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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 19, 2024 2 Jim O'Keefe thanked the Council for inviting them to share additional information about the Minnesota Tournament Wellness Center (MTWC). He introduced his brother Shawn O'Keefe. MTWC was referred to Arden Hills as a potential location for this venture. This would be a sports tournament venue. They believe there are some potential sites in Arden Hills that would be a good fit for this community, surrounding communities and the county. No site has been decided upon. He introduced his partners with Sports Facilities Company and Populous Architecture. MTWC thinks this could be transformative to the community. The design and planning of these sports venues are intended to be tourism makers and can have expansive long-term economic impacts. With their presentations, he hopes to answer two questions: 1) Is the MTWC an economic and community wellness anchor that will transform this area and 2) If the answer to question 1 is yes, how do we overcome any challenges to find the right location? This could bring hundreds of thousands of people into the community, spending their time and money here. He believes they have an unparalleled team to help answer these questions. When you build a sports tournament venue for youth, Sports Facilities Company is the first call you should make. They have 30 plus years of experience in bringing these types of venues to local communities. The team at Populous Recreation Markets are world leaders in one -of -a -kind sports destinations. They transform communities. He wanted to share a vision statement. "Arden Hills is a strong community that values its unique environmental setting, strong residential neighborhoods, vital business community, well maintained infrastructure, fiscal soundness and a longstanding tradition as a desirable city in which to live, work, and play." He believes that vision statement nests perfectly with what they want to bring to Arden Hills and the surrounding communities. Dan Orton, Vice President for Pre -Development for Sports Facilities Company began his presentation. He is involved in the advisory, development and management of youth and amateur sport facilities. They exist to improve the health and economic vitality of communities and the people in the communities. They do that through empowering great decision making from a data perspective, developing facilities and managing those facilities to create great outcomes. They work with public, private and institutional clients. He provided an overview of their company. They empower communities and help them consider how to serve their communities for tourism as well as for local recreation. Their youth and amateur sports facilities range from some of the largest sports tourism destinations to local seasonal water parks and aquatics. They are well versed in different sports and activities. They focus on community impact and participation. He shared a graphic and described how a project moves from concept to a finished venue. This process takes about 2-3 years, on average. They are involved in the owner's representation every step of the way. They design the facilities with operations in mind to maximize revenue generation. Their corporate structure is designed to manage facilities. Headquarters support center includes operations, accounting, marketing, event sales, recruiting team development, IT, legal