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1991 01 17HOUSING AND REDEVELOPNENT AUTHORI~ '-. :.. · .. REGULAR MEETING :~F.~' ~'''' JANUARY 17. 1991 .~... -~ · . .... ::-~... ...~'~:... Chairman Horn called the meeting to .order at 7.:30':P.m,. . MEMBERS PRESENT: Clark Horn, Tom ·Workman, Jim'8ohn and Ch~rlie :R66~i'hs MEMBERS ABSENT: Don Chmiel '}~'~" :"' · .. . : .. STAFF pRESENT: Don Ashworth, Execu~ive"~Di~ec-to~; Todd Gerhardt, Asst-.. Executive Director; Paul Krauss, ~t:ann~.n_g DireCtor; and Roge~ Knutson, City [~,. .L-_I~~'- -'.-~, : Attorney ar,~. ~ '"~;~ . .. ~:~'('~ , ... ',~: ~PPROVAg OF M[~TES: Workman move: Bohn '~conde'd to appTove~%he. Minutes of the Housing and Rede~elopmeot ~thority.~ee,~ing dated Dec~.~ 6, 1990 == nil osed -- . VISITOR PRESENTATION: Horn: Do you have something B~ad? Brad 3ohnson: I guess I"m just'~e ~o update you on the progress with ' ' ~ weT~ i ng to meet Na~ke~ Square. ~f you-~ecall co~Tec~l~,;;~ Ne ~i~h ~he s~aff ~h~ch ~e 'd~d and had ~he'G~e~ay foZk~s ove~ he~... They have pu~ ~oge~heT apT. oposal ~o us ~hich ~e' ~ouid have ~o sign bu~ i~ has-ye~ as ~e see i~ and ha~'a ~oposal ~n .~}~ab;1-~-~a~'~ acceptable bo~h %o ~he local Ga~e~ay folks'and:~.~e de~el~peT'~~.:Ne-~'~ no~.~at~ un~il' ~ha:~~ ,. ., -- . .. . ; . ( - . . ... '', p~oposal is p~elimina~ approved by. ~he~lah~ Folks here' feel: ~ha~ ~11 be approved. Ne've gone ~h~ough ~hi~-~b~e o~..~imes a~d ~'~he NaT going on and all ~hi~ kinds o~ ~u~f, I-%.~hi~. ~ht~. have jus~ Ne hope ~o hea~ sometime nex~ ~eek p~ei~m~na~_iZy"aa ~o Nhe~he~ ~heY'~Z accep~ i~ o~ no~ and-:~hen i~ ~ili go' ~hei;~-: Comml~e~-~o ~ha~'s a good because Z ~hink ~he p~oposal ~e have 'shou~o~k .... Zn addi~lon-:~o ~ha~ a~e meeting wi~h ~~alue ~omo~'ow:'in. ~ dif~~ yen% ~ha~.~e've ~ekindled ~heiT ~n~es~ and Z suppose ..bY'~he en~of ~he month' ~ aald by ~he ~5~h ~e'd have~'his solved bu~ i~ looks like i~ ~ill be mo~e b~ ~he end of ~he mon~h-~ha~ ~e'Z~ know exa¢~1~.~e~e ~e'~e going:o~ have'a good indication o~ ~he~e ~,e'~e-g~'ing:~;.~.~c~~e ~o.'g~-a~-;~' '~' ' ' --' '" coope~a[ion ~e can f~om.-~.'he;.~[aff.,'. ..... [::.[~{~k--~ "~ust ln:.a-'h&Yd .[lm~, anybody ~o mak~ ~'~1 es[a;[~.-de'Ci.,'[~;~' ~:~. 1~-seema ~o"be p~Tessing'?~'' Any ques[[ons? ~ ;' " Horn: Uhen you me[ ~i~h:~he Gale,ay folEs"OU~..he~e...Oklahoma ~[e"also . o~ jus[ [ocal? . Brad 3ohnson: No. One b-f ou~ p~oblems cu~en[.~. ~i%h [h~ 6a~eN~' off/ce and [ do believe [hey'~e choosing' a'neN:.p~es/de~:~o~Y ~'[ S been kind of in [he a[~ if'you have 1[. So [he [oca[ [ha[ a~e p~omo[/ng [his feel i['s a ver~ good [h/ng and .~-y~-~ ou[ ho~ [o package ~[ so 1[ N111 be acceP[ed. ..~.k'~o~. [he.v.;"~-.~[A-v~ in[e~es[ed in being 1~ Chanhassen bu[ i[~'S'"jus[ f~us[~a[ing [he?PYO'Ce~'.' ~;g... [hey'~e going [h~ough ~i'gh[ no~. Robbins: Are they aware that you'~e meeting Nith Super Value? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January l?, lggl - Page 2 Brad Johnson: Yeah. We told them that we were. Horn: THe new president is at the local level or at the Oklahoma level? Brad Johnson: Here. Not electing so much as selecting. That's what I was told this afternoon. That would help too because then we've got leadership here that we have so there's only two places...Gateway and then Super Value. Horn: We're probably a little sensitive about changing presidents. That seemed to kill the Redmond Products. Brad Johnson: Oh yeah. I think we've got the support and I think they put together a financial package that probably would work. We said just put something together that you think will fly down there. They've had 3 runs at it so they're getting pretty good at knowing what doesn't work so they think they've put together one that does and I'll go into detail. I know a lot of stuff that's going on but it has to do with tbs whole grocery market in the metropolitan area. Bohn: The Super Value proposal that you're working with, is that going to be just another regular Super Value store? Brad Johnson: Wel~, it'd be the New Market proposal. The same that we had before as far as the store is concerned. Different deal. We've got two choices. What we decide when, I think it was Tom and I and the Mayor. won't get into the nitty gritty until we have a proposal on the table think-will work and then we'll come back and go over it rather than going into detail each time we try to get something developed. I think that's a good idea. Tom, have you got any questions? We're working on it. Every other day we've got something going on so. And we-met with all of the other tenants seem to be holding on. Bohn: We'll know by when, the end of the month? Brad 3ohnson:' Yeah. Horn: Okay. Thank you. PRESENTATIQN BY STRGAR-ROS¢OE-FAUSCN. INC. REGARDING THE DOWNTOWN TRAFFIC STUDy, Don Ashworth: Approximately one year ago we got into, we were told that Target was proposing to locate within the City of Chanhassen. That just became staggering in how we might be able to handle the traffic associated with a facility of that size. It just raised some major questions. At the same time Mr. 3ohnson was considering development in the Amoco area and there was a potential that it might have a higher generation of traffic from that facility and could that reasonably be accommodated with the streets currently in the condition they are down there. As we brought the item back to the City Council and to the HRA, discussion occurred in ter of, well if we're going to do this type of a study, I think we should include as part of it this whole signalization issue. We've been in a position to put in signals in the downtown area. It's simply been a question of have we tripped the number of vehicles per day that would Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 3 require that. And then there were some concerns over just itself within the downtown area. Ail of that-led to our employ~.~'h~ '~f ~ - Strgar-Roscoe to carry out that form df analysis. Our Planning in conjunction with the Engineering department have met with representatives and with that I guess I would ask Paul if you would introduce the representative that's here and any other comments~:you might have. Paul Krauss= I have no real comments. 'We have Denny Eiler from Strgar-. .,. Roscoe-Fausch to review the study here tonight. I'll just pass the meeti:~g over to Denny. Denny Eiler: Thanks Paul. First of all I would like to apologize. Mike Lewis who has done most of the ground work on this report was unable to be here tonight. His wife is a registered nurse and one of his kids was sick. Mike works for me and I was Here for the presentation to the City-Council . and there might be a few rough edges but I'll walk through the report and hit the highlights and certainly be able to respond to any questions you have as we go along. Please feel free to stop me. ! have no polSshed presentation. I'm just going to whip through here. I'm. just going to, try to go through the report and show some of the figures and be able to answer questions. This is the study area that we did the forecast and the evaluation for the traffic numbers on it. That was the downtown area of Chanhassen from TH $ and south, TH.lO1 north and Powers on the west and' some strategically placed boundaries to the north to kind of catch the residential areas that logical cut lines there to do the traffic assingment. The land use in the study area consists primarily of two types. Commercial'bordering West 78th Street and residential to the north. Residential that's kind of mixed use on the east winds up coming all the way down to 78th Street but the critical areas are the existing commercial development center around 78th and Great Plains and questions involving the future commercial development on the empty land in the west part'of the downtown area. Horn: Based on the numbers or based on the input? Denny Eiler: Based on input? Horn: Yeah. How do you come to that conclusion that those are the critical areas? Denny Eiler: ~4ell the critical areas are based on the existing volumes plus what we have been given by the City staff as what the expected development would be in those areas. Horn: So as far as the numbers... "~ ._ Denny Eiler: We haven't completed the forecast portion of the final: futume- forecast yet. Krauss: Maybe I can give a little bit of an overview on that Clark. Warren and I, when Gary was here, were working with them setting .up the study and we identified a number of critical issues initially that.--we wanted addressed. That included the major intersections. The detachm~'t project out on 78th and C~ ~7. We identified a couple of development Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 4 proposals that we wanted to use. We asked them to use as input the Eastern Carver County Transportation Study numbers that we were getting that were new. Ultimately whaf we've.done is we've divided this study into two parts. The first part is what's being presented tonight and that's basically an overview of findings of the status quo. What's out there today. They've done traffic counts. Existing development and based on what we think is going to happen on other sites. What.we have not done yet, and we're waiting until we get some daylight, probably in March to do a license plate study so they can see where vehicles-are turning to go through downtown is to complete a modeling program that will do some forecasting. So right now we have a snapshot picture frozen in time so we've asked a note of caution to be instituted that there are things that could happen based on the modeling program that will change the status quo. I mean I think we've long thought that the realignment of TH lO1 may remove a lot of traffic through downtown. We're not sure if that's going to be. the case but that's what the second part of this study is going to do. I hope that cleared it up a little bit. ~ .. Denny Eiler: We have done some preliminary forecasting. We did look at the Metropolitan Council's model for the area. We ran a software package . called Tramplan which most consultants and some of the agencies are using in the area which enables you to go in and take the Metropolitan Cduncil's model and to look at a finite area and the study area we basically looked at was, there's an operation called cutting a window where you lift that portion of the model out and you can work on it on your own computers i your office so we are taking as g~vens more or less the traffic going ir and out of the downtown area as being set by the Metropolitan Council's model as a background level. Of course we get into adding specific growth in the future and as Paul said,.we haven't finalized that because we're concerned about some specific trip paths through downtown, particularly TH lOl from the north to future TH lOl to the south and whether that"traffic would indeed follow the plan diversion via TH 5 or when TH 5 grows, even with the planned expansion, it might cut through downtown. What we found in doing the Metropolitan Council's model was that the general level of trips for the year 20~0 for this region was underestimated and that was caught of course by the Eastern Carver County traffic study which was a more refined study that built upon that. Typically when you get to this scale of a study, the model ~s somewhat under aggressive in forecasting development. The Metropolitan Council's defense is that if every part of the metropolitan area would grow as optimistically as the locals think, then the Twin Cities would double in the next 20 years. In reality it's not going to grow that much. Any one area may grow that much but nobody knows for sure what's going to be the next hot spot and what isn't. So that's where the small area traffic studies come in. And we took the proposed and existing land use and we have estimated preliminarily what the future development might produce off of those parcels but we're kind of waiting for this final answer of the origin destination study to find out how it all sorts itself out. We know pretty much what any one parcel is going to produce but their routes in and out of there given that TH 5 may not do everything that everyone would like. Horn: We're not terribly sympathetic to Met Council's projections since they've underestimated so drastically here. '. Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1~91 - Page 5 Denny Eiler: We understand that and we run into this throughout the area but that's the model you start out with and that's why you go and do a small area study to say okay; this gives you some basics like what is the typical direction of approach. You can pretty much rely on that as a percentage basis that such and such a percent comes from the east and such and such a percent comes from the south. You can certainly quibble with the magnitude because they're using a background growth rate of 2~ or whatever for the whole metropolitan area and everyone knows that the west and the south are more aggressively growing than say the east and the north and we certainly don't take their model as being the last resort but just a starting point. We went out and made traffic counts as Paul mentioned and these are the 24 hour volumes along 78th Street. The numbers shown are one way and the peak loading a~ea being the area around 78th Street and Great Plains. You can see that the westbound'volume in a peak hour there is 6,700. I suppose I could pause and talk about numbers of lanes and types of roadway facilities. State Aid guidelines that MnDot have indicate that when volumes get around 8,500 to 9,000 ADT, two way, that that's' justification for building a 4 lane roadway. And as you can see, really- everything east of Kerber falls into that category today. Now what State Aid has in mind, they're not really saying a 4 lane roadway. They say a 52 foot street. From a traffic operation standpoint, sometimes a 2 lane roadway with all the turn lanes is a much more effective use of paved surface than just putting a 4 lane street out there. Undivided 4 lane street. A good example of this is TH 5. TH 5 has beeq a 2 lane road and a 4 lane of course has been progressing westward. I worked for MnDot for 14 years ending back in 1983 and I was around when TH 5 was first signalized and TH 5 was carrying in some of the 2 lane sections, over 20,000 cars a ~ay. Now no one would say that that was high quality flow of course but we're at volumes that are half of that and we do have left'turn lanes on 78th Street at some of those intersections. So while it's getting into the' alarm phase you might say, it's not into the you've got to go out and do something tomorrow State right now but ~t does bear watching. Krauss: I'd also add too that this is today. Th~s is the status quo. This is frozen in time. We're not sure of the long term effects, of the relocation of TH 10! or in fact of the, you know TH 5 was forecast to carry a huge amount of traffic from the Eastern Carver County Study. In the vicinity of Great Plains, it's up in the realm of about 56,000 trips a day which is wel} beyond it's real capacity to carry it. If in fact that happens, traffic's going to seek an alternate route and that's what the modeling efforts are for. So while this'is possibly ~ red flag going up that there may be a problem, it's premature to say that automatically needing 4 lanes because we're Just not sure of what's going to-happen long term yet. We should know that shortly. , Denny Eiler: What we hope to do with this study is perhaps not, well in the background traffic we can probably define the year when the background traffic starts to be a problem but what we'd like to do at the Chanhasse~ downtown level is to try to identify the parcels that come on line from a development standpoint that would trigger certain improvements. Plugging those in with kind.of an overview of background traffic growths so that as background traffic grows and something comes on llne, you can immediately plug that in and find out what the impacts are and what the improvements should be generated at that time with that development. Looking at the volumes from the peak hour standpoint, we made some, well these are the Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, lggl - Page 6 peak hour machine counts that we made and while the volumes on an ADT were fairly high, the peak hour volumes are still in the workable range. The heaviest volumes being approximately 630 vehicles in one direction. Typically Minheapolis for-their design purposes from a planning level, they like to use about 600 per lane as being their threshhold for considering adding additional lanes. So if you have 600 vehicles that's fine. If you start getting over 600 vehicles, you think about a second lane. If you have 1,200 vehicles, you definitely would need 2 lanes. On a State Highway it's more like 900. They can operate with 900 vehicles in a 'thru lane because generally they have left turn lades and right turn lanes so we're just kind of getting into that right now. We're at the, I wouldn't say we're at capacity of the existing roadway but it's comfortably full during the peak hour. Horn: .Is that factoring in the speed of the traffic also? · Denny Eiler: Well it's really a function of vehicle headways. The spacing between vehicles and that really doesn't change in terms of seconds with saturation flow. The old rule of thumb of one car length per l0 mph applies whether it's 50 mph or 30 mph. It just means that the slower traffic actually can physically be packed in a little tigheter. 1,800 is the 2 seconds per car. 1,800 and we're at 600 so we're at one-third of a steady stream of traffic out there. Of course the real issue is. gaps for the side street traffic which I'll touch on a little bit here in a-seco And that's been the concern today is are there gaps in that traffic stre 600 cars an hour spread out exactly in a uniform flow would mean an average of 6 seconds between vehicles and to make a left turn takes up to 7 seconds to make a left turn and accelerate into traffic. Make a right turn, it's about 5. To go across a street maybe 4 seconds so if you have an average of 6 seconds, obviously left turns onto 78th Street at some locations are going to be difficult and I have a graphic that shows that later on.~ This is results of a turning movement count which show that obviously you have some heavy turns at 78th and Great Plains. The other' intersection that's got heavy turns, the other two intersections are Laredo where you have some heavy turns left and right and likewise there's a heavy turn off of 78th onto Kerber which obviously in the morning that's going to turn around. These are the p.m. volumes. You can do mirror images of those to kind of get the a.m.. You have residential up here. Obviously in the morning there are lots of people trying to get on%o 7$th Stre6t to go eastward to get on their routes to go to work. We' also did a classification. Horn: I have a question on those numbers. Shouldn't you be able to add those up? Denny Eiler: They were done on different days. I have to apologize for that. I thought we were going to adjust one or the other upward or downward to match the machine counts. The machines counts were made on particular day and for example, I can lay these side by side here. The here winds up being 567, 581 on this graphic so they would not logically~ add up ~ut we probably should have rounded and adjusted to make it look ~ better. But maybe we gave you too much truth here. We didn't count the~ on the same day. We set the road tubes out. We were asked to check our road tube counts because apparently there was some construction activity going on at the time. We checked and we found out that that wasn't significant but we did go out and make the manual counts and I think we Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 7 made one intersection after the others because of a weather.probIem we had. We didn't get them al-1 in on'e shot and we had to come back a couple weeks later because of a snowstorm early, it was in November ! think it was when we were finishing these off. Krauss: The thing we adjusted for was, remember when we had that repair work done on the island. I don't remember exactly when that was. In October where they went back in at Market, I'm sorry at Great. Plains and 78th to rebuiId a construction defect. $o we had to do it on a different day to work around that. Get a good count. Denny Eiler: As far as the types of vehicles, we did a classification count as part of the manual count and basically grouped the vehicles into 4 categories. Pick-up trucks and cars and then buses, trucks with 4 or less axles and the semis and we found that there were very few semis out there. Most of the truck traffic appeared to be delivery type trucks and there are a few buses, going through downtown. We then did a capacity analysis and level of service analysis of the side streets with stop sign control in the downtown area and this graphic shows that we took each approach at each of the stop signs and that typically the side street, as I mentioned earlier, the side street less,..for example take southbound 78th Street at Laredo for example. That winds up being level of service E. The southbound left at 78th and Market is also E. The northbound lefts and in some cases the thrus are also at below desirable levels of service. Krauss: Excuse me but do you need an explanation of what level of service means or are you familiar with those terms? Horn: I think they're pretty clear in here, unless somebody else wants. Denny Eiler: They are slightly different for stop sign control than what they are for highways and signals. Briefly in a stop sign, it's a question of how much reserve capacity is available. And it's also a difficulty in finding gaps. It's a qualitative number. It doesn't quite translate directly into the level of service at a signal which are based on delay. Horn: I do have a question though about these intersections. If you look at the traffic numbers, the highest numbers are east of Great Plains on West 78th Street. Still the only intersections that are analyzed are those west of Great Plains. Why is that? Krauss: I don't know the exact answer to that Clark but I think it's probably because those are the ones that Gary and I identified as being most pressing concerns. When we first got these guys into the study, we were looking at Target and we were looking at...orlginal Hanus redevelopment proposal. Horn: If the City looks at this as a recommendation from where they have traffic problems, they're going to get the wrong picture. Robbins: Frontier Trail should have been in there too. Horn: Frontier Trail should obviously be in there because that will be much higher than any of these by the numbers that are shown here. Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 199l - Page B Krauss: We can look to expanding that. Horn: It says included in the study area but we don't have those numbers. · Denny Eiler: We had a general study area for doing the traffic forecast. Then we went down and met with the City and got a specific list of intersections where there were concerns oln the cross street and then we did add one after we got into the study. I'm not sure if that was, was it Kerber? Krauss: I think it might have been Laredo. Denny Eiler: Laredo. Horn: I think Frontier should have been in there. Denny Eiler: That was brought up by the City CounciI and I'm not sure ~hat, if there was any discussion after that about adding that. Krauss: Yeah, it was. I think Councilwoman Dimler mentioned that. Horn: Because that obviously by the numbers will be higher than any of these. Denny Eiler: The thru volume on 78th Street at that point is slightly higher than it is west of there but it in itself is not significantly higher. The real question would be, what is on the side street. If you look at the 3 side streets to the west, Kerber and Laredo obviously have more traffic than Market. It may very well be, particularly in the a.m. that because it does serve a large residential area, that you would have a large volume of southbound lefts. Since we are going to be coming back out here to do a license plate study, we'll pick that up. Horn: Well yeah. That's 680 on the peak volumes. The highest one on the peak would be your southbound taking a right... Plus it's also got the highest... Krauss: In the Council's discussions on these things in the past when we were trying to target the~e things, you're right Clark for pointing out a point. I mean certainly by the numbers it would appear that that should at least be on equal footing. It wasn't identified early on as one of the ma3or turning problems and I don't know really if it is or it isn"t but we'll look into it further. Horn: Believe me it is. Bohn: You'd better believe it. Eiler: Some of the things that may make that, and I won't disput.~ Denny you but some of the things that make that a little, may offer a little better despite having slightly higher traffic volumes are the fact that there is no median there. Therefore, as compared to the intersections on 78th Street, therefore the distance to make a left is a little bit shorter so the gap availability despite the slightly higher volumes may wind up being the same and it's essentially a T intersection, at least if my Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 9 . graphic is correct here and ! remember the loccation, klhereas the two westerly intersections on 78th Street are 4 leg and you have to worry maybe about ongoing traffic occasionally. Horn: You have to have a way...because traffic is moving faster. It generally tends to slow down once it hits here. But on the east end... Denny Eiler: The gaps wouldn't necessarily change but the perception requirements of the driver pulling out into the gaps-may require a larger gap. Typically if you've got 600 cars an hour, that 6 second average gap, speed doesn't have anything'to-do with that. But what does change is that the ~omfort level for a driver turning out onto a higher speed roadway, he needs a slightly larger gap to do that. If you need 7 seconds to turn onto a 30 mph road, you may feel that you need 7 1/2 or-$ seconds'to turn onto where traffic iS going 40 mph. Horn: Well y. eah. You can make that statement if you're assuming that the guy behind you is going to stop down to your speed. But for him to" maintain his speed, you can't do it. Denny Eiler: That's right. Horn: That's the assumption you have to make. Denny Eiler: Right. And that's why when you pull out and into traffic and make a left, it's much more difficult than actually just crossing a heavy' traffic street because you don't affect any of the drivers on the other roadway when you cross. You do when you pull out and that's why there are higher gaps. Horn: ...the higher gap because you have to accelerate up to the'speed of the traffic at that point. Krauss: Well we'll certainly add that. As. Denny indicated, we're getting them to come back out here in March so we'll pick that up. Denny Eiler: One of the other issues, while .we're on the east end of town was, and I'll turn this graphic around the other way. The geometrics at 78th and Great Plains and I'm not intimately'familiar 'with the histor of the previous projects out here that constructed these geometrics ' I will say that in some cases when landscaping gets to be a major feature on some projects, sometimes the geometrics are not always built to the fullest standards. There's usually, I've dealt with landscape areChitects on some of these projects and one of the arguments you get is well, we don't really have that many large trucks using this intersection so we don't have to use geometrics that semis need. And while that may be true,'there were only a few semis a day running through downtown Chanhassen. The problem with that is that while, this intersection may have been completely adequate for a large single unit truck or a bus or a fire engine, the average driver is used to driving on roadways that were designed for semis. If you want to drive on a roadway that was designed only for automobiles, go into a parking garage and imagine putting some of the geometrics you see in a parking garage out on the street. I mean that's how tight you could go and have only cars negotiate it. $o in an attempt to maximize landscaping, sometimes the geometrics are compromised with the idea of well, there Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1991 - Page 10 aren't any trucks going here but the average driver going through here is used to driving on corners that were designed for trucks and finds an intersection like this a little bit confining. And we looked at this intersection and watched it operate and we feel that maybe there's one too many things that a driver's asked to do here and that's why the discomfort level's a little bit high. You have to negotiate geometry that~'s a little bit tight so you become concerned where the curbs are. You have to pick out gaps on a roadway on a curve to make a left turn off of 7$th onto Great Plains so you're watching vehicles where you maybe can't get the b~st idea what the speed is. Plus there is the landscaping. While it may be not a problem from a pure sight distance...adequate sight distance-may actually be there. It might be somewhat of a distraction. It's visual competition with the traffic. While you might be able to look through the trees and see the cars coming, the trees are there, it might be something that the driver's distracted by so there are enough things going on here that there may be one too many things going on here and that's why there'"s a discomfort level. I don',t know about the actual accident history. Have you guys compiled accident data? Krauss:. I don't know that it's been compiled. I know'that we've had a few street lights taken out on that corner. More than that I'm not sure. Gerhardt: This drawing that you created here, was that off the workin~ drawings or did you physically go but and scale that turn lane movement? Denny Eiler: That was off of a drawing we were given by the city. Gerhardt: Okay. Horn: Was that before or after it was changed? Gerhardt: That's it. Once they were out in the field, they did ~ake physical changes out there so the drawings are not exact to what is out in the field. That was brought up from one of the engineers to me during part of that review so we may want to go out in our March report'and gO out there and survey that area again and ask BRW for maybe some of their working drawings or their details as a part of that. Horn: Plus the way this diagram is showing it, it looks like you can't intrude onto the curb area. These medians are built to be intruded on. Denny Eiler: Right. We understand that but that's usually not desirable design practice to do that. While that's nice to have that, the regular wheel paths should not be required to do that. That's extra slack or slop if you will, that you can provide by having mountable curbs. Typically the basic path should be adequate in itself. TypiCally you would want to have 3 feet beyond the wheel tracks besides what you need for the wheel tracks and providing for wheel tracks is fine. Maybe a foot on either side and having mountable curbs, that's okay but it doesn't, yeah, our observation was when we were out there, it didn't quite look as bad as the drawings short of going out there and doing a detailed survey, we couldn't docume~ that there was any difference. Gerhardt: That area has to be looked at. There's no Question. I mean after this last snow, I mean you saw people shooting into that lane and Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 1! going into the Kenny's Market, hoping that curb section. There were physical tracks that went right th'rough that so I don't know if there's got to be a sign of some sort or barrier, I don't know. Hopefully not. Denny Eiler: More delineation maybe. Horn: This vehicle in other words, that you're describing, is that a semi? Denny Eiler: No, I believe that's a bus. MTC bus that was used which is pretty much similar to a long 'single unit truck. The bus is a little bit wider in the wheel tracks than the single unit truck but not a semi. A semi would undoubtedly run over the curbs even more. But again there were only I or 2 semis a day through this part 'of town.' We assume that even with the proposed shopping center development, that most the semi deliveries would be via TH 5 and Market. · Horn: Didn't we take the, when we were buying the fire truck, didn't we take that through all. these streets? Gerhardt: Yes we did. Horn: That's basically a bus chassis isn't it? Gerhardt: I think it may be a little wider. Denny Eiler: It's wider but I believe the wheel base is a little shorter. We did get that report that they were having problems ge%ting out onto 78th Street at the median opening. Gerhardt: Making the right turn off of Laredo onto West 78th was a difficult maneuver. I think that can be made now though. I think it was when the pole existed out there is when they couldn't make that maneuver. They still have to cheat I think a little bit to the left to make a clear movement. Denny Eiler: As we developed the numbers we did, and the results from the stop sign analysis, we also looked at signal warrants. That's a big issue. And as it turns out, there are 3 intersections that technically meet the warrants for signals. They are Kerber, Laredo and 78th and Great Plains. While we wouldn't suggest that you signalize all 3 of those, Just because an intersection meets the techical warrants in the manual for traffic control devices, doesn't mean it requires signals. We have to look at some other operational issues. For a City the size of Chanhassen', o~ for any city to undertake it's first solely owned traffic signals is a big step because they're of course maintenance problems and long term commitment. Costs involved. We also looked at the issue of 4 way stops. The intersection volumes themselves do not justify 4 way stops..-On that basis, one of the justifications for a 4 way stop however is an interim measure until you install signals. If you do put a 4 way stop in, and we would recommend against that, but not strongly. I mean that's-just the manual has certain volumes and you really don't have the balance between the two streets to typically justify a 4 way stop. 4 way stops are intended where the flows are equal, but there is that provision that if you are planning to put a signal in and you want to get something more positive out there in the interim, then a 4 way stop is justified under that circumstance. The Housing and Redeveiopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1991 - Page 12 problem with putting a 4 way stop in any one of these intersections is it will degrade the operation o~ the other intersections on either side of it because any, the tuning that you may have had for whatever reason, will immediately be destroyed and you will get a stead flow. You will get your 6 second gaps or whatever the average gap is out there. The positive side is if you can get the side street traffic to focus over to that 4 way stop, then maybe that effect is negated but I'm not sure how well the streets connected up above there to encourage anybody to do that. Installing one traffic signal at a particular location Would create gaps downstream at other intersections so there is some advantage. Putting a signal at 78th and Great Plains would do nothing for the morning problems of getting out onto 78th Street further w~st. Putting a signal at Kerber will do nothing fo~ the evening problems to the east. Since there are 3 intersections that warrant signals, I think it's really up to the City to decide what their resources are and how strongly they feel about it. I would not go and put 2 in a( one time. Horn: My guess is you'll have 5 or 6 if we get the rest of the. Denny Eiler: With the rest of development yeah, certainly. Krauss: Yeah, I think Clark's point is well taken because you look at this now .and you conclude that a signal possibly is warranted at Laredo and Kerber and it certainly is in terms of the problems that we have for fol getting in and out but you look at where the long.term traffic's going be coming from up Market and that's going to substantially change. I don't know if that means we need 3 signals or if you can place them to bracket Market so that you break up a flow or what but that would have to be looked at further. Denny Eiler: Well the development that's proposed is running this parcel here and that would certainly also add to Market. The connection to TH south. Market is really going to be the focal point. I'm not that familiar with what the study showed. The analysis of the existing volumes. I mean hang on a second. I'll take a look at these daily volumes. Typically you need an approach volume of over ~,000 to meet one of the warrants on the side street and we don't quite have that on Market. Horn: Is that two way? Denny Eiler: No, that's the approach volumes. That's one way on the heaviest side. It works out to be, depending on speeds, anywhere from 53 vehicles to 75 vehicles during the eighth highest hour and the eighth highest hour is usually about 5~ of the point where it's 5~ of the daily volumes so if you use 53, you need to have about 1,060. I'm not sure, the speeds are below 40 mph out there so you're talking close to maybe 1,500 to meet one of the warrants. That's why Kerber and Laredo Would meet that.' The presence of that shopping center will definitely push Market Blvd. over that threshhold and definitely the extension of Market down to TH ~01 and reroutin'g of TH 10~ would do it also. One of the other issues was raise~ out of 78th and Powers. As far as the deta'chment, that's certainly a while effort to do and the number of lanes in that approach, we looked at that and the unresolved issue there is if 78th Street is extended further west as a frontage road on TH 5, I don't know if I have anything that shows that any better but I believe there was a figure in, was it...plan that Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 13 showed a possible extension of that? The extension of 78th Street. Krauss: Ob yes. As part of the frontage road, we're showing it on the comprehensive plan going all the way out ultimately to TH 41. Denny Eiler: Ideally then this intersection, if a fourth leg is added, would have facing left turn lanee on the eamt/west roadway and a thru right or maybe just a right turn depending on how many lanes you put on 78th Street to the west. In the interim, if proposed improvements would suffice a left turn land and a right turn lane to sort the flows out. Horn: I'm just curious, you use the rationale of not extending anything to 4 lanes at this point until we knew what was TH 101 but they still went ahead and made recommendations on signalization even' though we don't know what that's going to be. Denny Eiler: Well the signals are justified today. The' changes to the signal systems to accommodate more traffic would be more of a geometric nature and not in the operation of the signals. Yo~'would expand the number of lanes going through the signals. The signals themselves would not materially change. They may have to be relocated. Presumably if you put them in now, you would try to plan for that eventual widening if at all possible. The one_thing we haven't really been able to pin down is when we're at the point where we're, and again this is going.to be tied to development as well as background traffic growth. We haven't been able to pin down that year when the 4 lanes become essential. From our experience, you cannot operate a roadway such as 78th Street, well up to 15,0bO-a day, two way and we're at 11,000-12,000 now.. So-a 25~ increase in traffic, I'm not sure exactly what the background growth rate is out here. I as~Jme it's about 4~ so compounding you're probably looking at 5 or 6 years of background growth traffic before you would be forced into laying your 4 lanes and there's some things you can do before'that. If Market itself is the focal point, much of the traffic approaching Market may be right turn traffic so you may need a right turn lane but you may not need to carry that through at that point. Obviously by the year 2010 the volumes are going to increase to the point where 78th Street should be 4 lanes plus the left turn la,es. We do think-the left turn lanes are very essential. Whether you maintain a median through the area when y~ go to that'or not, I guess that's a question the City's going to have to ask itself. But the median itself is somewhat of a safety factor for preventing head-one and · left turns being made at inappropriate locations but it's not an overwhelming concern. A more important thing would be'to get facing left turn lanes at all the intersections.' Those are very important because if you do not have facing left turn lanes the year you put in a 4 lane street, you've really.lost your city a left lane. You'd be better off having a 3 lane street with facing left turns. Particularly when you have the percentage of lefts that you're going to have in this area with all the commercial activity. ' Horn: It seems to...TH 101 does because it's obvious that the predominant traffic factor here is TH 101. You can see'that just by where the numbers are larger on eastern West 78th Street. Until we know just how much that's going to reduce, we don't know what these levels are going to be at these other intersections. Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 14 Denny Eiler: And that's what the license plate study is to tell us what percentage of the existing traffic. We're going to pick an hour when we feel that-TH 5 is at it's maximum level. Congestion will l'ikely to get diversions from TH 5 today and find out if they are indeed running through downtown Chanhassen. For example, somebody getting off on the east side of town to go north on Powers by going through downtown Chanhassen rather than going around on TH 5. Horn: Not according to the numbers. You've got very small numbers coming to the south. Denny Eiler: Well on Powers there's. Horn: Great Plains. Great Plains from the south. Nobody's getting off on TH 5 to go through downtown to the south. Denny Eiler: At that point you're talking about a westbound movement or right there on the now 78th? That could be. That oould be a good size percentage-of that traffic. The volume northbound is almost as heavy as the volume southbound at that point on Great Plains. Horn: Look at the volume coming from the east. Denny Eiler: Yeah, that traffic could all be coming down from TH 101 north. . Krauss: Clark, I think the point is well taken that the modeling has to factor' in the future of TH 101 and getting that traffic out of downtown. However though, this has come up at a couple of City Council meetings and Tom can relate to that that we're getting increasing numbers of complaints from residents who can't exit local streets. And if you look at the traffic flow, you know there seems to be a background level and this is real generalization that's got to be demonstrated by further work but there seems to be a background level of maybe about 3,000 trips that are transiting through downtown which is approximately half. The other half is all local traffic. You know zipping up Laredo or Kerber, most of it, and that's kind of fixed and those are the folks who are having the critical movements getting out. You're right. Horn: That's true but if you don't have all this traffic coming from'the east, it's going to be a lot easier to get out of Laredo and Kerber. Workman: And we delayed TH 101 a year. That intersection was supposed to be this spring and now it's going to be spring of '92 which I think is a mistake. Horn: Well, there is an option that wa tried to get HnDot to take and that is to route it that way now. TH 101 can be rerouted the way it's going to be routed tomorrow but MnDot won't do it because they said they have to wait until TH 5 is done and that keeps getting delayed. Workman: Well I think the justification was that we've got too many . . intersections getting done at once so we had to pick one to not get done so that traffic can get into the industrial area and everything else. Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 15 Krauss: Hell yeah. It's was a scheduling problem. Horn: ...delayed. Krauss: When Gary was working with the Highway Department and scheduling improvement projects, they were going, to be doing Dell Road and Dakota and the north part of TH 101 and if they did them ail in the same construction period, there would be no way in and out and no way to shuttle traffic around. Basically you'll have boxed off whole areas of the City and the~ concluded that it's just too much of a mess and too much scheduling headaches so the ultimate decision was to defer the TH 101 realignment for 1 year and let TH 5 be finished through there' Horn': I can't believe they agreed to .that. That's a mistake. Workman: It isn't preferable to have Deli Road done before TH 101 but that's why I can't help but think,-and I'm one of the people who uses West 78th to get through. I'm not going off on the side roads. I'm-going off of Kerber but when I come down TH 101 from Tonka, I don't go to TH' 5' to get up to ~y neighborhood. When I come TH 5 from the east and go west, that first light at McDonalds is red. And if it's not red, I go through it and' I take the next one and I go through town still right up Great Plains because I'm not going to go to Market. I'm not going to-go to that light and then another light and then go up and loop .around. I mean it's very, very. simple. I follow the path of-least resistance just like every other animal and I can't help but maybe get at what Clark is getting at that-when the semantics all change, if TH 101 and we make 'it no longer a path of least resistance, that things will probably loosen up a little bit down there. Horn: In my opinion it's the key to making this downtown work. I worked for 8 years on the council trying to get that intersection improved on TH 101 and now I hear it's delayed for some reason that I can't understand is very frustrating. I think we picked the wrong thing to delay. Kr&uss: Well Clark, I was not privy to those discussions. .I guess I'm just relating my understanding of what ensued but it was in discussions with MnDot and their schedulimg. Rightly or wrongly, I think it's pretty much. Denny Eiler: Is that pretty much fixed in time now? Don Ashworth: As far as I know, that decision was made through MnDot and I guess simply conveyed back over to the City so I mean, I guess I would have thought that both of you might have heard more of the background on it more so than Paul or I. You know through the various coalition meetings. Horn: TH 101 does not get discussed at those meetings. But we've tried to get MnDot to reroute that traffic 2 years ago and we couldn't get it. think we need to address that once again. We don~t need the highway improved before we reroute that traffic. Gerhardt: From what comments I received from Gary, another concern is that you've got Lyman Lumber, Redmond Products, the Press and there's a lot of truck traffic that goes back there. To tear up the intersections of Dell Housing and RedeveIopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 16 and TH 101 and to service those businesmes back there, you need one of those intersections to allow that traffic to occur. Horn: Delay Dell. Gerhardt: Pardon? Horn: Delay Dell. It doesn't have near the traffic that you get at Dakota. Gerhardt: You can't do TH 101 and the segment of TH 5 inbetween there and then come back and do Dell. You can only do one or the other. I mean the street's going to be all ripped up in front of Dell Road when they start widening that to' 4 lanes. You work your way west. . Horn: What's that going to do that they ought to at least route the traffic there even though they don't improve the intersection. ~Jorkman: Maybe' we can route TH 101 traffic down Dell when it's 'do.~e. That's probably a better idea anyways isn't it? Gerhardt: Wel'l you know we can express to them again to see if we can't start routing that traffic onto TH S again but I'm sure all they're going to do is signage. Denny Eiler: Yeah, you may have to do something with the intersection of 78th and TH 101 north to change the attractiveness of the patterns out there because just merely moving the signs, routing TH 101 by sign chang the drivers are all pretty much locals around here. They're not going to be fooled by that. You may get the occasional person who's just following TH 101 to do that, but unless you actually dramatically change the traffi control, that's what's so attractive about the final solution to that area is that it does do what you say. It makes it very difficult for somebody to, when I came to City Hall tonight, I came out TH $ and I was weighing in my mind as I was approaching the Dakota Avenue signal. Well', if it's red I'll take a red and go down through town. If it's green, I'll check out TH 101 and I'll check out Market. Whatever one, exactly and by having that forced jog in there that the permanent solution to TH 101 north has where you would have to make a right and then a left to come back to 7$th Street, that will make that, put that more on equal footings with the rest of the intersections and will definitely pull some of that traffic west. It may also make it more difficult. Everybody focuses on the easy half of a .path and that's the right turns. %4hat about the left turns for the turn movements. 78th Street T-lng into TH 101, well it would not dramatically' change southbound traffic continuing through town because that's a right. It will make it much more difficult to make the return and I think the permanent solution will definitely change the travel patterns. Unfortunately what Paul and I are worried about is the volume forecasts for TH 5 may force it all back onto 78th Street despite your best efforts and that's one of the things we want to ascertain. Horn: Well if that happens, then it's really unfair to get this east of Great Plains planned for. Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1991 - Page 17 Krauss: And frankly too, that's where some of the signalization figures in. I mean 78th Street is just too tempting without signals to make a clear shot through. You know the signals will put it on an equ~l footing with TH 5 and if TH 5 is a clearer shot at that point, you may use that. Horn: My intersection is the first one east of TH 101. I'm making a left turn staring at the high speed traffic that comes on 78th. Krauss: It comes whirling around the corning there. Horn: It comes whirling around the corner and coming over the railroad tracks. And to hear that ~our recommendation that we need signals at Laredo when I feel that's not nearly as dangerous an intersection as Erie or Frontier, it's a little disturbiDg to think that we aren't looking at . the whole picture here. Robbins: Do you have a count of how many cars that are coming from the north going down TH 101 that go through town and continue on down TH 101 past TH 5? Denny.Eiler: That's one of the goals of this license plate study. What we do is we station a person at certain key locations on the perimeters of the downtown area and they record license plate numbers and we have those people at several locations. Then we go back to the office and transcribe those and run a computer sorting program that matches those up and-does make the point to point connections. We can do that from a model. The Metropolitan Council's model and you can go in and take one particular leg in a network and do what's known as a slight...where you get kind of a two ~dged tree where you find all the trips that come into one part of the ,segment and where they all go but that's a forecasting tool and that's based on the 2010 network and not the existing network. The license plate check is probably the surest way to do that. What we've been hampered by right now is really the sunset and the peak hour is definitely between 5:00 and 5:30. The peak half hour. Whether it's 4:30 to 5:30 or 5:00 to 6:00. We'll probably do an hour and a half with daylight left which we are trying to meet Paul's goal of having something by March. We're looking at possibly mid-February. The sun sets beyond 5:00 now so we may be okay by mid-February to do a new license plate check in a peak hour. Of course cars...a little more difficult. That's. the only sure.way to d6 it. There's all sorts of Raleigh programs that take into account delays at intersections and models that are kind-of'like hydraulics models. They assign traffic to what the person coding the network thinks the path of least resistance is and that's very suggestive. We had some difficulties with some of the assumptions that were made in setting a model up. Those of us who know the area and while z don't know intimately a lot of the ' details in downtown Chanhassen, when I was. with MnDot I designed signals at Dakota/TH 101 south and then CR 17 on the west side of town.. The original one at CR 4 so I'm somewhat familiar with the travel patterns out in the area. Some of the little nuances with the...going into residential areas of Chanhassen, I have to admit that I'm not fully up to speed and that'~ exactly why we have these exchanges with the Council and Planning Commission. Horn: One of the things that's created a problem there too is that when they redid the street and they rerouted TH 101, MnDot made us take the stop Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1991 - Page 18 signs out of 78th Street. We had stop signs by Pauly's and by St. Hubert's. We had to pull those out. We petitioned MnDot to get them ba in and they said we couldn't because we'd be impeding the flow of TH 101 so our alternate solution then was to reroute TH 101 down through Dakota. They didn't do that either so they're really created a problem for us here on 78th. Denny Eiler: Yeah, I don't know if rerouting TH 101 and installing all' way stops at the TH 101 north and 78th Street intersection would be something they would entertain but that might be what you're kind of hinting at as an interim solution. Horn: As much as I hate stop signs, I think that's probably the thing to do. Especially if they delay that... Krauss: I've got to emphasize too that that license plate study is real . critical. I mean Metro Council modeling effort is based on data that they collected right now 10 years ago, in fact. SRF is being used to do a new modeling system for the Twin Cities so they're updating it but I know in just the year and a half I've been going through Chanhassen streets, I've visually seen significant changes in traffic flow. Something is happening here a'nd it's not figured in the regional model and you know, you can guess at a lot of reasons. I mean look at all the Jobs that we have now across the street. Are people from Rosemount coming up through the downtown? Is that where it's coming from? Are people in Chanhassen now commuting to Chaska to work instead of going to Bloomington? All that's probably on but until we actually find out where Car A enters and leaves the sys we're not going to now exactly why but at that point we'll have a lot better data than the Metro Council has. -Horn: If you put a factor on traffic, increase delta as much as they missed our population projections, you'd probably come pretty close. And these are very, very telling numbers. When you look at these numbers, it gives you a pretty clear picture of what's happening here. Denny Eiler.: Yeah, to put things in perspective. People sometimes don't have an idea what lO,O00 cars a day means. 1-94 just west of St. Cloud drops to about lO,O00 cars for average daily volume. I mean when you think about 10,000 cars and say well,... Highway 2 across northern Minnesota which is a heavy grain hauling route and it's being 4 'lanes by MnDot as time goes on, carries around 8,000 cars a.day. Now granted 20~ of that is grain trucks and...and it.'s got some sort of a system significance but... Horn: Any other questions? Charlie, you're pretty quiet over there. Workman: Can we get a, at our next HRA meeting get maybe a review of the TH lO1 intersection? Maybe we can get the layouts again. Where we're at with the layouts. I've heard that maybe the one apartment building was going to be coming out and now they're maybe thinking about-taking part of a second or something? No? Gerhardt: I hadn't heard that. Workman: Can we get an update on that maybe the next time? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 19 Horn: What is the timeframe for the expansion of the study...? Krauss: Ciark, as De~ny was indicating, it's really continues as soon as we have enough daylight to do it, we're going to do that. Now I suppose you and ! need to coordinate because we may be warranted to counting on Frontier, we could do that... Denny Eiler: Well, if we have a forecast for a few days running... Krauss: Well you and I will coordinate that. We'll get that done and then what we're shooting for is to come back on your.March meeting with the modeling data so we'll have all the answers at that time. Denny Eiler: I think we'll have, I'm not saying we'll have to have a full hour's worth of, the full peak hour. If we can get a good half hour, maybe 45 minutes, we can certainly tell what the trends are. What we want to be able to do is pin down where the worse volume levels are on TH 5 and make sure we get. the full effect of people who are diverting off of TH $ to go through downtown. Horn: Okay. Anything else on thise item? Robbins: One comment. 3ust a general comment and this is more of my own. In terms of the study, if it was done now, would the summer, fall or spring, would the change of seasons do anything as people's patterns of vacations start using the highways more and using this area to go-west and school's on vacation. Would that do anything to change your numbers? Well the nombers would change but in terms of change the, how the interpretation of thi s? Denny Eiler: I don't think it will.change the recommendations any. You're absolutely right, typically when we do a daily volume we take in the seasonal and daily factors into account. There are pretty much standard adjustment factors. MnDot runs these cohtinuous 'count recording stations on all types.of highways. Not just their highways ' Throughout the metropolitan area and they publish reports in calibration factors so that you go out affd do a road tube count on any given day, you can adjust that t-o what the daily volume is. I'd say typically though you would not want to adjust down a weekday. I think a weekday is a good design day. Weekdays are maybe on an average 6~ to $~ higher than the average and t. hey're obviously much higher than...unless you,ve got some specific weekend draw like maybe a shopping area on Saturdays but summers typically run in the metropolitan area, maybe ~0~ above average and in the winter ~0~ below average. You might say the standard day is a Thursday in May or a Tuesday in October. Those are kind of typical ones and we never allow this counting... · Robbins: Another question regarding the same type of thing. With what you have with the count, the style of streets we have. In other words, the way it was done here, is there a model that says this is the way it compares to the average or in terms of, is there a way to do that in terms of what's the optimal versus the actual? You know what I'm saying? In other words, the study you did had x number of cars, x number of signs, x number of rolling space, x number of feet apart so if you looked at the "norm". Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1991 - Page 20 Where are we in the norm? Are we high, low, indifferent or what? Is t a way of doing that? Denny Eile'r: I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. As far as if you're going to signalize a group of intersections, there are certain relationships on signal density to give you optimum progression. Robbins: Maybe that's what I'm... Denny Eiler: That's one issue. The other issue is maybe kind of the scale of what size city has how many traffic signals. Robbins: Maybe that's What I'm eluding to. In other words, that style of thing. I'm a numbers background so I was just kind of curious in terms of is there kind of a standard that we're looking to? Denny Eiler: Well 30 mph design speeds typically you would want signals at quarter mile spacing or tighter than that. That's 3dst really a horse rule of thumb. What happens 'sometimes though, you may have one major intersection or you have two major routes crossing. In that situation it's actually better to tuck a secondary intersection close to it because it can share sort of the same window in traffic that a big intersection creates but on a grid of equal volume cross streets, quarter mile spacing is kind of the optimum so we would not recommend every intersection in downtown Chanhassen necessarily be signalized because obviously every quarter mile, it's like every other intersection. From a standpoint of population a size, .you're dealing with a city that's a mixture of open, lairdly loosel densely populated areas with a core area so I hesitate to use a rule of thumb but it used to be nationwide you had i signal for 1,000 population. Interestingly enough on this side of town, when I was working at MnDot we got a call from a Chaska City Councilmember who said'at that time Chaska had one signal. Shakopee's got 4 and they've got 6,000 peDDle. We've got 4,50.0 people. We're short 2 signals. What are you going to do about it? Well, there are a lot of other factors there but whether it's ~ per 1,000, 1 per 1,500, -1 per 2,000. Minneapolis on the other hand has 700 signals for 330,000 p.eople so they're overbuilt but I would guess, I mean it's more a function of what sort of thru traffic the City's carrying. Obviously TH 5 has already got some signals on it and I'm not sure what the current population of Chanhassen is. Workman: 12. Just about 12. Denny Eiler: Okay, and are there 4 signals in town as of today? Is that what it works out to? S. I guess 41 is in Chanhassen right? So you've got 5. Ashworth: I think we're up to like 24 or something like that because see we have all the signals down at the Y., Denny Eiler: Oh, yeah. Okay. I forgot about that. Ashworth: All along TH 5 we have all of those. We pay the operati costs. TH 7 and TH 41, I don't think we have that one. , Robbins: I think that's in Shorewood isn't it? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 21 Krauss: The south half of that intersection is in Chanhass'en. Denny Eiler: I think the controllers'over by the shopping center. I think Shorewood was one of t'he instigators of getting that thing put in so they may be paying the power unless you know otherwise. I've got to search my memory on that one. Yeah, the ones down at the Y, I forgot about those. Ashworth: When I say 24 I mean, counting like 4 per intersection. Denny Eiler: No, I was talking about signalized intersection. Ashworth: Oh, then it's far less than that. Denny Eiler:- 6 then i You're still missing a few maybe. I'm not in the business of selling those things. Horn: It's not our goal in life 'to have the highest density of traffic lights. .. Denny Eiler: No. I've designed a couple hundred of those and they're always'the last resort' as far as I'm concerned. We always look for another . ~ay out. Horn: Anything else on that traffic study? If not let's move on to the next item. REQUEST FOR EXTENSION TO THE TCNB, INC. PURCHASE RGREEMENT. Aeh~orth: We had a request f~om Dave Weir to extend the existing contract. At our last meeting we instructed the City Attorney to take a look at that a~reement and make a recommendation. ~ copy of his report is to the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. I think at issue in Roger's-report does confirm what I was worried about and that is that we're currently operating under what I consider a poor contract as far as protecting't'he interest of the City. We don't really have wordage in there that assures that we will get the bank. We have wordage that might become closer to the mistake that we made out at TH 41 and TH 7 where we required footings to go in. The SA ended up building and we had a neighborhood that was very mad at us. I'm not sure where this'change ocoured but in previous contracts, all of them, specials, special assessments as they've gone back against the property, we've established certain values to insure that those specials would be paid. I don't know where in the contract negotiations that Holmes, 3Chh had come up with the agreement that we would eliminate that section out of the current agreement. I do not recall that occurring but we currently have a total of $520,000.00 that was assessed and that's against both of the parcels. The bank parcel and the expansion parcel. Over the course of the. total repayment period we're talking about a million dollars. Roughly $100,000.00 that's going to be starting this year. We have no assurance under the existing contract that. those amounts will be paid. In fact just the opposite. We will pay them regardless of what type of facility is put in. If some type of temporary facility is put in and if it is there for a 5 year period and.it pays little or no taxes, we pay the specials during that entire timeframe. I don't think that.anyone here is saying that we do not want to continue working with Dave or that we want to end a relationship. I think what is important.though is the existing Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 22 cor~tract should not be continued. We should instruct Dave to work with City Attorney to develop potentially a new contract and more specifically, since there is a 30 day cancellation in the existing contract, we not only not continue it but we actually act this evening to cancel that contract and again if you want to authorize the City Attorney's office to start the work that he's listed in his letter, fine. 8ut we should not be continuing that contract. Horn: How many other contracts do we have like this?. Ashworth: I'm not aware of any. I mean even the shopping center-contract relates back to values that will be associated with that development. And again I'm not sure at what point in the negotiations that that whole special assessments section was deleted or valuation section. Horn: Roger wasn't privy to the previous contract negotiations? Rc,~er Knutson: No. ~,crkmar.: Was it John Dean? Ashworth: Yes. ~o~er Knutson: What this contract amounts to, if you reaily look at it, is an option to purchase without any cost for the option. That sums it up. Horn: Do you want to review for us Roger what your recommendations are. Roger K~utson: Yeah. I think you have my letter of December 18th? Hot n: Yes. Roger Knutson: Essentially I think my recommendation is that we start over again and put together what I would consider a more standard agreement L~hich there are obligations on both sides of the table. That if we're going to enter into a purchase agreement, that a reasonable amount of non- refundable earnest money be put down. That closing be set for a reasonable time and if you wanted to discuss details like an escape clause, a contingency if a bank can't be produced, you know we can do that. But in any event, it seems to me since you have holding costs for this property, you want to at least recapture some of that by having some non-refundable earnest money. Then you would also want a development agreement with this that would require the builder to build a bank that is acceptable to you with a minimum footprint that had a minimum valuation that not only will the bank, construction of the bank be commenced at some reasonable point but also will be completed. And if it is not completed, you get the property back. Again the details I think would have to be worked out but essentially what you have right now is you've given an option to purchase and you're not charging anyone for it. Horn: This is the only time...any of our redevelopment efforts? Ashworth: I'm tryi-ng to think of Rosemount we tied into a specific development plan, square footage and valuation. Empak, are you aware of any that have not tied in value? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 23 Roger Knutson: What's unique to me, what I've never seen in any contract. Maybe they're o~t there but is a situation where the buyer can plan to go ahead with the project and we have an option on the property for some period of time and not pay a nickel for it. If the buyer is unable or unwilling for example to, or decides to leave town and not go ahead with the bank project, you get the money back. Yet you've held the property off the market. You've been paying holding costs for a period of time and the commitment is just one way. You're committing to sell. He's not committing to buy and he's not paying you for your commitment. Horn: It's a little strange to find this situ&tion. This is the first parcel that I can recall that we've even had any competition for and we appeared to negotiate our worst deal. Roger Knutson: I would really think, I was mentioning to Don and I'm being a little bit facetious but if you put an ad in the paper tomorrow offeriog this to the general public, I would bet you'd get hundreds of takers. A~hworth: I do recall discussions with John Dean and this deals back with this $25,000.00 amount and you know, he relayed to me the fact that he felt that the bank people, Dave, Mr. Weir'had spent significant dollars associated with his pursuit Qf the charter, etc. and that if things didn't pan out, that there was a significant.cost in there and that would be an incentive for the developer to move ahead. For that reason he was- recommending I guess what I'll call a less severe penalty section. That may be well and fine. That maybe was a good decision 2 or 3 years ago but I think we're at a point where we shouldn't compound that by starting to incur costs as an HRA and start paying those costs. Contract that more reasonably represents current position. If Dave can come forth saying we're going to be able to build 16,000 square feet. Let's get that in writing. It will have a value of a million dollars or 2 million, dollars. Let's put that in writing. Horn: Dave, have you had a chance to review this re'commendation? Dave Weir: I did receive a letter. This is kind of an odd environment-to come to when you have the City Attorney recommending business terms and they weren't participating in it and suggesting after an organization spent a half a million dollars to put an ad in-the paper. It's kind of astounding on the face of it but we faced, formiable odds before so I guess this should be no exception. It's kind of amazing though I will say. First of all I really, I don't want to rehash how we got to where we are but how this was handled in the first place has been the subject of a certain amount of discussion.outside of'the public meeting area. It's not a particularly well kept secret that' it has caused a reasonable amount of political pressure on the staff and it leaves them in a spot where personally I feel that they would, as most people' might in their shoes, have an awkward time really taking a 'hard look at what the facts have been rather than feeling the need to succumb to some other pressures that they may be f~eling but not comfortable really acknowledging. The situation, was such where it was, there were agreements reached and then subsequently revisited and everyone was ecstatic.about the fact that this parcel was to sell for $4.50 a foot and I don't know what the purchase price was of the property a short time before then but it was clear at that point, it was not a carved out redevelopment project whereby a building pad was selling Hcusing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 24 for $2.00 a foot with a vari6ty of'other inducements on top of that. So there's some clearly distinquishing features to this proposed transaction that are dramatically different and they should be distinquishing this. Is clear and Don is certainly and was a participant in looking at the documents that were prepared and I think to blame the former City Attorney who was drafting it for a judgment error, I don't think the Attorney was given unilateral discretion over the form and content of that contract. It's true that as the point in time where we were granted the right to buy it, a lot of money had been spent and it's no secret to any of you that substantial amounts, over a half million"dollars have been expended in getting to this point and ~ontrary to what your sentiments may be, that is a fairly heavy inducement, at least by our value standards, as to whether or not someone is going to walk away or not pursue something in earnest. That's fairly formiable money by certainly our standards. It's true, it's not directly forfeitable money of the City. By the same t~ken it was a ~iece Of property that had been purchased just a few months prior to that' to ~et repositioned for that whole property and that whole Market Blvd. situation in the first place. Two, I think we've been-straight forward in asking in our December 6th letter, for two items. They may not be psrt:c~:larly popular items but anyone who suggests in the face of-the banking situation that a requirement to have an obligation to build at a particular point in time that may have some indefinite impact on any banking organization's capital structure is ignoring comments that will be forthcoming from the banking regulators. We simply wanted to clarify that. Is it a popular request or something that looks pretty, probably but our attitude has been one of let's just deal with the facts. Get th facts on the' table. Minimize any frustration or embarrassment. Clearly we'd all like to farther along today then we have been. By the same token, -no one has run to hide in the face of some challenges. I think the letter is clear about where we stand related to the charter. There's been this popular myth that the world is beating a path to the doorstep to open a bank in Chanhassen. We in fact have encouraged people to come that have expressed interest in a possible merger with our organization to come over and talk to the staff. It's been translated into this euphoria that the banks are lining up to buy this site if we only weren't involved and our request, while perhaps unpopular, is one we're really asking and pleading for a sense of fair play-to ask for a clarification of the build requirement and to ask for an extension which need no% have the burden of a lot of additional time, legal fees and expense to get in the way of what can be a real simple drafting exercise to extend it and clarify the build requirement. We're not here to tie up anybody's property in the form of an option that simply is used as some sort of a speculative adventure. A half million dollars is anything but some sort of a land flipping exercise. The repurchase agreement clause that is in the existing agreement is anything but an attractive provision even if, and it may have some very limited application to it so there were a variety of circumstances in terms of h6w we sot to where we are. We're happy to be here. It's been-a lot of work. It's been a lot of risk. A lot of time. A lot of effort. It has felt awkward to have encouraged people who have expressed interest in becoming involved with us, to have been referred over to here and then say, be t~ that well there's an agreement but it's expiring February Sth. Sit on sidelines and perhaps you can just simply make a-deal with us. That hardly smacks of fair play and while I may be chastised for being direct about it, I've had the same discussion with each of the staff directly and I just don't think that given what our investment has been in attempting to becom, Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 25 a long term citizen of the community, that 180 days or some. of these other things have been reaIly a whoIe Iot to ask. Not that we'd Iike to but we're simply trying to proceed. So I'll be happy to respond directIy to anything you have but this is probabIy a IittIe more emoti.onaiIy char'ged than any of us would like to have it be. Horn: Questions? Robbins: Dave, with regard to the 180 days. Let's assume that just for the sake of conversation and that we go through this to approve the 180 days, what then would happen after the 180 days? Dave Weir: Well it's our hope. We have been, like I say we have an option of activating our charter. We have an option of pursuing a merger a~reement. At this point we want to.clarify the item related to the build situation. To clean that up and assuming that we did not have to go through any. delays in terms of documenting an extensi6n which should be really about one sentence modification to the exist~gg agreement. Changing the dates to give us the time to reach an agreement and then ideally get it approved by the regulators. We'd like to have a banking organization opened. We've spe~t approximately $150,000.00 in on site improvements which -~gain I would say that certainly looks like an investment that can be forfeited, particularly in the wake of the staff seeming eager, to try to merchandise the property to someone else. So I would take exception to the fact that there hasn't been forfeitable money that's been put at stake with the staff very explicitedly trying to remarker to somebody else.-So, it's the idea is to sort of clear the air and then try to reach the agreement that bur board feels is most appropriate and move forward.' We surprising as it may seem and in spite of the pressures each of you may get from people asking what's going on and why aren't things at the point we'd all like them, would like to get the door open. Horn: Other questions? Comments. Ashworth: Mr. Chairman? Horn: Yes. Ashworth: Staff does take exception to the statement that we somehow are soliciting proposals or something. To the best of my knowledge, neither Todd nor I have ever called any bank person or-anyone else regarding that property. We've never had any form of where we have initiated. Dave Weir: No. We've referred' people over and I wasn't suggesting You've gone out to try to initiate it but we've sent people over and that's been · the case. Ashworth: People have asked when an existing contract expires or' other details, we've made the files available. We have not tried to hide anything. To say that that should be interpretted as encouragement or something, you know I can't see that. Dave Weir: Don, all I'm saying is that based up.on your earlier comments tonight, which you're entitled to your opinion on, it would not suggest that there's been a great deal of support in helping us manage through the Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 26 challenges and that's my point. It's nothing personal. We think that we could be advancing the ball more quickly with an attitude t.hat says hey, .. let's, get 'behind these people. They've spent a lot of money here and it's not exactly like they're out speculating on something. It may be a difference of strategy but we think it's one that can help everybody get the kind of thing that they want done. t4e don't have a track record o~: failure. Ashworth: Staff's position has really only been one of trying to make the best recommendations we can. We should make you aware of one additional fact and that is that this past week, 2 weeks ago Paul, we had met with the banking people, can we disclose a name of the people we had met with from? Krauss: Sleepy Eye. Dave Weir: Sure. They were here because they had met with us. _ ~ Ashworth: Well, they are diligently trying to pursue the construction of a bank on another site. Not this site. One of the questions becomes, they feel very confident that they're going to be able to do it. They will come back here within 3 to 4 months. Their's also will be a modular type of a facility for a period of time while they're building but does that preclude a bank on 79th Street property? I don't know. Again, staff's position has solely been one of trying to encourage Mr. Weir to move as quickly as possible. I'm sure that he has been but we have not tried to say; Slee .~ Eye is better than something and that they should go to his lot versus t~e lot t~ey're currently looking at. Workman: Whose utilities are in the ground then? What happens to the utilities the City put out there? Put in $150,000.00 worth of utilities in the ground. Dave Weir: It all would revert to the site as I recall under the agreement. I. mean it's set up right now that once we got regulatory appr. oval to open a temporary facility quickly, I mean the paving, there's lights. Unfortunately someone's come through and smashed one of the lights down in one of the snowstorms but I believe those would remain with the site but I'd have to check and see. Workman: So the statement that the ~150,000100 spent for utilities, it's not your. Dave Weir: It's our money but, well I don't believe that we have the right to recoup any of it. Gerhardt: He's saying the blacktop. · Dave Weir: There's some blacktop and I think there's some sewer extensions. Workman: And that wasn't paid for by us? Dave Weir: No. It's all been paid for. Workman: Who's trailor is that...? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 27 Gerhardt: That's on the second half of the piece down there and that's the electrical contractor for the north, side parking lot and around City Hall' had requested that may be Dark his tr~ilor there and we allowed him. It shouldn't have been there now, They're done with their work. Horn: Anything else? Gerhardt: I'd just like to add that'those banking people that have come to City Hall did not address themselves as clients of or potential clients · w~th the Crossroad National Bank. They had asked us-on availability of that land and that they were not trying to work out any merger agreement with the Crossroads National Bank people. Dave Weir: Let me clarify that for you directly Todd. As I said on the phone this morning, we have had 3 different things we've looked at. One has been activating our charter, and that's been clear in the letter. Second thing is a merger. A third.thing is that because there have been people expressed interest in the site, a liquidation of the site. That's just strictly good business with a half a million dollars invested-i'--That isn't the preferred route of the Board but just being real direct about it, that i~ what's been looked at. Not all of these banking'organizations want to have a continuing ownership situation by our people... (There was a' tape change at this point in the discussion. ) Dave Weir (Cnn't): ...to August. You have no obligation should that disappointment arise which I don't-believe it will to just simply say at - that point the contract says what it says. I am very optimistic and I don't think foolishly so given the amount of dollars that have been · '.n\,ested. I can appreciate the fact that you've had a lot of disappointments with a lot of different things. On the other hand, you've done a great job in making a lot of things happen too, even though-in.many cases you've had to wait longer than you would have liked to in some cases and that puts a lot of pressure on the system. The 180 days, given that you do own the property, the date can be chang'ed and when that 180 days comes up, there's nothing that at that point causes you to do anything other than say, these are the terms and conditions of the contract' and that's really quite candidly what we would like to ask for. And that's really it along with a clarification of. the building thing. Horn: It looks like we have several options, We can say we don't want to extend the contract. We can say we wi-ll extend the contract with changes to the contract or we can say we can extend the contract just as was offered the first time. And those changes could involve, if we took the second route, could involve either of the two recommendations that Dave has. asked for or any of the four recommendations from the City Attorney which ~s the middle route...combination of those but I think those are three oF. tions. Is anybody ready to form a motion on one of those options? RobbinG: Dave, would you comment just so we're ail, on the same ground where it says, on your letter of 6 December, clarification-of the building requirement from 60 months because of the appropriate banking regulatory approvals? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 28 D6ve Weir: Well, what we want to avoid is a situation where there is some unspecified emcumbrance that the regulators may say gee, we do not want you to have to be obligated financially the day we grant you permission to open your facility to have to construct something of x or unknown millions of dollars or a million dollars or whatever that figure is just to avoid the anxiety factor about what kind of impairment that may involve on'a bank's capital structure. I mean if you take a look at the banking industry, while there are plenty that have a lot of capital, even some of our nation's biggest banks have just got all kinds of capital-adequancy issue problems and anything that looks like a liability that may mature sooner or create an imposition on capital in the event that while a bank may have capital, it may not have sufficient liquidity for a particular point in tim~. It's just a way to minimize anxiety and Charlie can relate to that from having been in the banking business, about the regulators raising that as an issue. I mean as a practical matter, it's just really clarifying the situ~.tion. Most in terms of what is or isn't required for the building ._~.'_'.+.uation. In most cases where you're starting a new facility, be it a d-ctsched facility that's part of an existing main office or a branch.or a new banking organization. Operating from a modular banking facility is quit~ common. Banks like other organizations or branches like other banks, · main banks, have break even points. They need lower overhead today in a more competitive environment. There's definitely a trend much more so away from large bricks and mortar kinds of commitments. Whether it's a big bank or ~ small bank, just simply because they have operating margin pressure~ and that's no exception here. Irrespective of someone's stated zest coming in and putting up a fancy new brick and mortar kind of facility. Ne~ ~.~ill not necessarily equate to 10,000 or 15,000 feet of space when, that just isn't what they're building for branch facilities or. main office facilities for most banking organizations today so it's to avoid having an ---,-cumbvance that may create anxiety for the regulators and that's really it. It doesn't mean that the regulators wouldn't approve it. It'.s just a w.~'/ o.~ avoiding things such as, let me use this as an example. A bank holdin~c company today issuing preferred stock, they won't be able to count that as primary capital if it has a maturity date that isn't beyond 7 years and once it comes within 7 years or less, that's treated in-effect like a liability and so while it might look like capital in the sense of being a type of equity, it is not allowed to be treated as.really permanent capital that's there to have on a permanent basks for the operation of the bank so it's a subtle liability management related issue. Horn: Tom, I...share your enthusiasm that we could have somebody in sooner. In my mind if I were, I can wish for a lot of things'and express interest in a lot of things but if I were really serious about wanting to get in here, I'd be in here petitioning against Dave to build my bank if I were really serious. Workman: Well Dave has a contract. Horn: I know but he's got a contract that's just about to expire and if I were serious about wanting to take that property, I'd be sitting rig out there and I'd be encouraging this group not to extend it. Workman: Well I think bankers are civilized. Horn: Business is business Tom. Housing and Redevelopment Authority January l?, 1991 - Page 29 Workman: Can I ask a question? And I'll tell you what, .when I was elected two years ago, this was up in front of .you guys. I mean Flaherty and everyone was going back and forth and I thought wow, this is going to be a riot: I think it was a Saturday morning meeting or something and Don's shaking his head. He didn't want me to bring that up. But I thought I'm going to have a lot of fun. What have been our costs taking into accouht that there hasn't been something built on that piece of property? Taking in maybe the time value of money to the citizens of the .town. What's this cost us? Rather than having somebody else maybe would have had something developed there already? Ashworth: ! haven't gone back to look.' I know that we had high attorney costs and I think that was again because of the number of drafts that went back and forth. You know other than that, I really can't think... Workman: Well that involve taxes? I mean is there lost increment? Ashworth: Well sure. You can start, about lost increment and if this were on line would.it be generating additional traffic and would that be helping to make the Market Square development go when the people'were in? Would they have seen the bank and say'ah yeah, that's one more reason we should go ahead and build? More so than the cost portion, I guess ! agree with Dave. Things have changed in the past 2 years. I think we've heard more o~ the banks when they've come in and asked us questions, they have made statements similar to what Dave has said and that is, you know people aren't building as big of facilities as they did at one point in time. They don't really care to build these great halls unto themselves. They're more interested in kind of just, I think one used the example of putting Gut a card table and a ready to go into business. Since things have changed though, that is what makes this agreement and just the continuation of it not a good idea because what we had anticipated for certain value and you know what Dave had thought back at that point in time might be the size of a structure and how much it might cost, etc., now is translating itself into well, maybe it might go up to $ years and'be kind of a modular facility. Well that puts major costs back on us that we hadn't anticipated back at that point in time. I mean we may be down to the point where we're actually paying Dave to take the property and I guess that's not. The assessments against that parcel will be a million dollars. Now that's the combined parcel but we have not been able to do anything with the remainder of that property because the bank has kind of been the leading force in that process. I would-assuredly hope tha~ if you want to see it continue, you would do it on the basis that we would protect our interest. Have other conditions in here change to better protect the City. This is not a good document protecting our City or the HRA. Gerhardt: Another added factor in that and as we found out with the Rosemount development and that we had to negotiate with the County on, is that when we bought the Rosemount lands down there, they changed the base assessed value. That district was started in 1977 and that land that Rosemount sits on had a value of approximately $50,000.00. We bought that land for somewhere around a million dollars. In the County's eyes, they saw the City come in and buy that land and give it over to Rosemount. In their eyes they said that land went into a public entity, the City and then went back into a private entity, Rosemount. Thus changing the base assessed value from $50,000.00 up to a million dollars. That was lost Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 30 revenues of approximately $50,000.00 in increment on that project. Each year. Taxes were lost that ~rent back to the County in changing that base assess. Dave came in with his banking ideas. We're going to get the bank in place. We're going to close on the property within that year. I th~nk we finished negotiations, purchase agreement signed in January of 1989 and they were going to build a facility in the spring. Once the City holds' that property for more than 1 year, that base assess value is changed. So that base assessed value down there had approximately on that 6 acres, had a value of somewhere around $12,000.00. Once we sell that property to Dave for a half.million dollars~ that base assess is then changed to a half million. You're only going to capture the increment off of whatever facility is placed on that 'building. Be it $300,000.00 or $400,000.00, that's all you're going to capture in taxes. $15,000.00 a year on a $300,000.00 facility. R¢,bbins: Does that question though, assuming that the project had gone through and everything had gone in. The building was built last May. Whet ~culd the taxes have started according to what the agreement? Would taxes have started last November or last May or this spring coming up? In other ~ord~, re:ally what have we lost in taxes? Gerhardt: Well, based on a million dollar facility and 300, you're lookin~ st approximately I'd say $30,000.00 to $35,000.00. Robbins: That would have started just in November? That would ha~e bee~ the first tax payment? Gerhardt: First tax payment, if they would have built in 1989 would have _baen in 1991, this year. Robbins: So if he still builds now in 1991, his tax payment starts in 1991 then is that not correct? Horn: No. Gerhardt: '93. Workman: Same thing would happen. Gerhardt: Same thing. What I'm saying though is the increment that you're capturing from this is only going to be $~5,000.00 compared to the $35,000.00 so to use the number of years of increment to write down $150,000.00 worth of assessments, you've got this going out to the length of the district. You only have l0 years left to collect increment whatever is built on that property this year. Ashworth: You should finish that in terms of when, Todd is .absolutely right. They took $50,000.00 away from us on the Rosemount deal that really hurt because we were looking at 823 or 833 to balance everything that we did over. there. And so when it dropped down to 783,000 I think it was, challenged that. We successfully won. We brought those dollars back i this city in 1990 a~d into the future years. However, in winning that one we did lose or will lose any parcels where we have held the property for more than one year which is really the bank parcel. $o that bank parcel, ins'tead of being able to see increment off of that new land value as well Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 1991 - Page 31 as the new building value', what Todd is saying is the only thing we'll see increment for is the new building value. It makes the numbers more difficult to balance .you know when we're talking about assessments, e.tc.. Dave Weir: Which is part of why that's kind of a double edged sword too. You know it's the idea behind trying to have a lower price set on the iand' and have assessment agreements so that you try to massage your way around that issue so that the land doesn't sell and as a result you don't have your valuation increase as much but then agree to a greater stipulated valuation for land and building and as a result capture mote increment but that's just the kind of thing banking regulators are not eager to have a bank be liable for is some perpetual stream of higher Teal estate taxes under the auspices of an assessment agreement. I mean it's kind-of one thin~ about the...retailing has not had an easy history as the City's been growing. And even the little shopping center down on 79th Street, the Brooke's Superette or whatever, has had a tough time getting leased out so the notion of Flaherty's proposal and the 7,500 square foot restaurant and some of those things and if that had gone ahead, I think it's kind of academic stuff because the fact of the matter is today, financing retail, you take a look et the retailing industry and what 'it's taken just to get retail off the ground in other parts of the city irrespective of how nice e community is, things are not the same as they were before. The S & L industry isn't her~ to finance the world and the banking industry is not bu~y financing a lot of real estate related things today and the notion of trying to add more retail on that site and the fact that nothing has been happening on the other side of it is the same kind of thing that a lot of other communities have experienced and will continue to experience. The things that have been designated for development for retail and other kinds of things simply aren't going to .happen for a while because there isn't the retail demand there. Having something else occur on the other par.t of this site when across the street something that has certainly far more potential in terms of diversity and concentration of development has been unable to get off the ground. I think it's probably putting undue pressure of the citizens have been on you to say gee, why isn't a retail development there? Othen retail development in town hasn't been that successful yet either. It's gradually stablizing. There's a limit to the capacity of retail that's going to be absorbed particularly today. Ashworth: A couple other quick points if ! could make them. One is that if you do have the Attorney take a look at some of the conditions, potentially meet with Dave in ~eTms of how do we either modify the current agreement to better protect the City oT look at them. I'm.very concerned with one section that deals with Dave's ability to approve or deny what might happen on the outlot across the street.- Rs the HRA is aware, we've had a number of meetings' back with HRA and the City Council talking about that lot and what might work well and ! think everyone has come up with the idea that the structure that's presently being considered is a good one but I'm not confident in my own mind that we don't have some legal liability as it currently exists. If Dave decides that he doesn't like that, we may not be able to build it. That should also be' looked at. Second point is, I know that the Mayor has expressed, at least to me some concerns as to what is occurring and I'm sure that he has a number of-comments regarding this whole issue. I'm kind of wondering whether an issue of th'is magnitude should be voted on without everyone having an opportunity to put their comments in. Dave still, his contract is still valid. We have our meetin~ Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary ~7, lggl - Page 32 scheduled for February. Potentially tabling action may be reasonable th~ evening, Roger Knut'son: I could just point out in that regard, even' though the purchase agreement technically expires I believe February Sth. What happens then, it doesn't just go away in a poo¢ of smoke. If we don't get a Quit Claim Deed conveying, cancelling it essentially, we have to go through a cancellation process and that takes 30 days or so, so he really has not until February'Sth. He's really in there until into March right nOW . Ash, worth: Unless they would cancel this evening. Roger Knutson: Yes. No, we can't cancel until he's in a default and so February 8th. We can't send the cancellation out until then. Dave ~eir: Can I ask you something just real quick. What premise and what murpose do you feel is being served to suggest that %he HRA take action to cancel the contract tonight? I need to understand Chat because I really don't. As.h~dorth: The premise is very simple Dave. A continued statement made to the HRA by myself, by the City Attorney is the existing contract is not a ~ood one. That we'should enter into a new contract with you if the bank is to be constructed by yourself. That recommendation is simply consistent with the statements of the City Attorney. Do you agree or disagrge? Roger Knutson: I agree. Workman: Don, moving to table would accomplish what until when? Ashworth: Well you would not be taking any action then in regards to the contract. It would stay in force as I hear Roger and the only way that you could cancel that would be if at your next meeting you would act to do that which would set it at least 30 days from that point. Correct? Roger Knutson: 30 days from the end of the purchase agreement's terms for closing. So 30 days from February 8th. ~orn: $o in effect what it accomplishes is extending it 1 month instead of 6? Roger Knutson: That's automatic. If you give him a 6 months extension on a contract or a 5 year extension, what have you, at the end of that term the way it's gotten rid of is to go through a Statutory cancellation process and that takes 30 days in this type of situation. Workman: But that can't be started un~il February 8th and that's going to ks~pen regardless of if we table. Gerhardt: What action? Workman: If we table. Housing and Redevelopment AuthoritY January 17, 1991 - Rage 33 Dave Weir: February 8th occurs before your next HRA meeting as ! understand it. Gerhardt: We'd have a special meeting. Poger Knutson: But on February 8th, it doesn't expire on it's own accord. Something has to be done. Either you wouId have to give us a Quit Claim Deed or we'd have to start a cancellation process. Horn:. Which we wouldn't do until our next meeting. RogeT Knutson: Right. You'd have to authorize it. I mean I don't have authority to do that obviously. $o between now and your next meeting, unless you authorize Something tonight, nothing wiii happen. Ashworth: Mr. Weir has expressed concerns, at least through Todd so I wasn't, a direct participant but he was hoping that for tonight's meeting that he would have more documentation from the City Attorney's office. Wk.~t are some of these documents that Roger is referring' to? Potentially that tabling action could at least allow Roger the opportunity to provide - what he would consider as a sample contract over to Mr. Weir.. Dave Weir: Let me clarify that. We're not eager for any changes other than those proposed so at the risk'of seeming like ! was misunderstood, I'm not interested in anything that in any way slows down the process of getting done which I look at that as doing. Ro;er Knutson: The HRA and the City have used fairly standard agreements a~d fsankly what I would do is just take those off and massage them to this project. . . Horn: How much, do you have a rough estimate on how much more legal fees we would incur by going through that? Ashworth: Roger, would you like to make' an estimate? Roger Knutson: I'll make an outside guess. Now to 'put together a draft I don't think it will take me more than say 10 hours. Let's say $1,200.00. Something in that magnitude. Now if I bring it back and I say this is my recommendation you go with this package and then we spend the next 6 months arguing about it, I don't know how ~uch it's going to cost. 8ut if you want to put together a reasonable package, I mean I'm not going to come up with how much you want per Square foot. I'll Just lift it off this document unless someone tells me otherwise. I'll just turn it into more of a straight forward deal. There are all sorts of things in here that right now apparently are not germane for example. You have all sorts of contingencies regarding soil tests and construction of TH 5. Environmental tests. What have you. Apparently most of that stuff should have been taken care of so all those sorts of things can just be dropped out. Horn: I think the railroad access... Roger Knutson: I assume you have a survey, is that correct? Dave Weir: Yes. Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 34 Roger Knutson: Well see things like that we can just make it into a nic clean document. This is frankly one of the more complicated documents tried to read. Gerhardt: Clark, to answer some of your questions. You said if there was another bank here tonight and they should be here to champion that cause. Individuals that Dave had said if you want to go to City Hall and find out more information. Meet with staff. Go ahead. Those individuals wanted to be here tonight and I basically told them not to come and that we don't get this into another West 79th Street bidding war with Larriat and Beffor and Dave that they went through before. So that's why you don't see people in the audience saying that we'll enter into a purchase agreement tomorrow or next week. Horn: Well, I believe I've heard a fourth option from staff and that's the tabling option. I guess we still have the original three plus that as our op-tions. I'll entertain a motion because I don't think we're going-to get shy more information tonight. Workman: Is it fairly clear that HRA wants to modify the contract~ Horn: No. Workman: You want to leave the contract as is?' Dohn: Leave it one more month as it is which brings it up to what, March? $o that in fact is two months away'. If you add 4 more months so then you've got the 6 months. Workman: But that doesn't, I think the crux of the deal is we've got an opportunity to change a contract that I don't know if any of us really care for and ~de're willing to extend it for 6 months. Horn: Well the extensfon, nobody is proposing an extension for 6 months to the existing contract. It's being, obviously changes being proposed on bct. h sides but... Robbins: Clark, unless I missed something, I think that what Dave wants to do is keep the existing contract. Dave Weir: Yeah, I guess from the standpoint, rather 'than taking a couple months. Robbins: ...the date and duration of the building. I think that's it. Workman: And what is the duration of the building then? Dave Weir: Rather than taking 2 months out of an ideal of 6, to go through and negotiate changes is simply leave it as it is and if we come August experience the same dilemma which I don't believe we will, then the contract is the way it is and everybody has to face the music. Namely us and for simplicity sake to keep the business momentum going, is to simpl' chang~ the expiration date. Clarify the verbage about the building and just simply move on and try to press the business forward rather than focusing on the real estate. I mean the reality of it is, wi.th the press Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 35 of business moving ahead, a banking organization hopefully .iii be open there in a modular facility 6oma Chis summer and if that isn't the case, the contract being in the condition'that it's currently in gives you ali the leverage that you currently have to deal with the situation. That is do nothing then which obviously is an option that can be exercised today and not one that we're eager for but I guess I'm trying to really search for'simplicity to try to advance the bali. I'm not trying to diminish any o~ your anxieties about it but clearly an option is doing nothing today and that can be something that.can be done in August which I think provides a safety valve for you all. Horn: I'd just like to clarify what you're suggesting. You're suggesting that doing option 1 only is what you're suggesting? Dav~ Weir: Option 1 which I guess would, I guess if Option 1 is my letter of December 6th to extend that date and that other item'regarding the building, that's correct. And then leave it'as it stands and literally We would be totally at your mercy as we really are right now as it relates to the February 8th and we'll just change it to August 8th and minimize the amount of effort that staff has to put into it or the City Attorney as well.. Horn: Unless I'm missing something, I' wrote down what Roger was talking about. Earnest money, closing dates, contingencies and development a~reement for minimum building requirements and things. To me the-reason you have earnest money is for an incentive. I think I believe that there is an incentive in this case. It's there. The incentive is not positive to the City but it's negative to the developer if it doesn't go through. As far as moving the development forward, we've somewhat covered that in the fact that we're only extending for 6 months. 6 months it's. open again sc it seems to me while we don!t have some of the contingencies that we would have in a normal agreement, the fact that we're only giving this thing a specific timeframe, in effect gives us that. Unless I'm missing something. Roger Knutson: Remember the current...does not require them to build a bank. Workman: And he gets the earnest money back. .. Horn: What are you suggesting he could build? Roger Knutson: He doesn't build anything. Horn: But if doesn't build anything for 6 months, then we can open it up. Roger Knutson: No. Dave Weir: Clearly no one is going to purchase'that site with the concept plan that's required. I mean it is pretty explicit in terms of it's designated for banking purpose. Anything that goes on there in the way of a modular temporary facility that adds value will impose real estate taxes and no banking organization ultimately, I mean there have been some that have in older times gone 60 months. Ultimately competitive pressure forces you to have a permanent banking structure irrespective of anything else. . Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 36 don't know of any bank that's been operating for 5 years or 8 years or whatever in a modular facility anywhere in the metro area. The bank in Maplewood did, going back to start of something like 10 years ago or whatever but that is about the only exception that I can think of. They're typically looking for their bricks and mortar. Roger Knutson: You could build a K-Mart. You could build a Hardee's, assuming that the Zoning Ordinance allows it. You can build anything. It doesn't require them to build anything. The only thing this requires them to do is that within 2 years after he exercises what I'll call the option to purchase, he's got to start building.' Start digging a hole for a bank. Once he has started digging the hole for the bank, your option to repurchase terminates. Once it terminates, he can stop digging his hole. Dave Weir: I ca.n't imagine anyone who wants to own that property badly enough to be candid that wants to be subjected to whatever anguish that may involve. Roger I wouldn't dispute you... (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Work.ma-n: Are you talking about Clark's options? Pc. bbins: I'm talking about as in the letter extending the date. I think we mentioned that it was to be Option 1. Horr.: Right. So your motion is to grant the extension and. leave [he contract unchanged? Robbins: That's correct. Horn: Is there a second to that motion? Bohn: I'll second that. Hob'n: Further discussion? Workman: I think that we've got an opportunity to change a contract that the City Attorney has said isn't good for the City and the City Manager and we're not going to take it and I can't vote for that.. At the recent Council meeting that the Mayor works. He's finally on a vacation, out of town, so he's not here tonight has had, he's gotten into the habit of kind of extending things. When we were talking about 7 and 41 project out there. I know if the Mayor were here, and it's maybe not fair but we've got extensions going all over the city that have dragged us out. Dragged neighborhoods out. Dragged everything out and maybe I've caught the bu~ but when I'm told that this contract is not in our best interest, at least anymore, and now we've got an opportunity to change it. Perhaps we're still working with the same developer, I think we should take it. Horn: I guess my perspective is tonight. I think we should, we need to go forward and work with Dave on this. Really some of the things that Roge suggested, I don't feel are appropriate. The one that I do feel though that is appropriate is the apparent starting date that he can start construction. Now I understand to do that and we'd have to go through Planning Commission and we'd have to have plans. Obviously the developer Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, lggl - Page 37 :uculd. have to put in a. lot more money to get that process even started before he could even dig a hole so his, I don't really know what incentive he would have to do that. Spend that extra money just to dig a hble to hold the property. So I'm having a little problem with that. On the. other hand, I don't think it's something that would be, that Dave would be adverse to agreeing to because I don't think those are his intentions. I think what he probably might be adverse to having happen though is for th~s whole thing to go open again and' everything is fair game and I wouldn't be inclined to do that because I think we do need to continue somewhat of a. commitment that 'Dave. Workman: What about the outlot issue across the street? The monument? We don't need wording in the contract for that? We're not putting in, still not, I see it as a loophole, minimum assessed valuation on it. We're taking a word that we're going to get something. It could very easily be ir, the contract at this point. We're not asking for it. By going to August, I think we lose a year. Certainly not going to start building when we have to have the Planning Commission process, etc.. It's not going to go until May or 3une, 1992 at the earliest. We lose'another year. Dave Weir.' ! don't know Why it woul~ have to go until May or June of 1992. I just can't see it. There's already a concept plan that's approved. Horn: I guess I h~ve a question on that also. Even if they started from scl'etch, we'd be starting where we are today. Dave We~r: ! guess more importantly, why would someone want to sbemd a h~.l~ million dollars to have a bunch of encumbrances that are being discussed? I mean I don't think anybody, today feels that purchasing real estate is a get rich scheme by any stretch of the imagination and while I'm not trying to diminish the point, we'd like to just simply get on, get done. Move the business ahead and it's not to say that you can't isolate any one of these things and say maybe we could change it and fine tune it and so on. You know losing 30 days to simply get to the point of trying to advsnce the business deal. As I said, come August the same pressures are still on us as they are tonight. Wouldn't you really rather have us try to move forward with the business side of it with the anxieties that you may have then spending 30 to 60 days of time consumed there which, and every time the time is lost in paperwork and documentation, it's not going to advance what everybody really wants and that's activity and a banking operation on the site. We're certainly mindful of the pressure right now. If you didn't want to do anything and that isn't going to be different in August. Horn: So you're saying that going through these types of things again would in effect delay your. Dave Weir: Which is, we're not going t% spend time on business things. We're going to spend time working on real 'estate legal related things and the issue of whether those provisions. I'm not even familiar with what Don's talking about, about the entry parcel thing or whatever in terms of the approval but you knw, I don't think the' City's going to want to do something that's adverse. I don't think anyone else has an interest in not being a good neighbor. I mean we're here to be part of the community. Not be a thorn in the community's side. We may have had some differences along Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 38 the way but I think everybody wants to see us get an operation going and do everything we can to promote it and if 180 days isn't good enough, then so be it. We have to live with where we are but I can't imagine.anyone wanting to' plunk down a half million dollars so they can ar'gue about concept plans and whether they built or haven't built or what the design criteria are. That's a lot of money for any organization to come up with to have some argument about and to want to even expend the money to purchase the site and have those things as unknowns. Workman: Dave, can you clear up for me where the half a million dollars has been spent? Dave Weir: Sure. It's been spent on a variety of things, not the least of which is just on the front end. We went through an elaborate planning process and developed models. Legal fees were not insignificant. It just seemed in just getting a front end purchase agreement, we spent a lot of money in terms of our private offering. Architectural fees. $150,000.00 in the site. Salary costs and application fees for-~he charter application. Hiring a Washington D.C. law firm and so on. I can't recite chapter and verse each item but it's all there and Tom if you'd like to come over to the office, I'd be happy to walk you through the nausea. Workman: Can you tell me where the hang-ups have been? D~vs Weir: Sure. The letter is really, and maybe you don't have the benefit of having our December 6th letter. I'm not sure. Workman: Well it's a little fuzzy I think. Is it the fax? Dave Weir: You should have gotten, or staff should have gotten a clear one here on December 6th. Workman: Can you give me a ballpark, I mean where the hang-ups are? Are they with the regulatory? Dave Weir: No. I can tell'you what they've been and then tell you where we are. We had proposed a capital structure that had been used fairly commonly that had two classes of stock and that, and the staff will again take exception that we could have done it another way as you can do things a number of different ways. That was all approved. Everything was approved for the charter. The local Federal Reserve 8card approved it quickly and they said because it's a new charter that they should send it to Washington. They sent it to Washington and then the Feds and the OCC started talking about it. Well, should we have this kind of a structure now. In the advent of all the different changes in banking and the Charlie Keatin9 problems and so the regulatory approval process moved from one of being an affirmative process to kind of a denial process. Let's see if we can find something wrong with it and i~ any of your friends are in the banking business today will tell you that regulators are not in the business of finding the goodness but really trying to find something to take exception with, and that was the case. And so they, as I point out the letter, they wanted to deal with this capital structure as being a policy matter as opposed to dealing with our specific application. Dealing with it as a policy matter means they route it to all the different departments within each of the agencies rather than dealing with' a specific Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, lgg! - Page 3g application so we sort of set a no man's land for ! don't know, something like 9 months of that process waiting to hear from them in terms of what they would or would not. approve'so that was the principle delay but obviously ~e'd raised over 2 million doilars and we felt that we should refund the money at that point while ~e were awaiting.this so called policy change. And that has been the biggest source of the delay. Since that time, we've had a change in population. We've spent a lot of money in terms of stimulating interest both from a capital formation standpoint and now are facing the issue of does it make sense to activate the charter ~ith the new capital structure that they;re talking about. We've had people talk to us about a potential merger of our existing ba~king interest, be it with the charter or merging with an existing operation and so those are the things that our Board is really trying to sort out right now and that's really-it Tom. It's going through the regulatory process today is far different than it's ever been. It's an experience that we just as soon would have lived without I can assure you. Horn: Further discussion? Questions? Comments? Robblns moved, Bohn seconded that the.Housing and Redevelopment AuthOrity extend the TCNB, Znc. Purchase &gTeement, without changes,' fo; a pe;iod of 6 months. All voted in faro; except Tom Workman who opposed and the motion - carried with a vote of 3 to 1. Dave Weir: Could I ask just briefly.again what the motion was? Horn: The motion was to extend for 6 months. Roger Knutson: Without any other changes. Gerhardt: What about the 5 years on the building? Horn: No. The contract stays the way it is. Dave Weir: The process for doing that, ! can ask that our, one of legal people prepare a modification and should that be sent to Roge~ and to Don and Todd. It basically should be about one sentence I would think. Gerhardt: That would be the process. Dave Weir: Okay. Ash~orth: Well, every other document we've had from the City Attorney or our attorney is drafted. Dave Weir: Well that's, your preference ! guess. I'm Just trying to respond to the sensitivity about the legal ~ee issue. Well thank you all. We will get back to work and try to make it-a reality sooner rather than-later. Horn: You can thank us all by having a beautiful building .... . Dave Weir: Yes. We do feel the pressure. Even though it might not seem like it at times. Thanks. Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 40 APPROVAL OF 1991 MEETING SCHEDULE. Workman: So moved. Robbins: Second· Horn: Further discussion? Bohn: Wait. Wait. I had a question. Oh never mind. ! can take care of it. I was going to talk about the 15th of July I may not be here.'That can always be changed. Workman moved, Robbins meconded to approve the 1991 Meeting Schedule ot: the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. CONSIDERATION OF 1991 HRA GOALS ~ND OBJECTIVES. · Horn: Obviously some of these, if we accomplish all .of these this year think we all...' .... Gerhardt: If there's any goals that staff may have missed that you wanted. to try to accomplish this year. I tried to think of all the things that we discussed over the last $ months when the HRA last reviewed these goals and we did include the examination of parklands down around, across from City Hall. Also to include those design aspects of what would be over by the' Medical Arts Building to the east.. The entry monuments Again the NAHR~a~ Agency Award for some of the efforts that you have trie~ in the area · Horn: Is this number i still relevant? Gerhardt: We're still working with the acquisition on the Taco Shoppe and the apartment owners. As Tom had mentioned, he'd like to see plans on the review of the TH iO1/TH 5 intersection in that area and at that meeting I'd like to update you on the acquisition process of both of those. Take staff to meet with Gary Fuchs of Roger's office to provide an update on those negotiations. Bohn: How about the Red-E-Mix? Gerhardt: That one also· We have ownership of the ~bby Bongard's piece· She has moved out. We are advertising that piece for sale. There is a sign up. We have received several phone calls. Right now wa'il take anything basically and the highest bid I've got is $2,000.00 in them acquiring that building and moving it off site. That would save HR~ costs in demoing that building. Workman: I like your billboard Todd. Gerhardt: My billboard. That's the old sign that was. Workman: Does it get you dates? Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 41 Gerhardt= None yet. One other thing' .that staff has, that's-included in here is those lands across from West Vl['lage Heights. What is the, yeah the 3ames piece. North of the James. The housing project up there. · Workman: James owns that too [ think. Gerhardt: I think somebody has a purchase agreement on it. Dean Johnson has a purchase agreement who's marketin,g it similarly to what Dave is doing with [4e~t 79th Street. And tryine to recoup him comte that he stuck Into the project. With that staff has got Several meetings with housing development people. Basically if you're going to see apartment construction of any quality, they're looking for HRA assistance. As I mentioned earlier today, it's kind of funny that we have to may the c[ock'e ticking on out tax increment district but [f somebody was to come [n with a project this year, they wou[d only get [0 yeats of increment. We on[y have approximately 10 yea~s of [nc~ement off of new deve[opment left and each year that that property sits, it's less and [ess. S[m[[ar[y to the housing project [n the downtown that saw somewhere ~Tom [0 to 12 years ~o~th of [nc~ement to.see a p~oject of that quality, and magnitude occur something [tke that happening out on that property you wou[d a[mo have to look at that type o~ program [f that [m 'of your interest to do something like that and people have asked for assistance tn land write down and 'public improvements cT tax credits through ~ent' reductions. I don't know [f this [sa goal of yours o~ [~ [t'e a strong goal. I guema we open that up for comments from HRA. We could bring [nd[v[dualm [n [~ you'd ~ant to see that where they have done housing p~oJecta [n the metro area. I don't know [f that's again of any interest of you but you are a housing and redevelopment authority and the~e Js a company that of Dakota County, ~ash[ngton County [n trying to do projects [[ke th[m. Workman: I thought we were the grocery, bank and lawn and garden author ity. Gerhardt= Some of them have the housing experience up here with the Heritage Apartments and that was a long process. ! think It was almost 3, years for the HRA to approve that project and if something like that is to happen out in that property, you'~.e getting that increment do~n to 7 'years' that you could provide something like that. Bohn: Examine the idea of a central park? Gerhardt: Yes. That's the bank lands that you've shown interest in. Bohn= Yeah. That I would really like to see the City have that as a central park because we have like Oktoberfest, we had it in the parking lot of the City Hall which was very crowded and there was no parking. If we had our own central park in front of the City Hall where you could see it from main street because if someone ever builds In front of there, people will be driving by and they'[[ be asking where Is the City Hall? Well, it's not on main street. It's on Coulter or Chart View you can get to it. But you're going to have to tell them how to get there but you can't see it. Horn= I'm not sure you want to. Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 42 Ashworth: So you're saying you'd like to add that as an objective to that? · · Horn: Does anybody want to add anything or take anything off? Bohn: Yeah. How about the road that goes from the bowling alley along the railroad tracks out to, well the north side of the railroad tracks?- Workman: Bowling Alley Road? RobbinG: Pin Road. Workman: Pin Road? RobbinG: Pin Road. Or make it really pretty and call it Pin Lane. Bohn: There's a building in the way for that road. Gerhardt: Staff has been working with Brad 3ohnson in trying to redevelop that area back there into sort of a multi-athletic area with tennis courts: racquetball. Incorporating maybe the expansion of the bowling alley or using Hooked on Classics as a sort of a showroom retail museum type of thing with some glass windows installed into a corridor area with some retail and gymnasium space. We saw some preliminary drawings today on that. Once those, after we firmed up some numbers and some of the details with that, we'd like to put that on for an HRA agenda. And it should been included in there. Bohn: That property, that road can't go through along the railroad tracks until we acquire that. We don't own that proper.ty do we? That's Bloomberg's property isn't it? Gerhardt: That's correct. You would have to probably look in at buying, what is the cabinet shop· and the scene shop or the old ice arena also. Also probably some acquisition from the railroad people as I looked at then today. Horn: Well let's add that. Does anyone object? Robb i ns: Workman: No, What are you adding then? Gerhardt: Redevelopment of the back side of the Dinner Theatre. Bohn: Has there been any interest in that movie theatre into Chan? Gerhardt: That was also included in there. Part of the tilt up concrete bay of the old Instant Webb would have two theatres in it. Workman: Maybe this is getting ahead of the horse here but maybe we sho~c as a gr6up start discussing some of the ;larger things. Don, you and I had little discussions here and there on some major projects. As things mature in the districts etc. and we got some cash that's hanging out there and it's a sizeable chunk really, 'But we've talked briefly about, and Housing and Redevelopment Authority :Ianuary 17, 1991 - Page 43 probably the only way we can accomplish getting the mite for a middle schooI or sIash an intermediate school,, la by HRA funds somehow through the school district. Now I saw something Just recently that, I.won't even get into that but that we should start trying to figure that out if we can do it and go for lt. If we have the desire to do that, we should try and do that. I think for anybody that might be interested in a community center, the only way to go ie with tax increment. Bohn: Is there any reason why the HRA couldn't spend money on acquiring land outside the district for a community center? We could get the money from the City to acquire land could we not? Ashworth: Well, if you provide the dollars over to the City, then the City has to reduce It's levy llmlt by that amount 8o It doesn't become dollars that are available to the City. The only spot that that's open for Is for school districts. See if you pace dollars back to the school district, their levy is not reduced equal to that amount. Now they then throug'h a contract with us bought land for a middle 8chool, that would be up to-them. or if they used it to purchase land for a community?center, whatever. You could build a community center or pay, buy land, whatever you wanted to do but it would have to be Inside of the dimtrict and you'd have to modify your redevelopment plan and be assured that the County would be outraged but you legally can do It. Workman: But ! think people, and the feeling that people are .getting from the Chaska community center. I don't know if you've gotten any feedback from that thing. ! think it was on the National News a couple o~ weeks ago but I Chink it might be something, ! think people, it's definitely a tax issue'and people don't want their taxes to raise but if they could get that stuff painlessly, ! think we should look at lt. ! guess I'd like to talk about that in the future. Quietly and tenderly, understanding that people are sensitive about it. But so a middle school. A community center. We're talking about a library. We're talking about senior housing. We could realistically capitalize a police department from those funds the way I understand It. Couldn't you? Ashworth: A~e you talking about from HRA dollars? Workman: Yeah. In downtown? It's my understanding that you could. Ashworth: Well again the.County would end up then reducing their levy. doubt very much that they'd be Interested In doing that. Both the City' and the County, we would have to reduce our levy by an equal amount so although it's nice to take and put $200,000.00 over to the City, that would have to be, you would have to reduce our property tax levy by that equal amount. That has the benefit of reducing the taxes for our people but doesn't provide the $200,000.00 for Jails or whatever else you want to do. · Workman: HRA salaries. Okay. I thought we could do that and ! strongly suspect that you can get that accomplished, and I think the library maybe goes in coordination with that city park or something. Maybe It needs to be on there. I think in talking to Todd earlier you know, I think If we don't get a plan on that parcel, Pauly and people'aln't gdlng to be moving too fast off of there and It's going to be another Bernie deal. And I think if we've got time and It's kind of slow in the winter here and stuff, Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, 1991 - Page 44 we should maybe start trying to formulate plans to spend the cash befor~ people we don't want on the HRA are on here making those decisions. You~ know but I think those are some pretty expensive things but they're things that the HRA could probably take care of. And the awards for the community for the perceived mistreatment by the HRA. Sohn: One thing we have to do is acquire land before there isn't any land for a middle school. Workman: Well there's a perspective site out there right now and it's going into the Comp Plan Just north of Timberwood. Between TH 5 and Timberwood out by Galpin. · Ashworth: Across from Pryzmus' driving range. Workman: 4,0 acres or so or part of that parcel or something. I don't know but there's not going to be a middle school up here unless we substantially contribute or something but. Bohn: I would like to see a middle school. We've got a middle school in Chanhassen: Workman: Yeah. It's not ours but and then people have talked about that would be an appropriate place to put a community center. I think that's too close to Chaska's to have a community center there. If we built a middle school and then attached a community center to it right there by Timberwood, I think that community center would be a little bit t6o'cl to. Bohn: How about next to Lake Ann? Workman: I think that'd be outstanding. I don't know that we could get the funds over there though. , Ashworth: You bring back community center in the next few years and we'll all get scalped right? Especially as a referendum. Workman: That's why I'm saying, let's do this quietly. Bohn: How about acquiring the land though? Gerhardt: It would be nice if you could incorporate the community center with the middle school in that location so they could use the facilities and share the cost in the gymnasium and stuff like that. Workman: Well we could maybe put a hockey rink up there. I just think that's kind of ignoring the citizens on the north side of Lotus and everything else a little bit there but you want to talk about having some fun and doing good things once in a wh~le. Bohn: Is there enough room on that side of Eckankar's building to put a gym i n? Workman: ...Am ! out of line talking about these plans? Housing and Redevelopment Authority 3anuary 17, 199! - Page 45 Horn= No. That's exactly what we-need. Workman: I think it'd be fun because.I think it's a heck of an opportunity for us and you guy. s deserve to spend the money you've made and get some credit for the grief you've put up with. I don't know. Horn: We'll get our reward in 20 years If any of us are a~ound in 20 years. Wot kmart: Anyway. Horn: Did you get the items? Gerhardt: I've got middle school, library, community Center, senior housing, and I got the back of the Dinner Theatre. Workman: Police Department. Million dollars to buy the cars. Gerhardt: I've got the police department, and that one was a'tricky one for staff to figure out. Horn: .Okay, that's good. Anything else? Gerhardt: Do you want an individual, oR your next meeting to talk about housing and trying to put a push for a project up there? Workman: Not If you have to pay for it. Isn't there room right across from City Hail here? Didn't we talk about that? This lot? 8ohn: That's for the park. Robbins= That's the park. We'll have parks all over the place. Workman: Right here. Is this a park? Next to the old bank buli~[ng, that's a park? Gerhardt: That's what 3im would like to .see. done. Workman= That'd be perfect for senior housing. Across from the grocery store. Bohn: Could we have Frontier Days there or whatever? Oktoberfest. Horn: We could plan our own housing. Workman= There's no parking there. Bohn: You can't do it over where Pryzmus is. Put anything, like you say, put a library where Pony/Pryzmus and Pauly's is., The three P's but the parking, that's all you'd have. The library and the parking because the space is too small. Workman: Libraries don't demand too much parking. Horn: I think this is discussion we'll have as part of exercising... Housing and Redevelopment Authority January 17, lggl - Page 46 (The tape ended at this point in the meeting.) Workman moved, Horn seconded to approve the 199! HRA Goals and ObJective~I~ as outline by staff with the following additions: acquiring land for a middle school site, library, community center, senior housing, looking at the back of the Dinner Theatre and a police .department. All voted in favor and the motion carried. ii~ppRovRI. OF DECEHBER · 1990 BZLLS . Robbtns moved, Bohn seconded to approve the Housing and Redevelopment Bills for December, 1990 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Workman moved, Robbins seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and'the morton carried. The meeting was adjourned at 10=30 p.m.. Submitted by Don Ashworth Executive Director Prepared by Nann Opheim