1.13.11 Message from Mayor Todd Meier

Dear Neighbor,

This has been a very busy week with excellent progress on a number of very important Addison projects. We have been working hard on the economic development front and it continues to pay off. Due to many circumstances in our favor, and lots of hard work from Orlando Campos and our entire staff, we have a number of great projects coming our way in 2012.

Economic Development

We are happy to say that Palm Harbor Homes has chosen to keep their corporate headquarters here in Addison—moving from their current Dallas Tollway location to a new spot at 15301 Spectrum Drive. We are very pleased to retain them as a high profile Addison corporate citizen. You may recall that last month we announced London Broadcasting would be consolidating their businesses and opening their corporate headquarters here in Addison. Well, London completed the purchase of their new TV station as of January 1, and the remodel and construction of their new space at Millennium Tower is well underway—signage is expected to be up by the end of this month! In addition, we are very pleased to announce that American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc., currently based in Coppell, will be expanding into our Town at 16675 Addison Road. We expect Home Mortgage will begin relocating over 500 happy employees to their new, 140,000 square-foot office space sometime mid-March. We have begun plans to make sure they all feel oriented and welcomed to Addison.

Continuing on our theme of economic development activity, I am very pleased to inform you that the Pinnacle Family of Companies will be relocating their corporate office to Addison from Seattle, WA. They evaluated a broad range of options in the Dallas area and selected Addison…not at all surprising to any of us, however it is great to see folks from Seattle come to the same well informed conclusion that we have…Addison is a great place to be! Their new home will be comprised of 16,000 sq-ft of space at 5055 Keller Springs, and the company will create 82 new jobs with an average annual wage of $70,000. The Pinnacle Family includes Pinnacle, a leader in multifamily property management, managing a portfolio of multifamily and commercial assets valued at nearly $22 billion, with over 5,000 employees in 42 states and seven countries. They anticipate being in operation here in Addison as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of this March.

The combination of Palm Harbor, London Broadcasting, American Home Mortgage and Pinnacle are outstanding successes for Addison. They bring jobs, intellectual capital, resources and revenue to our Town which are helping us form a great foundation for 2012! This is validation of our Strategic Plan; now we just need to keep working our plan with intensity and passion.

Council News

We began our Jan. 10 work session with a presentation from the new owners of the Village on the Parkway—Lincoln Property and The Retail Connection. The owners presented their revisions of their very exciting redevelopment plans which really reflect a successful, collaborative effort. Council reviewed all of the revisions and proposed zoning changes to prepare us for the agenda items to come later that night during our Regular Council Meeting. Following the Village on the Parkway discussion, we reviewed our new process for evaluating our City Manager. This is a new process that the Council developed over the last several weeks and we are very pleased to be able to implement this new communication tool. We anticipate having this completed by the middle of next month with an outcome that will help us build on the already outstanding relationship we have with Ron.

Our Regular Council Meeting began right on time at 7:30 p.m. with a packed house. After a few announcements and introductions of three Addison superstar employees, Council was presented the “Built Award” from the Greater Dallas Planning Council for Vitruvian Park. Carmen Moran and our staff deserve all of the credit for their work with Tom Lamberth and UDR in bringing us an absolutely amazing new Addison gem. Our next agenda item was the approval of a 5-year Special Use Permit for a Christmas Tree Lot at 14345 Dallas Parkway for Patton’s Corner. Jeff Patton has been a very good operator of the only Christmas tree lot in Addison, and as a result, has earned the trust and confidence of our staff that warranted the granting of this extension. With all due respect to Jeff, I hope we can find a wonderful use for his highly visible Tollway location long before we get to the end of that 5-year term. With the business development momentum, we want some visionary of a developer to come along and make us proud with a beautiful, creative, innovative, state-of-the-art new office tower for that location!

The following agenda items were related to the rezoning of Village on the Parkway. Each agenda item included a public hearing portion so that anyone that wanted to make a comment was given the opportunity to do so. After an excellent PowerPoint presentation from Robert Dozier of Lincoln Properties, we opened the public hearings. While a number of our neighbors were present, only Mary Carpenter rose to ask an excellent question about parking availability once the redevelopment was complete. After Mary received a satisfactory response, we closed the public hearings and Council took full advantage of the time to ask questions of staff and the developers. Each of our Council Members asked thoughtful, well informed questions…and seeking information and clarification of the ramifications of the proposed redevelopment changes. Each of the zoning changes and planning proposals had been thoroughly vetted by our staff, reviewed and approved by our Planning and Zoning Commissioners with no dissenting votes, and approved by our City Manager Ron Whitehead. After all of the questions and discussion, the Council unanimously approved each of the recommendations which include a Special Use Permit for the sale of beer and wine for off premises consumption, a movie theater and a (possible/future) hotel. Once the Planning and Zoning issues had been resolved the Council went into Executive Session to discuss and deliberate financial incentives for business prospects. After over one hour of deliberations, the Council returned to consider our final agenda item of the evening—and this was a very important item!

The Council unanimously agreed to accept and approve the staff recommendation for an economic incentive package for the Village on the Parkway Development. While there are still many details to be worked through, the Council agreed to: The sharing of sales tax receipts “based on performance” over the next 20 years; dedication of the right-of-way of Sakowitz Drive; the Town bearing the costs of necessary infrastructure such as traffic studies and signalization on Montfort; and the developer bearing the cost for tree mitigation. There are several required contingencies, including a 2-year window to begin and hopefully complete the Whole Foods grocery and 12-screen high-end AMC Movie Theater, as well as several other requirements that must be met to insure Addison has a new, first class destination retail center that will draw visitors from all over north Texas. After we approved the incentive package, the Retail Connection team led by Steve Lieberman, and the Lincoln Property team lead by Robert Dozier, were on hand to accept our offer. They also provided immediate assurance that they were very anxious to begin building a new and vastly improved front door for Addison. All agreed that there is a great deal of work ahead but that working together we can and will get the job done!

While we went late into the evening, we all felt very good about our decision to support the rejuvenation and reinvention of Village on the Parkway. My congratulations to all! Hats off to our staff, our Planning and Zoning Commissioners, and my fellow Council Members—I’m incredibly proud of the work you all have done—it will pay huge dividends for many years to come. Well done!

Around Addison

I was on hand Monday night, along with the Women of Water Tower, for the outstanding opening night performance of The Diary of Anne Frank at our WaterTower Theatre. Thank you to Mr. Robert Mayer who was a generous sponsor for 30 current and former teachers and educators from our local DISD Anne Frank Elementary School on Montfort. It was a compelling drama—I hope you can find time to take in a performance.

On Tuesday, I helped host the monthly Metroplex Mayor’s breakfast at our Marriot Hotel. Our speaker brought us the powerful public health message of having widespread CPR training in our community. As you may know, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the U.S., but CPR does save lives. We are exploring ways to offer and encourage more CPR training here in our Town, so stay tuned on this issue.

I had an early Wednesday morning breakfast with two of our former mayors; Rich Beckert and Scott Wheeler. They have been and hopefully will continue to be a great resource for me, and I often reach out to them for guidance and historical perspective. I deeply appreciate their service to our Town as mayors and Council Members, and their willingness to continue to be a resource for our Town. Wednesday evening I was fortunate to share our Addison message with the folks at Christ United Methodist Church on Valwood Parkway in Framers Branch. They served their famous meatloaf dinner that I’m sure accounted for the very sizable crowd which included some Addison residents and many Addison visitors! Thanks so much to Addison volunteer Doreen Cluck and staffer Keila Fairbanks for pulling together goodie bags for each attendee that will certainly serve its intended purpose of bringing folks to Visit Addison! Pastor Kenny Dickson wanted me to pass along an open invitation to any and all Addison folks to come visit their church; they sure were nice and friendly.

Thursday, Ron and I met with the mayor of Farmers Branch, their city manager, Tom Lamberth of UDR, and the folks at Brookhaven Community College, to discuss new ways for us to create more connectivity with the College and our new development at Vitruvian. It was an excellent meeting of the minds, and as our thoughts and ideas germinate and move through the process, I will keep you informed. Thursday evening I met some folks over at the Astoria Café for an impromptu Mayor’s Coffee…which reminds me: Our Mayor’s Coffee’s are currently scheduled the first Wednesday of each month at 10:00 a.m. at Dunn Bros, and the third Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. at Astoria. If this schedule does not work for you, just let me know…we’ll make something work. If you have something on your mind that we need to know about, or you just want to share, I’ll always listen.

Speaking of sharing…be sure to join us tomorrow morning beginning at 8:00 a.m. at Addison Circle Park for the Hotcake Hustle! This is a 5K, 10K and Family Fun Run/Walk that benefits the Addison Midday Rotary and a deserving charity. This year’s beneficiary is Teen Contact, a program of Contact Crisis Center. I will be joining Council Members Bruce Arfsten and Kimberly Lay, who along with fellow Rotary Club Member Neil Hewitt, are helping to “run” things. I think we may even see fellow Council Members Blake Clemens, Chris DeFrancisco and Neil Resnik helping out as well…what great community service spirit.

Don’t forget about your annual Pet Registration! Our Animal Control Officer, Kevin Kimbrell, has planned five convenient opportunities for you to register your pet(s). Addison residents can register their dogs, cats and ferrets at the Athletic Center. Please bring a copy of current rabies certificates and pay $3 for altered animals or $5 for unaltered animals—payments can be made by cash or check.

Saturday, January 14, 10:00 a.m. to Noon

Tuesday, January 17, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday, January 18, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Tuesday, January 31, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday, February 1, 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm

In so many ways this has been a really good week, maybe even historic. We are really living in a great place and so many folks are really working hard to make it even better. Have a great weekend, and maybe I’ll see you at 6:00 p.m. next Thursday, January 19, at Astoria Cafe for my Mayor’s Coffee.

Todd