Consider and take action on Resolution 16-01, authorizing the expenditures for property owned by Jerome Karam, located at 1000 Emmett F. Lowry Expressway, Texas City, Texas.

Jerome Karam owns the Mall of the Mainland.  He has worked hard to find appropriate tenants for the mall.  Up to this point, he has mainly attracted businesses that mainly attract local customers (people from Hitchcock, Dickinson, LaMarque and Texas City).  In an effort to make it more attractive to those beyond the 15 minutes drive time we would like to offer some incentives for a project he is working on: attraction of a group of restauranters that would fill a large area of the mall.  The proposal is to attract 4 to 8 sit down restaurants so that people would come.  The thought is that some of the other projects to attract other forms of entertainment will be more interested if there are signs of sit down restaurants and other entertainment.  The Mayor would like to propose we spend some money on the renderings to show an area for the restaurants, roughly $3,000 to $5,000, but I believe the final could be only $2,500.  And the City through staff or its vendors replacement of the faded traffic signage that is interior to his property along the outer ring to the parking, entrance and exits from the property, etc.  I am waiting for final estimates from staff on those costs.