. I would just categorize them as production.

37:20Conversations at the state level to get that, that ship moving in our direction so that we're not 47th out of 50. The good news is there are other states that are doing this that we can learn from that, that we can borrow from their best practices and not get distracted by what's Boston doing, what's Ilicon Valley doing, but really what's kentucky doing.

37:40What's Alabama doing? So Alabama has a program called Innovate Alabama. It sounds like an oxymore on but it's real. They're focusing evers on how the state can support innovation.

37:56Go ahead to the next slide. So it's really two ways for us to grow, we feel these organically and then by recruiting. Organically very simply, let's ang on to what we've got. Let's grow by not shrinking. We'll talk a little bit about next venture summit, which we did 11th year was this year was our 11th year, and then recruiting. Encourage others to see the potential of here, make an explicit effort.

38:16To say you can be successful here and that looks like innovation exchange, which we did our pilot program earlier this spring. Go ahead and next slide. Next venture summit.

38:25For those of you many of you are familiar faces and and have been to that event that there's a two day conference where we match capital with customers, bringing founders and funders. Match Day is the centerpiece of that over the last two years, we've brought in almost 80 founders, 48 investors which equal 360 meetings, and those companies that attended Match Day over the last two.

38:45Years have gone on to raise $46 million in that two year window.

38:50I always say checks aren't written that that day. No one, NO one writes you a check, but the relationships that you build, and that's what we're really monitoring are those those conversations that are happening across the table. We stay in touch with those startups. We want to know how's it going? Do you feel prepared for the questions you're getting from the investors? Is somebody we should have back next year. But the more important.

39:10Certainly almost more importantly is the the conversations we're having with the investors, we want to know why my kid didn't make the soccer team. What are we missing?

39:18That that helps pro our influence our programming so that people need to do more customer discovery, people need to have a better feel for their financial statements and the financial flow. So we really use this to inform where we are as an ecosystem and to move forward. Go ahead. Then innovation exchange. These are very simply big co.

39:38Problems large corporate problems have met with startup solutions. These are funded companies. So we brought in 15 funded startups from really across the the globe. We had a company come from Norway.

39:50To meet with leaders from BMW, Michelin, GE vernova, current lighting. That's just a sampling of the the of the large corporations that we had here. Similar format, a hundred and 50 meetings on site, we're tracking that now. You know, hopefully a pilot will will will come because of this. The anecdote that I, that I think carries a lot of weight.

40:10Here is there was a company that came here from Silicon Valley. The name of the company is Pax, a young lady Penny went through why combinator. If anybody knows why combinator, they're very famous, probably the most famous tech accelerator in Silicon Valley where OpenAI came from Uber came through there.

40:29And she was blown away by, by what she saw here in Greenville and what her reaction was, was I'm in Silicon Valley, and why would I be in San Francisco where all the startups are? Everybody's a software engineer in San Francisco. Why wouldn't I want to be here where all the customers are?

40:46And that's really where it manifests. These companies would rather have a $50000 PO from BMW than $50000 check from Andreson was with all the equity and things involved there. So let me show my notes here.

41:03Yeah, in closing and just wanna, you know, kind of wrap up the and thank you again and just to reiterate we we can't stop now. The, the energy and the momentum and the inertia that we have, we believe that high growth entrepreneur, high grow high high growth companies are the engine that can caterpillar green.

41:23Go ahead of its peers and into the future.

41:26This is a moment of tremendous potential. AI has made it easier for anyone to start a business. The barriers are extremely low. Talent can be discerning. They can start a business wherever they want to. So we want them to move here. We want them to be here and and really demonstrate that conditions are right for them to be successful.

41:45So we appreciate the support and big thinking, we appreciate the support and the partnership of GCEC and Sam excited to have Julie on board. So I'd like to open up the floor for questions if there are questions. Thank you very much. Council Member Gibson and the council member DeWorken. Hey, thanks Eric. You guys are continuing to do great.

42:05Work. My, my question is to you as the steward of the ecosystem, ok? And, and you have probably heard me say this before, but, but I want an ecosystem an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Greenville where a single mother can sit at her kitchen table, come up with an idea.

42:25And then go through program after program with enough support to where eventually she can scale that company to a fortune 500 corporation. Now with that said, where are the holes? Yeah. Yeah. Great question. The funnel is intentionally wider at the top. There are a lot.

42:45The ways to bring people off the sidelines to get engaged. Let's take you from idea to the back of the napkin or let's take your idea from the back of the napkin and start to put some structure around it. Where some of the holes are is when it comes to scaling. How do I take this beyond the kitchen table and go to my neighborhood market? How do I go from just working in the church.

43:05Parking lot to working every Saturday at the TD market, you know, coming back from a, from a scaling standpoint, and I think that's where a lot of the integration, if we go back to the, maybe slide four.

43:19The math. There you go. You know, there's a there's a lot on that on that left hand side and by design on the right hand side, the later stage help, the funding help needs to jump in and really needs to educate further up the pipeline to say, here's what we're looking for.

43:39These are some of the metrics that you need to have in mind. These are some of the things that you need to keep as you consider growing and scaling your business. I think it's a matter of, of education that this is what this looks like. Now it also is a matter of, of culture from what we're experiencing here in South Carolina and in the southeast.

43:59And we really don't have enough of those models where somebody says I want to build my business like she did. I want to be blackboard that that exploded in the Charleston area and and to see those successes, you know, right now there's a lot of.

44:16There's a lot around solopreneurs and being, being individually successful, and that's great and we don't want to throw a shade on them for, for running a business and and and you know having success and and and being independently ok. But what we're asking the tough question is could you hire five people next year.

44:37Could you hire ten and and not that we brushed them aside after saying NO, like we plan for you and there's places for you, but we all need to start to encourage what those scaling companies look like. And we're, we're already working further up the chain with our partners at at Fermans Hill Institute that.

44:57As a Greenville Stars program about adjusting and tweaking some of their programming so that some of these things come up a little bit earlier and those nails stick out from the floor board a little bit and you can see and we can, we can hand select those folks to say, you've asked some of the right questions or have you ever considered this so that they don't get pid and hold in their own mind without thinking or seeing from some of that.

45:17That those other examples that that could lead somebody from, you know, a kitchen experiment into the next.

45:25The chain that takes off in the in the southeast or why not the rest of the world? Okay, and I don't want to take up all the time, but at some point I want to talk to you about how we do that. Okay. Thank you council member Gibson council member to work in. Yep thanks Eric for all your work, I can't believe it's been six years but you certainly brought up.

45:45The level of sophistication to to the.

45:48To next gen and what we're doing, I really appreciate that very much. And then I look at the board. I mean, you guys I mean very accomplished successful people behind this organization, so you did a great job assembling that board. I really appreciate you showing the ROI.

46:05Because so many times as, as council members, you know, you're doing so many things that when you're able to really see that ROI I think it's very helpful, so I'm glad i'm glad you did that. It's got a quick question. What, what business sectors do you see, next gen getting traction with?

46:25You know, like Gary I know Fintech's an opportunity. What kind of business sectors do we are you seeing us like.

46:33So one of the the direct feedback we got from this year's match day was the crop of startups that we had curated. So you, you had applied to be in this and you were selected and and you eventually make it to the 37 or 40 companies that, that, that appear in front of these.

46:50Investors. The investors gave us feedback that this was the best profit that they've seen in the years that we've been doing this. A lot of that is around advanced manufacturing. We're seeing a little bit more around defense tech, which is another interesting thing that's that's bubbling up here. Riley and I met with John Lummos at the Upstate Alliance today to talk a little bit.

47:10More about innovation exchange for next year and he said, are you seeing things around defense tech? What what what what are you sensing and hearing? So, so some of these investors are coming here because of the, the, the proliferation of advanced manufacturing, automotive. We don't see a lot of life science companies, but I I believe that that's because of SC bio and it's just not something.

47:30That we focus on. So it's one of those areas where we kind of let our foot off the accelerator a little bit and let somebody else take that. But, yeah, advanced manufacturing, automotive automotive, automatic you know the GE Vernovas of the world that are, that are creating those applications for the future.

47:50In the defense tech. Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right. Yes, mr. Mayor do you want to close this out? Yeah, years ago the the incubator spaces were all the rage and everything a lot of focus on that. Where do we now, how important is placed now for these kind of stuffs? I also think of Ken's question when you get out of the kitchen.

48:10Into another location do we have space? This is great and I'll I'll be as brief as I can on this. We have a lot of co working spaces. There's a lot of places for people to get out of the kitchen table and into some place that I want to study and I want to be and I want to be quiet, switch yards. So we do have a lot of those. What we are missing is.

48:30Is that middle area where somebody can say, I want to bring a satellite.

48:37Office I wanna wanna kind of test the waters without saying you need 3000 sq ft of space or 50000 sq ft of space. So we're still a little off there in in in our opinion. It's not that there isn't the space, it's a matter of talking to those buildings and those building owners to say, what if we convert this or what if we take a look.

48:57Look at at doing things a little bit differently from a pro forma standpoint. I might know in place.

49:02That's still an issue, still something we want. Okay. Because a lot of the, the, the community that's built from those, you know, when you when you go to those co working spaces, and again I'm not I don't mean to come off glive or to throw a shade, but sometimes you want to be with those.

49:22Businesses that want to scale and grow. It's a different sort of thing people sitting there with their earphones on they're not talking to each other. So you want to bump into each other at the coffee machine and say tell me a little bit about what you're working on and and that that's kind of very intentional community building.

49:37Anything, anything else for Eric? I was just gonna say thank you. I mean, I I think we're just gonna see more and more of this need. You know, that that bold economy hunt for the right now and that's along with AI and changes in that field. I feel like this is.

49:57Very much.

49:58Well, what we need to see and see more of, so thank you. Thanks. We needed we need to to keep pace because there's other municipalities regions, states that are, and we have the opportunity and Greenville has the opportunity to be the model for the state and that's that's my intention.

50:17Thank you to your board members too for being here. Thank you all very much for supporting Eric today and what we're trying to do with economic gardening right here in green. So thank you very much.

50:37Alright mr. Mayor, we're already going to executive session. Okay to motion, please. Motion second. All right. Y'all have we go. Today under se code 3478 subsection one two and five. Discussion of boards and commissions, economic development and potential contracts.

50:57Project RM.

51:02You have to sit down building tax credit discussion.

51:22Legal advice regarding covenant enforcement and council communications on upcoming rezonings update on partner annexation plan.

51:31Okay. We do what? For a long time. Are we good? Yeah.