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1991 09 19HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 19, 1991 Vice Chairman Bohn called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Bohn, Charlie Robbing, Tom Workman and Don Chmiel MEMBERS ASSENT: Clark Horn STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Executive Director; Todd Gerhardt, Asst. Executive Director; and Paul Krauss, Planning Director APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Chmiel moved, Robbing seconded to approve the Minutes of the Housing and Redevelopment meeting dated August 15, 1991 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. VISITORS PRESENTATION: None. Bohn: We want to move item 5 up to above item 2. Do we need a motion for that? Chmiel: So moved. Wot kman: Second. Chmiel moved, Workman seconded to amend the a~enda to move item 5 after Visitors Presentation. All voted in favor and the motion carried. REQUEST FOR HRA ASSISTANCE IN CONSTRUCTING A SENIOR CENTER IN THE kOWER LEVEL OF CITY HALL. Krauss: Our purpose tonight is to bring the HRA up to speed concerning senior activities in Chanhassen and hopefully to get the HRA's support in helping to create a senior activities center or facility in the City Hall. I'll give you a little bit of background first about who the Senior Commission is and where they came from. This all grew out of a 1989 study that we did. We used some 8lock Grant money to study senior needs in Chanhassen. There was no prior conception of how this would turn out. We didn't even know if we had seniors frankly or what the issues would be. And it was an open ended study and we found that we had approximately between 800 and 1,000 seniors in the city which I found surprising given how new our community, a lot of our community seems to be. With pro3ections that this would double over the coming 'decade. We found that there was a very real lack of available programs and facilities in the community. Many of our seniors use facilities in other communities. In fact we help to sponsor .one of them. Through Senior Community Services we use 8lock Grant money to help subsidize South Shore Senior Center in Excelsior and a lot of our residents do go up there and we've got an excellent working relationship with that group. We do have one program in Chanhassen that's the Chanhassen Seniors Club. They're a viable group. They have about 50 members. We have people from their Board on the Senior Commission. Their basic activity is ~laying cards and they're content doing that and they'd like to keep doing that but that's about the only activity, the only group that meets regularly in Chanhassen and while it's a great group and they're doing a lot, they don't fill the whole range of activities and programs that senior centers would normally offer. There Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 2 were some needs that were established in this study. The study pointed out needs to improve opportunities for senior housing. Access to information. Chanhassen's often located in the wrong place for a lot of programs. Hennepin County is very active. They do a good job of providing things for their communities. Chaska. Carver County goes about it a little bit differently. They're not as together I guess you'd have to say as services provided through Hennepin County and often times the locations of services in Carver County really isn't great for our residents because we're all the way over on the eastern edge of the County. So access to information and access period, transportation, were pointed out as needs. And there were some other issues as well but one of the primary goals that was established by the study was long term desire to establish a senior center in the city of Chanhassen. As I said, we support South Shore. We have an excellent working relationship with them and they are fully up to speed on what our long range plans are so we're working together with them on that. So the long term goal is for a full senior center in the city of Chanhassen. Full being one that offers congregate dining, and the full range of services, probably full time staff and all of that but that's a long way in the future. Realistically that's a significant expenditure of funding and more importantly it takes a lot of community support. Lot of volunteer effort. A lot of people working together to bring that off. In the near term we began to look for spaces for the seniors for senior activities to be conducted in Chanhassen. A room where they could meet that they could have for their own where part time programming could be offered, and we found that there wasn't any. Chanhassen is very short of meeting spaces. And after we pretty much exhausted all the opportunities for looking elsewhere, we kept on coming back to the unfinished space in City Hall that's kind of behind that wall over there. I skipped a step here too. The Senior Commission was established by the City Council last year. Their primary purpose was to pursue senior programming and activities. Pursue senior needs and keep a focus on them and give the City Council some guidance as to how to serve the needs of a significant portion of our community and they've been very active on this. Things that they've been looking into is wide ranging. It's not only this center but we've been looking into programs to assist people to stay in their homes by providing fix up services. The Mayor's been active in trying to get volunteer assistance and we think we have a way of coordinating that. We're going to making some proposals to the Senior Commission tomorrow morning at their regular meeting. The Senior Commission has done things like, they have a Medic Alert type of program which was given out free through our Fire Marshall where if there's an emergency call there's a vial in the frige that gives all the medical information. We're trying to promote, put together a brochure for Chanhassen residents that tells them how to get access to services. What's available to them out there. There's a lot of things the Senior Commission is doing. The thing that they're here tonight is to discuss with you the potential of converting that room into a senior space. The current proposal is to develop the front room with a space large enough to accommodate the Chanhassen Senior Club with their 50 members. They play cards and you need to physically accommodate those tables, and other groups. Ideally programming would be offered through our recreation department and on a part time basis through a provider such as Senior Community Services. We've had a lot of discussions with Todd Hoffman in our parks department. He's very interested in expanding his role and primarily our recreation department has typically been providing Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 199[ - Page 3 recreational activities for kids and a lot of other rec departments elsewhere have already branched into providing a full spectrum of services for all age groups. He's very interested. He's done a lot of work in researching the ability to provide some programming for seniors. We've also been in contact with Senior Community Services. They're an excellent group. Very reputable. They manage a lot of programs that our citizens use right now and we're looking at the possibility of using them on a part time basis~ partially because that's all we think we can afford and we need to do this incrementally. We don't want to jump into it and go overboard. What we're looking at doing then, I've got a proposal from Ben Withhart, their Director, on giving us a variety of part time services to get the ball rolling here. We did take the opportunity to have 3ack Anderson, the architect who did part of the City Hall work, to give us some sketches of how that room might be converted. First of all to see if it's possible to accommodate the kinds of things that we felt we needed to. And secondly it as to develop some idea of cost. Now there are reductions of the plans in your packet. I do have a blow-up of it here. Unfortunately it's not tremendous and possibly if I come up here you can see it. There are two alternative proposals that 3ack came up with. The first one, A up here differs in one aspect. Here's the room downstairs. The room downstairs right now is completely unfinished. There's heating ducts that kind of terminate the space. I understand that it would need an additional furnance to heat that place. Some of the walls are sheetrocked. The ceiling's no in. One of the things we found is that the plans for this would have had a bathroom coming out, the piping for bathrooms would basically ruin this large space in here so the plan is based upon, there's a stairwell back in there. Taking out the stairwell. Making that into bathrooms. Closing up the stairwell basically and freeing up the large space. Where plans A and B basically differ is in the construction of the vestibule. I think you're all aware from your prior work with City Hall that City Hall was made to be expanded and it kind of flips over. This vestibule would be a mate to the vestibule that's out here in front of the library so it's not specifically needed for the senior center. It helps the senior room to function but it's kind of a long term growth of City Hall so it was designed to fit in. So any improvements that are made here are fully consistent with the ultimate growth of City Hall. Both proposals provide a small kitchen space. It's not a commercial kitchen. This is not a congregate dining facility but for example Chan Senior Club does provide coffee and cookies and light snacks for their folks and I would imagine a lot of people would want to do that. There is an office that is provided for people to program out of and hopefully we can staff this thing not only with paid people but with volunteers to answer phones and direct people. We want this thing to be open so people can drop in too and becomes a place to socialize, lhere's also a separate room for other activities and help the programming. Now 3ack took a very preliminary cut at this and we didn't really ask him to refine it any further yet until we see if there's interest in it. He gave us some very ballpark numbers on cost and he admits that he really gave us the Cadillac version of cost just so we know the high end of what we're looking at. The cost ranges from between $140,000.00 to $170,000.00. We're very convinced, having talked to 3ack and I've talked some to the Mayor about this, that that can significantly be lowered in a couple ways. Sharpen up the pencils for one. But also of equal importance is the ability to get some volunteer assistance in building this thing. I really see a goal of going to places and I keep Housing and Redevelopment Autho¥ity Meeting September 19, 199! - Page 4 picking them but I've never asked them like Merit Heating and saying would you like to do something for the community. We need some assistance with that. There are people out there willing to do that. In fact the Senior Commission has established a non-profit entity so that they can go out and solicit those sorts of things. And also there's some possibility perhaps of using for example a city crew to excavate the foundation with our backhoe instead of hiring somebody to do that. So I think that we can sharpen our pencils and off set a lot of those costs. Also there's a very real possibility of being able to devote $20,000.00 to $40,000.00, ballpark of Block Grant money into the construction project. Chmiel: Hit that figure one more time Paul. Krauss: $20,000.00 to $40,000.00. I'm working with Hennepin County right now. We have about $20,000.00 in the kitty that's held over from a couple years ago that was programmed for something else. We could do things like use that for architect fees and then out of our next year funding which comes in 3une, we should have another $40,000.00, a part of which we could use to devote to this. Part of which to other programs and things. And we're not quite sure what our Block Grant allocation's going to be next year. Our population doubled from the '80 census so I'm hopeful that we're going to get getting more money but I'm not sure yet. We've brought in a lot of people to look at the plan. We've brought in 3oAnn Kvern from Senior Community Services who manages South Shore to give us her ideas on what do you really need to make this place function. We've had, I met with Oscar Anderson who's the new President of the Chanhassen Senior Club on Wednesday and showed him the space and I believe he's becoming very receptive to coming in there. It will be at the Senior Club's option. We'd love to have them if we can get this space and I think they're going to seriously think about it. So we think it's a viable idea. We think it's important to begin to establish senior programs in the city and work towards the ultimate goal of having a full service senior center. Long term there's some possibility that the senior center can be in that space. I think you know you're all aware of the possibility that the library might be relocated to another facility at some point in time. If that occurs, there's a very real possibility that physically it works out well to expand a full service center into that space. That's long term. We're not counting on that although we did look into it. Anyway to sum up. We're looking to see if the HRA will be supportive of the idea of pursuing this further. I don't have a cost figure for you to use. You're Going to go through your budgetary, not yet. I know we'll refine one. You're going to be committing to your 1992 budget shortly and we'd like you to consider some sort of allocation in there, if you're willing and we'll be happy to pursue this idea further in terms of refining the program. Refining the funds available. With that I'd like to pass this over to Barbara Montgomery who is the Chairman of our Senior Commission. I believe she has a few words that she'd like to say. Barbara Montgomery: Well I would like to say first of all that I just really appreciate a chance to come and to see you because this is a very, very exciting prospect. We've been working.pretty hard on this for 2 years, as Paul was telling you and we've really gotten to the point now where we realize that we need a central spot to work from. We have all these parts of the picture that are beginning to fall into place and I Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September ~9, ~991 - Page 5 thlnk that the planners have done an excellent job in dolng that. But more and more we realize that we need someplace for people to gather for all of these programs to get into effect. I know the Mayor is very anxlous to get on with the volunteer program and this is an ideal opportunity to do that sort of thlng where you can bring in the younger senlor population to help out the older population. I thlnk that's an excellent idea. It's worked in other places and I thlnk it can work here but there are many other volunteer services that we will be able to use as part of the senior center. Rlght now people don't know where to call.' They don't know just how to get services. They don't who provides what and this is a service that we are worklng on and wlll be able to provide I believe. But here again you need the volunteers. .You need the space. You need it all coordinated together to make it really work. You need the combination of all these things together in one place and we certainly hope that you will conslder providing some of the fundlng so that we can do this. I was very excited to find that this space might be available because we had really looked. We looked everywhere and it's really tlght. There's hardly anything to be had. There was nothing that was suitable in Chanhassen that we could handle so I hope that you will really conslder lt. Did you have any questions of what we do? Bohn: Questions. You're looking for funding for construction of the building? Barbara Montgomery: Yes. Right. Bohn: Not operating costs? Barbara Montgomery: That's what Paul was addressing. Krauss: Yeah, we've had a number of discussions with Don about this and I don't want to put words in Don's mouth but the TI increment that we have could be used for capital costs. I don't believe it can be used for programming. We do get Block Grant allocations, a portion of which we can use for programmaing. They put a lot of strings on it. You can only use 15~ of the money you get for programs and not capital expenditures. Some of this, the program's coming together basically. We would expect, for example Ben Withhart in his proposal to us to get somebody here from their organization for I think it's lO hours or 12 hours a week is something like $5,000.00 per year over time. I don't know if that's cost effective. You know we can man this a lot of times with volunteer help but these are professionals that are trained in senior services that know how to access things. That know how to provide these services and programs for the seniors and I think long term especially it would be useful for us to do that. So we would be looking to actually fund services out of Block Grant. I'm sure that as this thing gets rolling and all the communities, the Senior Commission has probably toured gosh it must be a dozen senior centers all around to find out how they did it and there's always a big volunteer effort. It's going to the organizations like the chamber and to Rotary and everybody. The business community and asking for help. Senior Community Services taps into United Way. They're a United Way funded group so you're not paying dollar for dollar to get their services. They achieve a large subsidy through United Way. So I hope, that's a long winded answer but you're not g~ing to be paying for services out of TI. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 6 Bohn: I have a question. Don isn't here. Maybe you can. What is the HRA allowed to use their funds on? Construction or. Gerhardt: Just construction. It cannot provide any funding for operation. No long term funding. Bohn: Like I know we went through this with the community center. We were only allowed to spend money on the Public area of the community center. Gerhardt: Well there is a segment in the tax increment laws that you could physically build a community center similar to what Chaska did. Bohn: That was changed after the Timberwolves building was built. Gerhardt: Right. That law was added to the tax increment laws when the Timberwolves arena was built. That's how Chaska took advantage of it and is basically the only community I'm aware of that did use tax increment to build a community center. Robbing: Paul, what would be the timing of this? Will it start this winter or this spring or bow's that all falling into place? Krauss: We believe that we can put it together probably, if everything falls into place, so that we could have it open probably before fall. My Block Grant funding cycle kids in in 3une so to the extent that we're using those funds, it would have to be in that timeframe. I don't think it's a terribly long construction program here. It's probably something that could be done in a couple months. But also if we're going to do it right, we're going to want to have the volunteers in place. We're going to want to basically know that we've trimmed the cost as much as reasonable before we proceed. I discussed the possibility of using, I've got some dollars I have to spend by December 31st or I lose them and that's $20,000.00 and I did get clearance to be actually, we could actually hire the architect and get all the plans developed this year. Spend that money up and then tap into next year's so we're juggling that around right now. Chmiel: It seems like there's a big lapse in time to start with the architect and go through the process. Even though your Block Grant funds won't come due until 3une, is there anyway that this could be moved a little quicker in period because I think what we're looking at is people sort of excited in getting this thing really rolling. Krauss: Well it's all a matter of funding. I'm sure we could operate on it earlier in the year and possibly, to the extent that we use, if we have $20,000.00 of Block Grant, there's a possibility that we could front end the cost and be reimbursed for it when the cycle comes back around. Chmiel: Can the dollars be appropriated that way? Krauss: I believe so. Now what that would mean is basically, if for example tax increment were to pay $100,000.00. To take $120,000.00 and then refund $20,000.00 when we get the allocation. I think we could do that. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 7 Bohn: Would it be possible to do the construction. Let's see most of it would be on the inside with the exception of a vestibule. That would have to be constructed yet this Fall. Krauss: You'd need a frost footing for the vestibule. I don't know. I'd have to check. I mean winter construction isn't something that stops .people anymore. There's not a whole lot of outside work even with the vestibule. If there's an interest in pursuing it, we'd be happy to. Barbara Montgomery: One thing that I'd like to say and that is that right now there's a real window of opportunity in bringing all of this stuff together. And that may not be open forever because every community now is beginning to think very seriously about a commitment to their senior population. Finding that it's expanding and I think we'll be less and less able to rely on the outlying communities to supply the services. $o I think it's really important for us to get going all we can. As soon as we can · Krauss: We'll take our lead from you. It sounds like there's some support. If you give us the go ahead, we'll refine the cost estimates and try to bring the financing back to you so you can factor it into your budget. Chmiel: Which of these two is most functional? Krauss: Mayor, I think very clearly the one with the vestibule offers a lot. You really need a windbreak in there, otherwise the door opens right to the outside and if you build an internal vestibule, there's not a lot of space in there anyway· If you build an internal one, you're chewing up your useable space to do that. And that's a cost I guess that, I mean the vestibule is as much associated with the future growth of City Hall as it is with a senior space. It's part of the new City Hall expansion, whenever that occurs so it's not dollars that would be wasted by any means. Workman: That was the only concern that I had that in fact the facility would eventually be used by expansion of City Hall when it's needed, although that does create a dilemma. When will that be. When would this stop being used by seniors? Number one, when the city needs the space or number two, when we get a new facility for seniors. $o we might want to think about ahead of time how that decision can be made or I don't know if we can predict the growth of City Hall. You know it might be a future planning department wing down there or something. I don't know. But that seems to be the only, the relationship of time as to how long it will be used· Maybe we can't predict that but in trying to make this decision I was noticing Paul sitting there and then we have these beautiful women behind them and how we cannot make a decision so Brad, if you sat over there tonight. But no, I'm excited about this and it's not going to be throw away cash because we will eventually use it for that and to finally get something of a home for this kind of a center. And I might add that the center, you can hold your snickerin~ but the center should have a.name and potentially the name of a person who's done an awful lot and that would maybe be the Chmiel Center or somethin~ like that and then people would be able to remember how to pronounce his name. But Don's done a lot for seniors, I know that. But there's an awful lot of people, I know my old Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 8 neighborhood down there, the Lynn's. Mr. Lynn and there's a lot of old, or retired people who are very, very good at what they used to do is building and contracting and precision work and so if we could draw them in, that would be great too. Is 3ack Anderson, EOS Anderson? On his own now? Krauss: He used to be with EOS. He's now on his own. Workman: But other than that, I'd like to see it done quicker if possible. Bohn: Do you need a motion from us? Gerhardt: There's some other things that go along with this. One thing that needs to be done, if this is a project that you're going to be considering down the line, you need to amend your tax increment plan to include these type of improvements to it. We're at the point now where we're going to have to make other modifications to that plan so your motion tonight should be one to direct staff to go ahead and modify the tax increment redevelopment plan and to have staff look into this further and that you would review it in more detail as we get into the 1992 budget. Dollar wise. Not so much the facility. Bohn: How would that affect them going into it this year? Gerhardt: I would hope to get the redevelopment plan back to you November- December meeting and we could spend moDies as soon as that plan has been adopted by the City Council and notification has been given to the School District and the Counties. Ashworth: The areas that will become a problem for you is the year in which you would try to bond to recoup your cost for that construction. We're completing the bonding for this year so really the next time that we would be looking to a bond sale would probably be Fall of 1992 and that would include any expenses that you would incur in the end of 1991 or early 1992. The plan amendment would have to be completed prior to basically this time next year. So I mean we're not really under the gun. Workman: Well I'd move approval to direct staff to modify the tax increment and get this accomplished. Is that a good motion? Robbing: Second. Bohn: Any discussion? Norkman moved, Robbing seconded that the Housing and Redevelopment Authority direct staff to modify the Tax Increment Redevelopment Plan and to look at it in more detail during the 1992 budget process. All voted in favor and the motion carried. UPDATE ON MARKET SQUARE DEVELOPMENT. (There was a tape change at this point in the meeting.) Brad 3ohnson: ...Market Square which tied into our current redevelopment agreement financing that we've arranged through and the Gateway lease. We Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 9 went to the bank that we had arranged to have the construction financing with a year and a half ago and they informed us that they didn't like the terms of the Lutheran Brotherhood loan. We then went back to Lutheran Brotherhood to try to get them to change some of the terms of their loan. They refused. They did change quite a few but they refused to change a couple of basic things that they were interested in doing so the mortgage lender that we, we didn't get anywhere with the bank. $o we asked the lender that we were working with, SMAC at the present time to contact a couple of the local lenders who are now getting back into the construction lending business. So they contacted two banks, both of which have an interest in doing it and we're in the process of hopefully securing two commitments next week in writing from them that would indicate that we would have financing. Probably the one that we'll be dealing with will be First Bank. The benefit of doing that is they are very used to dealing with Lutheran Brotherhood. The other bank was an out of town bank in Wisconsin and was not willing to accept much on a handshake, which is what Lutheran Brotherhood was really asking to do. $o I think at this point in time we're starting to put together sort of a chart of things that we have to accomplish in order to get to a construction start around the 16th of October, which would coincide with the bond letting that you're going through that would help finance this. So that is where we are. We have not received the commitment from, in writing, from'First Bank to see what kind of hookers that has. It is true I guess that a construction loan can be closed fairly quickly and we're hoping that we can kind of move along quickly to get that done. What that will probably entail is sort of a drill. We'll all have to kind of move quickly if the proper time comes along, which we should know about mid-week next week as to timing. We are going to meet with, or we have been meeting with the City staff on the redevelopment agreement and some minor modifications to that and I believe Todd you're meeting with your counsel on Monday on that development agreement? And that hopefully, we're preparing a letter of how we think it is and hopefully this draft will come out and identify it. We've had a lot of changes primarily because of the assistance you've been willing to give us when we ask. So each time we run into something, most of you have said go ahead and try to do it that way so that keeps changing. Not materially the development agreements since two months ago but little things that we're trying to do so that's where we are. We're very hopeful that we could announce close to the October 16th. Those of us in the business know that things can go wrong, as you know, in areas that you never think about, but hopefully we can work towards that. I wouldn't say anyway but October 15th we'll be very deep in the process of trying to close the loan. I mean that will be probably be real life, don't you think Clayton. We'll try to close by the 15th but we're at least deep in the process and we'll probably need at least one special meeting within the next couple weeks to formally approve the Redevelopment Agreement and I think there's a public hearing that's needed for the sale of the land that's separate from that. So I think it's coming along fairly well. Most of our focus has been on that. We're up to about 92~ leased, which is good. Lots of interest. As the senior citizens said, there's no vacancy in town, so that's good. And all the tenants seem to be hanging in there because they're all en3oying fairly good years here in Chanhassen I believe. You know nobody's having a bad year, if you talk to them in the retail side so it says a lot for the community's growth and it makes us all very comfortable. It's not often you can hang 4 or 5 tenants out there for 2 years and they're still even in Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 10 business. So most of them are doing very well so I'm really kind of excited about that. Chmiel: I agree with what you're saying because I've had some discussions with some of the business people. They're saying that business is good, even though it's not as good as what they expected it to be but it's still good in kinds of situations they've had. Brad Johnson: It looks like Gateway's ready to go full blast and everybody's excited. I know they're having a hard time getting stores started a lot of places too so they're kind of interested in getting this one going. You should know I think there's only been 3 shopping centers started all year in Minnesota and last year they did 14 so it's not an easy task but we appreciate all your assistance. The staff is doing whatever they can do. It's kind of hard to turn it on until you know that we might have to do that so it's kind of exciting. Are there any questions? Bohn: When would you expect ground breaking? Brad Johnson: That's what I was saying. We're shooting, we set a date and we'd like to set the date around the 16th. About the same day we close on the loan because of the weather situation. We'll probably have to try to do what was called an early start through the City. Maybe be able to get a grading permit or something like that. If there are certain things just to kind of get rolling. What can happen at a loan closing, as Clayton knows and I know is you close and nothing happens. Then it goes on for another 2 or 3 months while we all mill around and the weather I think will cause us to want to move along because if we can get in in the October-November, then we can complete and open in May-June. That would just be delightful and that fits Bernie's schedule. See all these guys are seasonal so it fits Bernie's and Merlin's schedule because they kind of do a transition between July and August or June, July for new products and that's what they were concerned about. MGM can move overnight. Or over a weekend so he's not much of a problem. Workman: I smelled Bernie's woodstove today. Brad Johnson: That's right, you're a tenant. Workman: Suddenly it's got a new twist. It was rather fragrant-today. Brad Johnson: It's the first time he's used it since he moved in there but it will remind you. We're trying to move along. We have been informed that the clinic and the hospital and the whole works is anxious to expand. I mean they're both busting their seams downstairs there. That's 5 years early which also says, I mean everything I'm getting feedback on locally is that none of the things the HRA is up to right now is not market driven. All the things that we've done here, piece by piece. The apartment's full. Everything's been market driven and that's great I think so very exciting. We've got 100~ occupancy now in the Medical building and like I say, they're interested in, they were kind of worried we don't have enough space for them in town. Bohn: Is Copeland going to hold off on Bernie? Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 11 Brad Johnson: Well the practical side is that, to give you an answer on that, we kind of, because I'm on both sides of the street. I've always kind of discouraged anything that didn't seem to be logical because we'd end up with all kinds of battle somewhere here but the bottom line is if, we have to have 50~ of the new part pre-leased and we've kind of been waiting for Business Health and everybody to decide what they want to do and the earliest they could let us know and make a commitment for any type of expansion, as I understand it is about December. Then we'd have to come here to the Council or to the HRA and the Planning Commission, which lately has been as Paul knows, a 3 to 6-7 month process for most projects. Is that right? You can't argue about that. I'm just saying, and you wouldn't start construction until May or June even if Bernie wasn't there so that works out just fine because that's about the time Bernie would move. So I think we're just about, I can come back in 3 weeks and say it all fell apart again but don't you agree Clayton? It looks like we're getting all the pieces together. Clayton Johnson: Just one thing that's encouraging to me is I think the lending climate's turning around a little bit. When we had the two lenders at loggerheads, Lutheran Brotherhood and Bank One, I was very discouraged because it's difficult to Get a construction loan without a long term relationship but one of the things that I think has happened is the fact that we've got two other lenders willing to do it. The cut in the discount again a week ago has put pressure on the banks to lend some money and I think that's in our favor. I think the key has been holding the tenants in there, particularly the Sateway and they have been solid. We've explored this business of an early start. I'm concerned about that. I think the cost would be just tremendous. If we aren't able to close and try to do an early start, even with the assistance of the City, I think it would be very expensive. We'd spend $100,000.00 in attorneys. Brad Johnson' Some of the things we could accomplish without having what we'll call "early start" which really means you're in there before you've closed the loan is we-just would Get a lot of cooperation from the city. On a permit. And the landowners on the permit process and things that we have to, you can get hung up on. Not because of the city staff. I'm just saying you can get hung up on. You don't initiate it until you've Got the closing and anybody who's built a building knows that you've just mill around. You're astonished that you got the thing closed. You won the battle and the war's still on. Bohn: Early start would be what, Grading? Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well basically an early start in some of these cases is just Getting somebody out to do a survey. Clayton 3ohnson: There's grading and also the City's part of the project which is the storm sewer on the other end. Brad 3ohnson: Do you have any other questions tonight? We'll be working with the staff. I'm sure that nobody has any problems with us bugging the staff and trying to get it Going the ways we can. We haven't identified which, they're working on that right now. What we can. Right? We're always here anyway so. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 12 Bohn: Storm sewer? What do you mean storm sewer at the other end? The parking? Ashworth: There's a large storm sewer on the south end of the project. Chmiel: By the railroad tracks. Ashworth: It's a 72 inch. We've taken bids. The Council has actually awarded to the low bidder subject to all of the contract work being signed. Gerhardt: It's just a matter of having a pre-construction meeting and giving the contractor the okay to go do the work. We're that far along but we don't want to go ahead until we know that Market Square is for sure going to happen. Bohn: Would that storm sewer change after...regardless of whether Market Square is built or not? Gerhardt: I can't answer that. Clayton 3ohnson: Market Square pays for it. Ashworth: But if you go out there you'll find a big swale there and so if you're willing to give up a piece of property 100 feet wide by however long, it just makes more sense to bury it and be able to. Brad Johnson: You probably wouldn't do it though until you knew exactly what the configuration of the runoff is going to be and the layout of whatever's going to be built there. Workman: The only question I have is, what's the gestation period of an elephant? 28? Clayton 3ohnson: 25 months. 30 months. Chmiel: But this is not a white elephant. Brad 3ohnson: It's going to be a very good center. Workman: We've never 'had a letter like this from you Brad, have I? Putting the date on there and everything. The 14th you said. October 14th. Brad 3ohnson: They made me change it to the 16th because they wouldn't have any money until then. The City slowed us down. Workman: What happens if nothing's happening? We're not going to bond for all this then? I mean is this really kind of a big date? Clayton 3ohnson: It's the day we all pay our real estate taxes so therefore you guys have got the money. Brad 3ohnson: You guys have got the money coming in and we've got to get it to pay it out. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 13 Clayton Johnson: You don't have to bond. Chmiel: Amen. Ashworth: The bond sale for this propject is scheduled for the 16th. Gerhardt: 15th. Tuesday. 5:00. Chmiel: Send a notice so we don't forget. PRESENTATION ON CITY CENTER PARK. Ashworth: ...taking the plans to various groups. Todd was before the Rotary 2 weeks ago and I'll be in front of the Chamber this next week. All in an effort to try to get people to come in and tell us if they like this project or if they don't. We did have it in the newsletter. Actually two spots. Under the Mayor's section... I think that the project as it was envisioned from City Hall down is pretty much or is what you directed 8arton-Aschmann to put together. 8ohn: Where would the senior citizens park? Ashworth: Well, the long term concept is one that the library moves out and we reserve Pauly/Ponys/Pryzmus for that. If this acts as the front door in this southwest corner for the seniors, it would be terrible because they have no parking. They have no access. This would be lousy for them. As long as the street is there, they can use the small amount of space that's there. I don't know if you've seen it but it's a very small piece. But when the library moves out, that makes a mammoth area sufficient really for the full level of programming that typically would go along with a senior center. Now some things start to change because now if this becomes the front door for the seniors, they"ye got a direct drop-off point with existing parking. They've got a humongous parking lot to draw off of and it acts as a very nice front door. In addition, any type of activities occurring in here would, this door here can become actually very useful for them as an area where if you want to go outside. This is completed in a plaza type of approach. Tis is seen as their backdoor and it's beautiful. It would function very, very well. Workman: You're talking very long term now then for the seniors. Ashworth: Yes. Workman: So that won't be Paul's planning department down there for some time. Ashworth: The only way you would consume that lower level for general government services, city services, would be if you created your own police department. And quite frankly, I know of no reason that this city should ever consider anything but the contractual services. I know it's been discussed at Public Safety and Council but there's some magic point. 10,000, 15,000 people where it's more cost effective to have your own police department. That's not true. I mean if...in California, contractual service for police department serves millions of people. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 14 Again, that would be the only way you'd consume that much space because remember we still have it planned for another addition to actually take care of what I'll call a mirror image of this building so there's still room over there for another third of building to go on and that would be both up and down. If we're going to have the architects do any additional work on this plan as it relates to from kind of this point down, unless you direct me otherwise. Unless you've seen something in here that does not represent what we've been talking about in the last 2 or 3 meetings. I will... I'm really fearful about this plan as they have it here. If you're coming from the Post Office going to where Tom used to..., you're natural reaction is going to be, well first of all you're being drawn through the parking lot so it's hard to back up...and the natural tendency would be to come up this way in which you could look this way, and then you're going to have to come and go back. The same in coming through here. You'll come through this section and again we're in a conflicting situation with the park. In talking with Todd Hoffman, one of the other concerns is you want to develop a parking lot in this area to better serve the number of nighttime activities but the last thing you need to have happen is have somebody come into the Post Office right in the same area where a guy is bringing in a group of these 4 or 5, or how old, 7 and 8 year old soccer players. You know the little ones. We don't need that type of conflict. Chmiel: Can I just mention something? I fully agree with that idea because there is a community which was sort of east of Fairbault called Kenyon. I used to diagonal park within that community and your best bet in driving through that Main Street was to close your eyes and hope to God that nobody hit you. Ashworth: I don't think all... Typically you don't like to take and have a road come in on a curve but if there's no...has good sight lines back on Chan View... Workman: $o that'd be a full city street? Ashworth: Yes, this is designed to a full width through here. Doing it in this fashion, coming off of...probably requires a small stone wall or something like that in this area. Most of this is walled anyway but something like this and then with a turn in here. You'd reserve most of your upper lot as it is but you're not conflicting with it. Then additionally, even though you can see this, but we've reserved this lot in here. Now it is off of the street patterns. When you drive in here and you drop off your son or daughter or whatever, and they're running over to the park here, you don't have to worry... Bohn: Is there a sidewalk? Ashworth: Well again, in my...this will be enhanced. I'm sure coming into this...to expand the parking lot down below and potentially looking to some type of a drop off area adjacent to City Hall. Some of these things may change. I think that the critical thing is getting the parking lots away from the thru road is really necessary. Workman: The park has been redesigned hasn't it Don? We've kind of reconfigured it more efficiently up there? We're really not losing a lot. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 15 Chmiel: We're not losing a ballfield. Ashworth: ...involved with this whole process. By the time you get into your next meeting, and I'm sure we'll be having people coming in and saying this is really dumb. You'll be in a position to say, we thought about that. Here's how it might better work. Any questions on any of this? Chmiel: That's exactly what I had down on my sheet here. Refresh my memory what happened to the street on the far top side. That's good. Workman: Are we giving out ballpark figures on what this is all going to cost? gerhardt: Barton-Aschmann was going to put a rough estimate together. Workman: A million what? Two million? gerhardt: What do you want? Do you want to through in the acquisition of the Sank and. Workman: I think that probably should be a part of that. I mean isn't that going to have to be part of the cost? Bohn: lhat would be in our next budget. Workman: I tell you what, after this rain they had 6 inches of water in the basement of that building this week. Chmiel: It must be worthless. Workman: Price went down. 3ust something I heard from somebody. Bohn: I had another thought on that plaza up in front of City Hall over the park. Couldn't that be a porch going around from the front door to the back door so we had activities that could be covered? Like senior citizens could sit out there like a porch. Ashworth: As it is designed, it is expansive, lhe courtyard area is... 8ohn: 8ut Dart of it could be covered. Ashworth: All of this is hard surface. Octagon type of...concrete or exposed aggregate. 8ohn: Like 10 feet of it from the building out can be covered, like posting of a porch out there. Ashworth: We maintain the green area including the flower bed. Some of this area we want to keep a ways away from. You've got a major electrical service box in the front plus some other service things you kind of want to hide but to be able to do some type of a veranda like you're talking about in this area here, we could try exploring that. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 16 Bohn: I was just thinking the senior citizens could sit out there with their rocking chairs. Ashworth: The next thing you'd be looking for would be. Bohn: Patio furniture. Ashworth: Yeah, patio furniture type of thing. On a real nice spring summer day...going outside in that whole park type of a setting. Bohn: City employees could go out there and have a picnic. PRESENTATION BY STRGAR-ROSCOE-FAUSCH REGARDING PROPOSED WEST 78TH STREET IMPROVEMENTS AND SIGNALIZATION. Gerhardt: Vice Chairman Bohn, HRA members. Back in our July meeting staff had presented some concept drawings for the improvements in the downtown area. What prompted those drawings were some of the points that we had received on downtown regarding some of the curbs and the radiuses of those curbs. Some of the noses on the medians and width of the lanes. From that staff had Strgar prepare some recommendations and drawings for correcting those areas. From those drawings the HRA member Workman and myself met with some of the businessmen in the downtown to highlight those changes. Ne had a couple of people show up for that meeting and Tom and I were going to work at trying to get on a Chamber meeting and present those drawings. It was also discussed that we create a little better visual aid before we make that presentation. Denny Eyler from SRF is here tonight to go through those renderings and to talk about the addition of medians from what would be Kerber out to 17 and some of the advantages and disadvantages of having those. I guess I'd just like to introduce Denny so he could go through those. Denny Eyler: Thanks Toddi I guess I would have to say at this point we're still in a very preliminary stage because we have to get your feedback on exactly what you want for medians so as far as having polished final renderings available, that's not quite the case but we have some drawings and some photographs from similar type projects we've been involved with and it may help you kind of focus on some of the issues. One of the primary questions that was asked in this last series of meetings we had with staff is what is the need, what type of roadway section is needed on this stretch from Kerber out to Powers and some recent developments that have come along is that when we first started in this downtown study, it was approximately a year ago. The fate of those parcels out there was not real clear at that time. We had some preliminary information on what the land use might be and it's now starting to crystalize a little bit. It seems to be a little bit more intense maybe and coming on line a little sooner than the thoughts were a year ago. So the issue of what to do out there has been revisited. What are the possibilities of improving that two lane road and what is needed actually and what would be the best solution? Of course what you have out there now is a two lane facility and what you have in the eastern part of downtown is some form of three lane facility. In your case it is a series of left turn lanes with a raised island. Another possibility of course would be a two way left turn lane or some people call the chicken lanes. They have some uses. I wouldn't Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 199! - Page 17 recommend one for this particular area. What was drawn originally for most of the section was a four lane roadway. Of course you might say the ultimate suburban or urban roadway is a five lane either with a series of left turn lanes with or without medians or with paint or again two way left turn lanes. We've looked at the numbers. We've looked at some of the development proposals that are out there now and the magnitude, of those developments and we've come to the conclusion that rather than building a four lane undivided facility, there was channelization...to Powers. Rather than building that and creating this gap in what's otherwise a nice controlled roadway through Chanhassen, that should be modified and that a five lane configuration would be the need with the development that's expected. As development occurs, that would be pushed eastward initially to Market to tie into the Market Place development but ultimately maybe another block or two eastward as traffic volumes grow. Ne could come in here and say you should throw everything away and start over from scratch but we're trying to help you get some use out of what you've already built out there for as long as is practical and safe. We definitely recognize there's a need to do this to Kerber and onto Market as development occurs. Another question that came up of course was when you do this, where would the access points most likely be? We started this last week. We weren't privy to some of this information that came along the other day and we looked at trying to focus on two access points between Kerber which is just off of this drawing and Powers and we located those where we had kind of optimum turn lanes. The ends of the turns were more on tangent and we had two variations of that. One where the driveways were more to the east and one where everything was shifted slightly west...and there was some discussion there about what the roadway section should be. These drawings were prepared to show again the four lane undivided. The five lane undivided and five lane divided and what the landscaping opportunities are. Of course with the median you can't have plantings. I'm not sure what...in this project. Does it even come out as far as the city limits? Gerhardt: It dumps right at the singular. Denny Eyler: The residents of Minnetonka were pretty much steadfast against having a road any wider than the two lane really. That's what their desire is to have a two lane roadway out there. The County hasn't been real systematic in their approach to it so they try to... Chmiel: Isn't much of that mostly in Minnetonka rather than Eden Prairie? Denny Eyler: Yeah. The alignment, and the soil conditions out there really pretty much...to Minnetonka until you get right out to TH And Minnetonka has had this reputation for...throughout the city. They acquired the right-of-way. They've got the money. It's just a question of ...and of course the access points... It is a controlled access in the sense that there aren't going to be any driveways on it. The city streets are going to be limited...because the possibility of cut thru traffic... But as a traffic engineer, particularly a roadway like that... Now I'm surprised that the County hasn't been more resolute in going to something like this because years ago they faced the same battle at Normandale couth of 494. They were backed into the building and undivided except they do have islands at the signals and there have been a couple of fatal accidents down there. Head oh's from people crossing the center line. Now the Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 18 speeds down there are 45 mph which is...faster because they come off of... I'm sure you wouldn't find the speed of 45 mph...main street through that lowlands down there south... There's also a lot of deer... Chmiel: There's lots of policemen sitting down there as well. Denny Eyler: I'm sure they've got plenty of customers. Chmiel: One of my kids twice. Denny Eyler: Well this is a photograph of the landscape treatment that that transparency represents. This is on Carlson Parkway. This was taken several years ago .... has gone back in and added lots of... Low plantings. They've got flowers in flower boxes there now but this is just to give you an idea of the width. I believe they have wide top curbs here too. But again this was 18 feet at it's narrowest spot and here's probably closer to, somewhere closer to 30 I believe... Notice the islands at the intersection...and it looks real nice. Our office is in Carlson complex so we look at this all the time. We've certainly managed to keep... They've done a good job. They've got the plantings up in here. It's not really any sight distance problems. I have to come out of there and use the Crossroads to get out of the driveway at quitting time and the Carlson Companies are dumping out of their towers and I sit in the median and wait for gaps. I get across the first roadway... Chmiel: What was the width of that? Including all the right-of-way. , Denny Eyler: I believe they had 120 feet of right-of-way because what the original plan was, was not to build sidewalks so they have a 6 foot outside shoulder. $o going from one side to the other they had 6 foot zones striped out and then two 12 foot lanes. Then probably a 14 foot left turn lane. So that's 24, 30, 44 and then the island is always 18 feet minimum so that brings you up to 62. Then you have a 14 foot inside lane and another 12 foot. That's 88. Then the outer is 6 foot on the other side. So they've got a 94 foot roadway in a 120 foot right-of-way. Chmiel: And you were talking on 78th Street? Denny Eyler: 78 feet. And that would be with a 12 foot instead of an 18 foot island and not having 6 feet shoulders on the outside. Robbins: But that's 5 lane right? Denny Eyler: That's the 5 lane, right. Chmiel: 78 feet on 78th Street. Workman: In the recommendation, if the HRA agrees to continue the landscaping medians, I don't know. That's kind of a tough question as far as it was kind of my understanding that maybe we were kind of trying to come back from that full landscaping a little bit because of some of the complaints and problems and everything else like that. So to buy into that statement I guess I would say would be overdoing it in my mind. I like the idea of the landscaping but for practical reasons, it's causing problems I Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 19 think in downtown now. Knowing that to continue that down and on I think wouid perhaps not be prudent. Bohn: I like it and it's what you plant in there is what people don't like. Workman: Well yeah, precisely. What are you going to plant in there? Bohn: Grass and iow shurbs. Chmiel: I think I made that statement the last time. That in just putting cement in there, I don't think it would be aesthetically as good looking as it would and I'm not one for all the shurbs and trees either but yet to be consistent with what's existing, it should follow that same pattern all the way through. I don't think you need as many. Workman: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. To come back because that right turn lane out of Laredo. No, the right turn coming off of Market when you're looking towards Laredo to go up. Or I'm sorry, you're going to go left. You're going to go left on Market onto West 78th. That traffic's coming from Laredo and if they're pushing 30 mph, it's like you can look t~4ice and somebody will just appear out of there. That isn't comfortable at all, and that's going to be a busy area. Now we're going to have lights and everything else and so maybe it won't matter but until we have it. Chmiel: I think too, along with that, some of the things that you should consider is the necessary requirements of setbacks as you approach 78th so when you pull up to a stop sign, you're not looking into a transformer pad or something of that particular nature. Make sure that the visibility is clear from both sides rather than encroaching on to a given roadway. Ashworth: If I may real quickly. I'm happy that we've gone through this process in terms of bringing Strgar in. I think they have recommended a number of changes within the downtown to make that safer right across from your office Tom. A number of those trees have been pulled out right now so the sight lines are getting better and I'm sure there's going to be some additional tree removal, especially is there's a break in the median with this bank down here. You're going to see additional trees taken out of there. I think that BRW got a little, I don't think. They did get over ambitious in terms of the amount of landscaping in the downtown. Chmiel: Can I just add something to that Don? Ashworth: Yes. Chmiel: What they pulled here, they did the same thing in the city of Minneapolis right on Nicollet Mall. Ashworth: And that was Noble Nursery who did the stuff out here as well. But alright, and again I really believe that through the signals, through removal of some of the existing vegetation, changes in some of the median areas as recommended by Strgar, that's what we're trying to get down to. Basically an agreement that they should be starting plans and specifications so that starting this next spring we'll have the curb in Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 20 place for the new shopping center. The corrections in the downtown are made and if you recall, this section of 78th Street is actually set up to be let this year. We pulled the plug on that to go through re-analysis. I'm glad we did because if we would have built a 4 lane roadway, Strgar has told us that you need both the two lanes coming this way and two lanes going that way to function. But we also know that there will be businesses that occur along here which means in this type of an opening, you're going to have the necessity for left turns which then comes back down to the position that. you're really only going to have one thru lane this way and one the other way because the rest of the cars are going to be crowding over. The next thing they'll do is we'll rip out this whole section to put in the... It doesn't make any sense. I agree with your point Tom that there's too much landscaping in the downtown. This figure here for that next section provides a left turn lane that you're looking at. This provides the median, I think it matches in with the... I'm not quite sure. We do need to work...to make sure that... Charlie James. You know these are of such a minor width you're just talking about concrete. And whether or not you're able, in fact I think they've actually developed an additional one now which has another turn lane in this location. If that occurs, then this whole thing will be painted red this way and this will be totally red this way. So you're protecting the motorist with a left turn but it's just going to be solid concrete. The issue is looking through trees is a moot one if you've got none to look through. I mean you can't...to a 6 foot section. Personally I'd like to be able to see us get through...so that we can do some type of a... I don't know, are you into savannahs, cabannas? Denny Eyler: Well, we have a lot of landscape architects on staff and I've work with others as being consultants to a general consultant in Wayzata... I have to say this about them. They've got to have some pretty tough egos because they get beat up pretty badly. I mean traffic engineering is bad enough because there's still some subjectivity to a lot of it. Plantings and flowers and you know. Ashworth: And I think in our case they maybe deserve to be beat up. But I mean will this support any grass in the traditional... Denny Eyler: 6 foot islands really shouldn't be left in grass either. Ashworth: So really, following the recommendations to protect the motorists I think is an excellent one. It insures that we don't end up ripping the thing out. It also gives planning points. You're telling the developer in advance, here's where we want accesses onto this roadway. Again I personally would hope that the final design that Aschmann pulled out may be... Bohn: Is there going to be another access onto Powers Blvd. from the Burdick property? Krauss: Yeah. The existing right-of-way. When this was developed back when...ability to maintain existing right-of-way as a right-in/right-out only. It functions as a private driveway. Bohn: Could it possibly be closed off because of hazard? Housing and RedeveIopment Authority Meeting September 19, 199! - Page 21 Krauss: This predates me when it was authorized. It's not the safest situation. Bohn: It's so close to TH 5 when you come off of TH 5 with the widening of TH 5. Krauss: But it was reviewed by Carver County at that point in time and they did authorize it so it may be one of those things that's already. Chmiel: Yeah, and that will also go alon~ to the service road that will be on the north side of TH 5 over to Lake Ann Park. That same intersection. Krauss: That will align with 78th Street. Gerhardt: Jim's concerned where the private driveway goes right in I think. Bohn: Those people making the right turn off of TH 5 onto Powers Bird. come at a pretty good clip. There's no stop sign for them. They may be looking at the traffic coming from their left. Denny Eyler: Those free rights when you have some activity immediately downstream are really, really tough. The best solution there is, well ideally from a County and State's perspective would be to close that off and not allow a right-in/right-out. But if there's some loses or damages that they could sue for, I guess the way is to back up and see what the problem is at the other end. That's not to have a free right but a regular right turn lane. Chmiel: Council gave that decision at that particular time that a right-in and right-out would be at 78th Street. Old 78th Street for access into Burdick's property as well as. Workman: Yeah, we debated that quite lengthily. Lengthily? Mike Mason: Talked about it for a long time. Denny Eyler: Yeah MnDot, we kind of like to have free rights onto the highway because then you get the right turns don't have to use the signals to interrupt the main highway but those coming off of the highway are always tricky if there is something immediately downstream. I believe 8RW's original plan for 78th Street actually had a northbound free right onto the new 78th Street. With any kind of driveway within a couple hundred feet of that intersection, that really doesn't make any sense either. You know a right turn lane yes but not a free right that allows people, because if you put something on the north side there that's some attraction, you're going to find somebody making a free right and immediately shotting across all the lanes and getting in the left turn slot. At least if they've got to make a right turn on red or at the light they can turn... Chmiel: You're coming off that. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Heeting September 19, 1991 - Page 22 Denny Eyler: Now that free right that's down on the northeast quadrant by CR 17 and Powers may be, there's three designs that MnDot uses technicaIly. The middle condition they try to avoid which is the yeild with the short taper. They've pretty much eliminated building those on new jobs. Either they go to one that's just merely a small island to get the signal pole on and to get the vehicle technicaily out of the signal but it's presumed that you're going to stop more likely than not. Or they have one with a full blown, full acceleration lane just like a merge lane on a freeway. And the middle condition they pretty much downplay and I think that's probably what you've got down there is a pretty good radius but a short taper which encourages speed taking the curb but it doesn't really give you anyplace to go. If it's a rural design and you've got a shoulder to drive on if you make a mistake and pull out, well that's one thing but as the area gets organized, you've lost that safety valve and it should be reviewed I guess. Bohn: Coming out of there going 30 mph and get out onto Powers Blvd. and keep on going until you hit the stop sign. And you'd be looking at your left to see if cars are coming across TH 5. Not thinking about somebody coming off that driveway. Denny Eyler: Yeah, exactly. It takes moving it this way and moving it that way. I always have the criticism of cities that put speed limit signs too close to intersections for the same reason. You make a turn off of a highway onto a city street and you're worried about somebody coming at you or something like that. You turn the corner and the speed limit sign went by before you had a chance to read it. You don't know what the limit is you know so that's, but your situation here is much more severe case than just missing the speed limit sign. That just goes to show you what sort of activity happens at an intersection...and a lot of decisions to make and a lot of information to take in. Bohn: Is there sidewalks coming down 78th Street? Denny Eyler: We haven't drawn them on there but that was the instruction. We discussed that...plan to bring them out and tie into the trail system that starts... Ashworth: At some point I'd like to take and get authorization to have Strgar-Roscoe, in other words taking work really away from BRW. They had initially done the design of 78th Street detachment, but to turn over those services to Strgar. Number one would be the minor repair items in the downtown where they're reducing those as increasing some of the turn areas where we've got conflicts. Number two, making a decision as to which intersections we would like to see signalized so that we can move into again 1992 with an idea that that's when, whichever ones you pick out would be signalized. And three, to literally move in to design for this West 78th Street portion. What I'm hearing the HRA say is that you'd like to see additional, I don't know. What I'm hearing you say is that. Chmiel: Tell us just in case. Ashworth: Quite frankly I cannot recommend that we continue without having all 4 lane conditions. We'll rip this out before it ever gets in. Do you want to see additional concepts with what I'll call the protected Housing and RedeveIopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 23 left? Would you like to see additional concepts with what I'll call the chicken lane? Workman: Not in the corner. Chmiel: No. Denny Eyler: Those are useful where you don't have good zoning and land use controls because where you've got driveways every 30-40 feet, what else can you do. Chmiel: Well just to get the input from both property owners there. You've indicated you've talked to 3ames but not talked to. Burdick about that. Workman: BRW never had finally come up with this landscaping plan or something. They were talking about maybe this is it but Jim was always saying, where's the landscaping plan and BRW never came up with it. There was supposed to be some sort of a landscaping plan as a part of it that was never a part of it or something. Gerhardt: Just the boulevard trees I think. Workman: No landscaping is going to be taken into account on the sides? Gerhardt: Those are boulevard trees. Workman: Okay, but that seemed to have been missing from BRW. Ashworth: So then I hear you say, take this back to the property owners... Bohn: Yeah, I'd like to see some of that green. Workman: Personally, in a little less dramatic fashion I guess. Ashworth: Well, I'll repeat what...to me. That is you should really not have any type of a tree condition as you move into your lane areas. Which in our previous plan we carried trees all the way down into this median area. If you made a larger median like throughout this section, then we'd be able to do green in the center island but then again do not have... Denny Eyler: I don't know if I brought along that one figure and I'm sorry. I looked at it before I left the office and I thought well there's probably only one thing on here that's of any use. We have a typical block where we had a left turn lane at each end. They were a little bit longer than these blocks. The left turn lanes would have to end and they wound up being kind of a...in the middle where you have the full median width. And if you concentrate your big items in there and kept your sight lines... landscape architect but I only had a few minutes of time with ours... We haven't even tied down the access points. Once we have those tied down, then we can start talking about green space and tree sizes and stuff like that. I believe the city of Crystal has got some stuff on County Road 10. They've got some raised beds in the center parts of their median between intersections. They've got just...and they've got some concrete raised areas where they've got some plantings. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 24 Chmiel: Something they just put in recently. Denny Eyler: Yeah, something they just put in recently. I think there's something like that down in Richfield too along 66th Street where they've got some areas where they've centered their landscaping... And they serve as an opportunity, uJith irrigation these days. The big issues are salt spray and irrigation... Salt spray, t guess that's selection of species. They're going to get sprayed so you might as well figure on that... Workman: Well I'd move that motion Don. Whatever it was. They're going to come back with some more detail on this as well as signals? Ashworth: Again at some point we'd like to take and see which signals would you like to see go in in 1992. They're saying Great Plains and 78th is definite. The question there is would you like to move forward with Kerber at this point in time? There's warrants at all of them. Workman: Didn't in that earlier downtown traffic study, didn't SRF kind of lay it out what it should be? Weren't they talking about. Chmiel: You were talking new Market. Denny Eyler: We were saying Market is number two because of ail the development. Chmiel: The new Market before Laredo. Workman: It'd be difficult to argue against that professional logic although I have before. So I guess I would go with that until. I think personally that Kerber is a dangerous one but will that maximize everything that we want to do? Will the one at Market then better effect Laredo and Kerber probably? Denny Eyler: Yeah, if somebody doesn't like using either one of those intersections. I understand your park plan in front of the City Hall will close off that one. Kind of cross over in front of City Hall here so you wouldn't have that but by that time maybe you would have a signal at Kerber anyway. Chmiel: I see a lot of people coming on Powers Blvd. is no longer using 78th Street. Because of the curve, number one. Number two, the additional light they're going to run into. I see them going directly out to TH 5 and utilizing TH 5 going east. You're also going to get the same thing coming back into town when they come home from the east going west because of the additional stop and go light at Great Plains and 78th. They will automatically stay on TH 5. Ashworth: You pick up an additional signal by the Red-E-Mix as well. Chmiel: Yeah. And then in addition to that, once TH 101 is no longer being tracked through the downtown area of 7Bth, that's going to cut it back too. So I see that as a total plus for us with that amount of traffic flow. You're going to get a lot of people too that are going to be coming out from Laredo and going down. They may even make a left turn and get to Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September 19, 1991 - Page 25 Market and get on rather than go through all that configuration because then they're going through two lights there as well. Of course you get them on the highway. But the timing was going to be better as well. $o I just as soon see this go with looking at what we have here as Tom said. Probably at that particular intersection because it's a bad intersection. I'd like to see that marked probably a lot better than we have existing. I don't know if we need any signage for the immediate access past the railroad track as you come in on Great Plains coming from the. East for people going specifically to the Dinner Theatre. Right now those people are so confused and I see it almost every day that I drive through there when people are coming in. They don't know where to go. I th~nk we need at that particular area some kind of signage that would say left lane to the Dinner Theatre because of lot of them even make that yeild and go back out on 78th because they don't know where in the beck they're going. It's really confusing right there. Denny Eyler: Before you talk about incorporating some directional signage with the signal system, and we haven't sketched anything up yet but it's very simple to do. Chmiel: If we can even pull them off coming off of TH 5 into that immediate area, you're not going to get all that traffic going back through town. Denny Eyler: Yeah, I don't know what you can do out on the highway. I know MnDot had some signed certain recreational facilities. Whether the Dinner Theatre would fall into that category, ski area or golf course they can sign. Put directional signs up for that...and what they used to do is make that facility paper... You might want to do that back at Dakota Street. Have a straight ahead sign. Get them turning there and then catching them at Great Plains. That's something that... Gerhardt: There is one on'TH 5 between Dakota and what's existing TH 101. There's a brown, white on brown. Denny Eyler: Oh there is? Gerhardt: Yeah, it says Dinner Theatre. The problem is we need another one just before you cross the railroad tracks that points and says Dinner Theatre...as you're coming down West 78th Street just before you hit the Great Plains, West 78th Street as it goes east. One that says Dinner Theatre. Chmiel: I'm not one for a lot of signs but I think that area specifically does need it. Gerhardt: It's a massive building. I don't know how you can miss it. (The tape ran out at this point in the meeting.) Workman moved, Chmiel seconded that the HRA request a proposal from Strgar- Roscoe-Fausch in preparing plans and specifications for the proposed improvements throughout the downtown and the West 78th Street Detachment Project. Ail voted [n favor and the motion carried. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting September ~9, 1991 - Page 26 APPROVAL OF BILLS: Workman moved, Robbins seconded to appTove the Houslng and Redevelopment Authority accounts payable dated 9-9-91. Alt voted favor and the motlon carrled. Norkman moved, Robbins seconded to adjourn the meet. lng. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Submitted by Don Ashworth Executive Director Prepared by Nann Opheim