1991 04 18CHANHASSEN HOUSING AND REDEVELOPNENT AUTHORITY
REGULAR MEETING
APRIL 18, 1991
Chairman Horn called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m..
MEMBERS PRESENT: Clark Horn, Don Chmiel, Tom Workman, Charlie Robbins and
Jim 8ohn
STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Executive Director;' Todd Gerhardt, Assti
Executive Director and Paul Krauss, Planning Director
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Chmiel moved, Workman seconded to approve the Minutes
of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting dated February 21, 1991
as presented. All voted in favor except Charlie$ Robbing who abstained and
the motion carried.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Horn: The only ones I see are Brad and Bernie. Do either one of you have
a Visitor Presentation?
Bernie Hanson: Gentlemen, I guess you're all aware, I believe each one of
you received the little note that I put together regarding my dilemma with
Market Square. I guess my question comes up, is this Market Square ever
going to happen? Maybe we should let Brad go through that whole part first
and then I come up or whatever way you people want to do it. I mean $o we
know where we stand there because I don't even know exactly as I'm standing
right here at this moment.
Horn: Okay, why don't we do this. That's the next item on our agenda so
if you'd like to comment after that.
Bernie Hanson: Then I'll come back up and we'll talk. Unless you people
all know everything ahead of time. I don't.
Horn: No, we don't either.
UPDATE ON MARKET SQUARE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.
Ashworth: We have received performas from the Market people. Sid Inman
has gone through those. I have not received his report as of this time so
I'm sorry I can't report as to whether he feels as though the subsidy
levels that are being requested are sufficient or insufficient. I'm
meeting with Deloitte-Touche on Monday or Tuesday. They similarly have
gone through the performa. They have talked with the Market people and
again, I'm anticipating their report this next week. I have not had a lot
of pressure from the developers and I'm assuming that that's a result that
they're still working trying to get financing. So as soon as that
occurs, I'm assuming they're going to be back trying to resolve any type of
subsidy questions that may still be outstanding. With that I guess I would
ask Brad to give us an update on where he stands on the financing.
Brad Johnson: ...then you can take it home and read it. Hot off the
press.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 2
Horn: Do you have a copy for Bernie?
Gerhardt: He can have mine.
Brad 3ohnson: I went over this with Bernie on the phone about an hour ago.
Basically where we are, and I'll just paraphrase this. First of all we
have reached the necessary leasing requirements that a lender currently
requests. We're at about 85~ pre-leased and they require that the project
after expenses and after debt service to build it, before you build it,
that it cash flows. It does. We've got Gateway as a tenant. They require
that any center that's going to be financed today has at least one national
credit anchor and that is Gateway. We only do have one national credit
anchor and I think that's okay because of the strength of our smaller
tenants that we have. Merlyn's and MGM and Center Drug are all very, and
Bernie if he's in there, are all very strong and have been around for a
long time and that particular thing helps make up for any problems I think
we may have in that particular area. What has happened in the lending
market since, if you recall correctly, we had a mortgage in place and ready
to close on September 1st when Mr. Cooper decided that he did not want to
be part of the ownership of the package and the bank said that if he was
not, they needed a Super Value guarantee and we could not get a Super Value
guarantee so it's taken us 7 months and a lot of work both from your staff,
Mayor writing letters and everything, to get to the point that we have a
national credit tenant available. You're also aware that there are only 3
national credit tenants in this whole state. One is Super Value, one is
Gateway and of late Nash-Finch but not too much so you don't have a big
choice. Not too many people are doing that. We do have the Festival
store. The Festival store itself, the good news is that it goes, the
original program that we presented to you back a year, year and a half ago,
we were generating 6,000 to 7,000 visits per week for Chanhassen to buy
groceries. The Festival store will generate 12,500 visits per week to .
Chanhassen to buy groceries so we basically have doubled the activity,
commercial activity by having them in place. We didn't really pay much
attention because we were told by Bank One, which is the bank that had
approved the financing on this, to them while we were trying to pursue the
Gateway lease and we had ups and downs as you all know in that and then in
about February or the first part of March that was approved by Gateway and
we're in the final negotiations of the form of that lease. Now we went
back to Bank One just before Easter. Notified them that we were ready.
Sort of to proceed on the loan. They informed us that from their point of
view, the project looked very good except that they weren't lending money
for such projects anymore in the fashion they had previously and that they
require what would be called a take out. You have two, you probably have
thousands of types of loans but basically in the industry today we have
probably three that are used. One is a short term construction loan with a
take out and the other one is an open ended construction loan with a note
take out guaranteed in 3 to 4 to 5 years to work out a final mortgage.
They shifted from being a lender with what is called open ended to
requiring that a take out be guaranteed on any of the projects that they're
doing and therefore said that we'd have to go find a take out. That puts
us in a whole different mortgage search climate because we're now beyond
the banks and we're in with insurance companies who have different
criteria. In addition to that, I've been told by a number of lenders, I've
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 3
been told, I don't know if you guys in production but you don't need to
produce any loans this year and you won't lose your job. That's .in general
what the lending atmosphere is among the insurance companies currently.
They're just not interested aggressively but they want to cherry pick the
good deals. Our deal probably is missing one or two national credit
tenants. We don't have a Walgreens in here and a couple other ones so
we're not the perfect deal from a national point of view. There's a lot of
deals chasing very little money but we recognize that so I started the
process and in order to do that type of thing, I have to go out and deal
with multiple lenders on a national level. To do that on Monday we weren't
prepared and if you're not prepared simply says it's Just not appraisals
and stuff. You've got to put together the kind of packets you have to put
together on the city to explain the deal and then you give it to a mortgage
bankers and they run around and try to do it. So where we are at the
present time, since we discovered that Bank One required the take out, we
said well maybe Bank One will be difficult to deal with in general so we'll
contact additional construction lenders to see what the marketplace is. Ne
also know that construction lenders may require additional financial
strength among our partnership and so we have gone out and talked to and
probably have attracted that additional financial strength which Ne may
need. And then we have now gotten into what is the market. So you have a
list there, number one the banks we have contacted concerning construction
loans. Most of those are in the business subject to approval of the
package. We have contacted some additional development partners, some of
which you recognize. Three of which are based in and around Chanhassen and
two are outside of Chanhassen. In addition to that, we are out to about 13
different national lenders who may or may not be in the forward commitment
business. The difference between a forward commitment and a permanent loan
is many of the lenders will place permanent loans on property today and
they want to close in 2 to 3 months. Because this is a construction
project, they can't perceive closing in a term less than 6 to 9 months and
they're not interested in that kind of business. So what we've been
advised to...Northland Financial is 13 all over the United States. GMAC you
all recognize as being one of the leading lenders in the United States.
Ail of these people that we are dealing with say we'd better get it out to
everybody so we have broadcast it. We're getting the packet out to as many
people as we can to see if in fact anybody,.not necessarily relative to
this project, but if anybody is in the business of forward lending. In
addition to that, we've also contacted some of the local construction
lenders and said look, if we run into problems there, would you lend if we
improved, if we found a partner that had a good relationship with your
bank? And as you know, we only have about 3 or 4 banks in the whole city
that can lend money of this size. They are American National, First
National, Norwest and National City. Ail three are in the business subject
to, to doing an open ended loans subject to having the proper credit. And
so you can imagine what we're going through trying to package this thing
for 3 different kinds of markets. You've got the take out market which
this qualifies for. We are a very good loan, from my point of view. We're
cash flowing and it should work fairly well. From the point of view of a
construction lender, we need and had recognized in advance that we'll
probably have to add a partner or two that has some financial strength in
the proper areas and probably more or less connections to accomplish that
particular transaction and we're seeking the partners to do that. As I
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, lggl - Page 4
stated in the letter, I'm fairly confident at the present time, given the
activity that we're up to but because we're starting say 2 to 3 weeks ago
from a point we didn't think we had a start, that around June 1st we should
have completed this particular package. That's not saying it's closed but
we should have arranged a commitment letter, readjusted our partnership
accordingly and should be able to proceed at that time. I had the
.opportunity to talk to Charlie earlier tod~y and he's the only banker I see
in the group so he might deal with the issues of finding credit today but
that's kind of where we are. Clayton, did you have anything else to add?
Clayton 3ohnson: Well only that I think this is the process. On the left
you identify what you have. What we have is we have a package of investors
that are already in place and we have some leases. On the right hand side
you're trying to identify the criteria that the lenders are going to
require. Once we have that defined, then in the middle we have to meet and
at that point you have to finalize the structure of the partnership and
secure the equity that's required to get the mortgage.
Brad 3ohnson: The problem we're having right now is definition of what
they want. We know the project meets all the standards that they're using.
Pre-leased, cash flowing, national credit, well balanced center. It's got
the grocery store. It's got the hardware store. It's got the liquor store.
It's got lawn and sports. It's got everything anybody ever wanted in a
community center as far as that mix of things are concerned. That has
taken us 2 1/2 years. We've got plenty of city assistance. I mean all the
things are in place in our mind now that we have the Gateway lease to
proceed. It's just that we're into now an area where people don't want to
lend. I mean they're not aggressively looking for deals. I think I've
explained before when we did Town Square we'had to have a pre-lease
requirement of 40~ to close. When we did the office building over there,
we had to have a pre-lease commitment of 50~ to close. 51~. We're not at
85~ pre-leased and that amounts to about 13 different tenants that you have
to put together who are willing to wait for a period of time of up to 3
years to move into someplace. That's tough to do but that's the
requirement that they're putting on developers such as ourselves today.
Now I have a book, I've got to keep all these around but this is the kind
of thing we had to put together this week just to kind of explain the
transaction to everybody. That's what we've got on the street. Now as far
as completion date, we're always, once we get a commitment letter from a
bank, we're about 60 days away from starting. That's kind of where we
always say we are. If you guys have any ideas, I've given you a list of
those contacts that I've contacted. If some of you have, I know TCF,
Charlie will take care of us.
Robbins: I'm at TCF and what Brad is saying about the construction lending
is basically true. The appetite is changing. Our appetite for construction
lending is changing. We're not even doing of any right now. At all.
We're not even in that marketplace now. We were a while ago. You know a
while ago as far as construction but right now I can see exactly what
they're saying. Going to the open end into construction versus take out.
It's a tough marketplace. Very tough.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 5
Horn: In your view Charlie, what are the percentages that this thing will
go through?
Robbins: What do you mean percentages? I'm not sure I follow.
Horn: That somebody will decide to go with it.
Robbins: You're seeing more and more where they want it leased out fully.
Brad was saying it was 40~ and now it's 50~, 60~, 70~. We've seen ones
that are even higher than that.
Brad Johnson: Full is almost 90 to them. We're only $~ away the worse
case. They have increased their equity requirement. We still qualify in
that area. I think the major thing that we have now is we did depend upon
Bank One to fund it and we weren't sort of "prospecting" the market here
locally and we've got to catch up real quick is what we're trying to do.
Robbins: Especially when you look at the construction lending in the first
part. Yeah, it is basically the credit worthiness of the partners. That's
where it starts looking at.
Horn: And the lease ratio?
Robbins: Sure. Whole thing.
Brad Johnson: The end loan people are looking for the lease ratio and
you've got to up to 85~. We're there. I mean I call around and show this
project, that book to people and they say wow. You've done your job. Now
that's the first time they've seen it however. Some are saying they're
just too busy to look.
Horn: What would your ratio be without Lawn and Sports?
Brad Johnson: Higher.
Horn: Higher?
Brad Johnson: We just wouldn't build that spot. Lawn and Sport has no
affect on our project whatsoever. From a financing capability or anything.
I told Bernie that today. It's a neutral thing. The way we've set that
up, he's buying out his interest. We "make no profit" on his deal because
there's mark up on it and we have a certain amount of construction costs.
This all pass through. There's no benefit, to the center financially from
having Bernie in there. There is a benefit by having him in there because
he generates traffic.
Horn: I still don't have a good feel for where we're going to be on June
1st.
Brad Johnson: If you want my answer, I can predict that we'll have a
solution. I did meet with a group of partners this afternoon that were
willing to step in who we've done business with in the past but we have to
sort of play out a couple other things that we started and in that
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 6
particular case I think we then have the relationships we need to get
financing. I mean that's probably what we have to do.
Horn: So if everything really went well and you had everything in place by
June let, you're saying that you're still 80 days after that before you
could start construction?
Brad 3ohnson: Well, what I say is in place. We'll get a letter of
commitment by then. There are normal nitty gritty things that we have to
do both with the city and the banks to close a loan. Don and I are
surviving one right now, much to our surprise on a different kind of a deal
where they just question documents. If they've never seen an HRA
redevelopment agreement, their lawyers will attack that. I mean this is
the kind of stuff we go through and so I'd say it'd take at least 60 days
to close the transaction because nobody, the lenders, it's a very
complicated transaction when you throw in tax increment and redevelopment
agreements and agreements that the bank lawyers in general have to approve.
Horn: Do you see still being in this construction season?
Brad 3ohnson: Yes. The problem is I think we're going to open, right now
I'd say with Bank One in as the contractor, construction lender. Say I got
a permanent loan commitment within a week or two weeks, we could probably
start earlier because we've already got the credit arranged with them. But
if Bank One should decide not to be the construction lender, then we've got
to build this sort of new relationship with either Norwest or National City
or something like that.
Robbins: To do the construction deal, the up front one, what just general
dollars are you looking at?
Brad 3ohnson: 4 to 4.2 million and so that goes beyond most banks in the
community. I mean your Norwest, First Bank, Marquette's in there but
they're not in business either. So you basically are looking to two
aggressive construction lenders and Firststar can do it through their
Wisconsin group in Wisconsin. They're got proposals out to all of them.
As I said I can report, today somebody called me on the phone and said
yesterday he thought he had somebody interested and he called them and they
said they're not lending. It's just the way life is.
Robbins: Brad, on the construction you've got 6 parties, or 7 parties
listed. Let's be a little pessimistic. Let's say you contact all 7 of
those and they all say no.
Brad 3ohnson: One has said yes.
Robbtns: Okay, one has said yes. So let's say that. But if they all had
said no, what are you going to do?
Brad 3ohnson: Well we still haven't contacted 3 or 4 other of the major
players in town. Okay? It's a matter, what we've done is we've gone to
the ones we think we can do the deal with with the least amount of pain and
time because we know who they are and we've done deals with them in the
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 7
past. I met with them this afternoon and they're very interested in doing
this project. 8ut we've got another partner we've got to work with and
that's Amcon in that particular case. The natural tendency is to go to
contractors as partners. To raise another question, nobody is interested
in owning real estate anymore. If you go out and try to sell somebody on
owning real estate, it's really tough. I don't know if any of you guys
know any, you know where the AT&T building is? Downtown Edtna. You know
what that was built for? $110.00 a square foot. You know what it's for
sale for? $30.00. Shade Oak II is for sale for $20.00 a square foot.
8urnwood, these are all big buildings and what's happened is. that the
lenders are just puzzled. Here they were getting $16.00 rent and now
they're getting $$.00. This is not in Chanhassen. See Chanhassen we don't
have an over abundance of anything. $o we're getting good rents but they
don't know where Chanhassen is. I mean I'm talking about the big national
guys. So they're just looking at, trying to figure out what to do with
their portfolios. And we're overbuilt. Not necessarily in Chanhassen.
Horn: In the region.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. The Mega Mall as far as retail is concerned, there's
been a moratorium on any retail lending in the metropolitan area by
national lenders because they figure the Mega Mall's going to solve all our
needs. I mean you know aggresive again.
Horn: Don, you had a question?
Chmiel: Yeah, I guess I had one question. As you mentioned the fact that
you are having some being interested in the project. And here again we're
looking at specific dates. Whether we can start or not, that's another
question. None of these people are being commited at this particular time.
Brad Johnson: Well, we have a process we have to go through. We have a
partnership and the partnership decides to go look for a permanent loan.
Now my date is next Friday. I don't feel good about finding a permanent
loan, we probably have to make some kind of changes in the partnership. If
we find a permanent loan or have an indication by then, we'll go ahead
right then.
Chmiel: I guess where I'm coming from Brad, from sitting here and
listening to the presentations that we've had previously, it's always
another kind of situation coming up. And truthfully, as you well know,
I've indicated that that bothers me. To me it's just like listening to a
broken record. I'm getting to the point where I want to see something take
place. It should have taken place and yet we've not.
Brad Johnson: I think we'd be more than happy if you bring a buyer in to
sell our position in the project.
Chmiel: That's your job. I'm here to run a part of the city.
Brad Johnson: I know but I'm Just saying, at that point you give me a list
of people to contact who are actually doing business. There are no
mortgages being pulled today for retail buildings. Period. The last one
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 8
was probably a Cub out in, and those two mortgages on Cub were guaranteed
and the centers are being built by Super Value. I mean Don, this is a real
tough market for this kind of thing. The Gateway lease has only been in
place 30 days so I cannot go out, or 35 you know. Right in there. It's
just a big surprise for us and we hope to be able to, I mean I made
progress today. I had a person leave the room and he said I don't think
financing will be a problem. But we have to do some changes internally to
accomplish that. Okay? And Clayton has told me, what have you told me to
do? Get it done. Right?
Clayton 3ohnson: Well I'd like to think that we're going into this thing
together. The City and ourselves. I don't want to get the feeling that
I'm out there by myself. I mean you're looking at partners that have
invested a significant amount of money in this project.
Chmiel: We realize that.
Clayton Johnson: And you're talking to partners that are willing to do
whatever it takes to get the job done. 8ut I'd like to think that we're
exploring this not only for our own benefit but also because the HRA has
expressed an interest in having a retail center in Chanhassen and there's a
good chance that if we are not successful in taking this opportunity with a
lease with a major grocery store, that Chanhassen never will have retail.
I don't like the feeling that we're out here all by ourselves trying to do
this thing. I think we're working at it together. I think working
together we got Gateway's commitment. And I think you have to recognize
the lending climate. If you don't recognize the lending climate, I don't
konw what to do. I guess I have to try to educate you but it's a very
difficult climate and we are committed to taking what we have on the left,
which are the leases and some significant investors already in place.
Amcon and 81oomberg and Lotus are all serious investors that have a lot of
money into this thing and we are willing to go over and explore on the
right what the lending community is insisting that this deal look like.
Once we understand that and are current today. Not what the climate was 60
days ago or 90 days ago. We are willing to make whatever changes we have
to make in our partnership to meet that criteria but it may take some
bending on the part of the city also. That's one of the reasons I haven't
been talking to Don and I don't see any point in us pushing and shoving in
regards to what the loan, to what the assistance package is until we have
that well defined. When we have those pieces in place, then we can sit
down and work it out together. 8ut I mean, nobody puts more pressure on
getting this thing done than we do. We've got a lot of money invested. We
have our special assessments. You've given us tremendous incentive. The
special assessments on our portion of that land this year is $60,000.00.
So I mean we have every incentive to develop that property but we can't do
something that's impossible. We can't force lenders to lend money. We
can't force tenants to sign leases. We can't do that.
Chmiel: 3ust what you said, bending on the part of the city. What did you
mean by that?
Clayton Johnson: When we determine what the final criteria over here is,
in fact one of the things that Bank One objects to is the structure of the
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 9
assistance to the city in the form of rent assistance to the grocery store.
Don't ask me why but that's one of the things they might object to. Not
that they object to the assistance but they object to the form of it. It
may be that we have to alter the form of that. I don't know. We're not
presenting it that way when we bring our package out to the marketplace.
We are presenting it exactly as it is. But it's possible that we may have
to bend a little. We don't know..
Brad 3ohnson: People don't understand necessarily TIF. They don't
understand these types of packages. They don't understand why Chanhassen
wants a grocery store as bad as it looks like you need one. Now you know
we all know that. We put this super package together to go out. We've
sold Gateway. It took 7 months just to get Gateway on the lease but we did
it and we've gone from 40~. The first time we went to the bank with this
we had 40~ pre-lease. We're now at $5~ and other than Bernie and a couple
of other minor tenants that are nervous about what their future is because
they've got other pressures on them, most people are holding fast and we
are getting new tenants prospects because they think this is a real diamond
in the rough kind of location because we don't have the competition in the
retail area and our existing retailers are doing just fine. If you read in
there, we have built Town Square. This is important now. Not to the city.
It is because they pay the taxes but Town Square's cash flowing. The
hotel's making a profit. Our office building is cash flowing, if Tom ever
gets moved in because we approve the sign. Ah, kidding you but the
apartment building is full and cash flowing. We even did Gateway Center
and it's cash flowing which is over at the old Hanus building. It's full.
It never had tenants before. That was all done after 1957. That's after
the 1986 tax loss. Nothing has been developed at cash flow since then, in
general. We've got the buildings being built downtown. NSP has decided
not to move and build a new building for example but First Bank. The new
building there we got built is half full. Half full. And it was being
built. All our things that we've done in this town, and we think which is
the message we have to get out to people, that there's a demand and we're
full. And you're into a market where people are actually looking for good
loans but they don't necessarily know where on earth Chanhassen is.
Nobody's chasing money out here to say hey, this is just a great place to
lend money to. As a target, we've got to go find them. I think we can
find construction lenders. We've done construction loans with Norwest,
First. Here in our own territory. Our own deals so I think we can find
the lenders because they've had some confidence in these projects out here.
I think we can all be proud that we've done what we've done. We're worked
the plan. If you look, we did exactly what we said we were going to do 5
years ago but in every case, and some of you don't remember because you
haven't been around long enough. Every deal. Remember the apartment
building? You just about killed me on that one. When is it going to be
done? That took us what Don? Three years? A number of financing
packages. And I'm not saying this is going to take 3 years. We are to the
point that we think it's marketable and that's what we're doing.
Workman: How long is Gateway on the...
(There was a tape change during the discussion at this point.)
Housing and Redevelopment Authority MeetinQ
April lB, 1991 - Page 10
Workman: Don, you always accuse me of wanting everything now, now, now.
Brad $ohnson: Very yuppie.
Workman: Like all the rest of you. And I think a lot of the frustration
is that, and maybe it's not directed at Clayton and you and Herb and
company. I think you guys have proven to be outstanding at making money
and wanting to make money. Maybe above average desires to make money. But
it's the outside, out of town, the Gateways and the Oklahoma or Germany or
wherever they come from and the lenders and New Mexico or wherever they're
coming from that are all kind of dictating this thing and I know
everybody's getting a little frustrated with that. But I don't know that
we have another option. Another grocery store or anything else so I don't
know where or how we can say to you guys, either do it or don't. But I do
have some other concerns and I know Bernie's going to brtn~ those up. The
one very close to home concern we have, and I don't know if I'm happy to
hear that Bernie, you don't care if Bernie goes in there or not.
Brad 3ohnson: No, the project is not structured in such a way that we need
Bernie.
Workman: But the City Council might relieve some pressure if we can get
8ernie a home and get his building down and everything else. Maybe that's
where we should direct some of our frustration and let the grocery store
happen. I know we all want it to happen and if it doesn't happen we're all
going to be nuts. So I don't know but I think everybody's a little
frustrated so you're the people that we see.
Brad 3ohnson: Remember we've got about a quarter of a million dollars
invested in this. The City probably has $20,000.00 plus the total
investment so far plus the special assessments which are assessed against
the land. Now you have not put dollars into this project as yet other than
the assessments to build the roads and that's all assessed against us. So
as Clayton says, hey guys. If we don't get the Job done, a quarter million
dollars down the drain okay? And we just put another $100,000.00 in since
September because we think we can get it done.
Workman: I don't know if my comments reflect the mood of everybody. I
haven't talked to everybody about whether they're as frustrated as maybe
everybody else. I don't know what the HRA has left to do. I feel like I
want to do something but is there anything to do other than to wait and sit
and wait. Charlie would say probably no. Nothing.
Robbins: No, I'm not saying yes or noi I can appreciate where Brad's
coming from. I'm speaking the market lending right now, since I'm in that
business, it's tough. It's a real tough business and I'm frustrated too.
I'd like to see the deal started and see the thing going and looking
forward to getting it done and yeah, you've got some sizeable money in it
so it's in your best interest to get it done. It's in our best interest to
make sure, to help it along. I think it's in all our best interest, and
from what we were saying with Clayton, I think we all have to work together
on this deal.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April lB, 1991 - Page 11
Horn: I think that we as an HRA have demonstrated the fact that we go for
the long haul on these projects. You know this whole downtown project is
something that Jim at least has witnessed and they thought would happen
long before now. Others of us have been involved with that as well as
other projects with the city such as TH $ construction and TH 212. I guess
the thing that I've learned over the years of being involved with this is
that things don't happen the way you'd like them to. And if I had to sit
and wait in business the way I seem to have to sit and wait for government
and these kinds of things to happen, I'd get very frustrated with the whole
thing. It seems to be a slow pace that happens with getting this kind of
thing done. As far as Clayton's concerned, I don't think you need to have
a concern. We've demonstrated that we're in this for the long pull. We're
obviously frustrated and we like things to happen but I think they will
happen and I don't see any other options that we can pursue that would make
them happen more quickly. I think Brad has aptly pointed out, he has an
even greater incentive to make this happen than we do. And in looking at
it from a motivational standpoint in business to make things happen, I
don't think we could be in a better position than that. So I think I share
the frustration that everybody has but I think we have to hope something
happens. I don't have any good words to tell Bernie. He obviously has an
option now that he didn't have before. I guess he'll have to try to assess
what makes sense for him as well as we have to try to assess what makes
sense for us. Do you have any thoughts along that line Bernie or did the
presentation do anything to help you in your dilemma? Sometimes options
are worst because then you have to make a choice.
Chmiel: Yeah, we can't guarantee that Market Square is a reality at this
time.
Horn: You've got a real thing that might not be as attractive as you'd
ultimately like to have but it's something that you can see right now.
Bernie Hanson: What I addressed in the letter, I don't want to be sitting
6 weeks or 2 months down the road and Market Square is dead and here comes
my eviction notice and I don't even have... 18 years of my business down
the drain.
Horn: And you know that's not a decision that we should, that we can even
speculate on for you. I think you're going to have to wrestle with that
one. I can certainly understand either choice you'd make. It's very
attractive to see something where you can see where your future's going.
Bernie Hanson: I think one of the decisions that would sway me to...is as
I addressed in the letter, assistance to go that other direction. I know
it was set up to be assistance to move into Market Square. If somebody
could guarantee me...but nobody can guarantee me that Market Square is
going to happen. I heard everything here just as well as you. I guess how
a big a gambler are you and how well can you call the shots? What are the
odds?
Horn: You had some questions?
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 15, 1991 - Page 12
Bohn: Yes. I wanted to know, Brad? What would cause Gateway to drop out
of this project?
Brad Johnson: Well right now, I can ask them... I would think if they
thought we'd never get it done but as I said, they don't have a lot of
development projects. See they have the same problem we do. They can't
get into projects at a reasonable rent unless the place is pre-leased.
Okay?
Clayton Johnson: Super Value putting in a Cub in another location they
would drop this like a hot potato.
Brad Johnson: A Cub close by.
Chmiel: Do you have a drop dead date from Gateway?
Brad Johnson: No.
Bohn: If a Cub moves into Eden Prairie by Eden Prairie Center would they?
Brad Johnson: No, that's already planned. They had planned, the good
news is they had planned a Cub at Eden Prairie Center and a Rainbow at
TH 101 and TH 7 and the project still works. They just perceive this as a
real opportunity for them.
Gerhardt: So if a Cub in Eden Prairie went in, they would still go ahead?
Clayton Johnson: Yes.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, in their plan is a Cub in Eden Prairie and a Rainbow
at TH 101 and TH 7.
Gerhardt: So where would another Cub come from?
Clayton Johnson: Chaska.
Brad Johnson: Yeah Chaska but it's not big enough.
Clayton Johnson: But the point is, they do their retail market studies and
they do it on the basis of everything they know and everything they
comtemplate and the whole fear that we get is that there is no assurance
that Chanhassen will have a grocery store. There's no assurance that it
will.
Bohn: If you get the financing by June 1st, when will the store be open?
Brad Johnson: Well, it would open right after Christmas at that point.
Bohn: Not until after the first of the year?
Brad Johnson: We figure 6 months construction. The trick is to get going
so we get the parking lots in and then we can open during the winter.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 13
Horn: Anything else?
Workman: Well, I don't know what would we need to do to figure out the
Bernie option? Do we need a staff analysis of what our options are from
the old contract? Is there a new contract? Does the old contract stay?
Ashworth: We just received Bernie's request yesterday afternoon. Quite
honestly I have not read it yet. Prior to your next meeting we will do
that. We will make an analysis of it and a report back to the HRA so that
item would appear on your next agenda.
Horn: One of the questions I'd want answered in that is it appears to me
that one of our incentives would be based on the fact that we would be
creating a larger tax base in the city to receive tax. In light of the
fact that we are going into an existing building, there would be a certain
increment of building construction that we wouldn't see. Does that
directly affect what would be an incentive in this case?
Ashworth: I'm sure that that will be part of our recommendation and Bernie
was correct. When the initial acquisition was considered, I think that we
bent significantly in terms of trying to get Bernie into a new location
which included payment for his existing facility and the way it was
structured was that if he went into the center, he was receiving about
double what we've offered on other incentive programs and I think we did
that recognizing that he's been in the community and you wouldn't really
have that many precedent situations where you'd have to look at this type
of thing again. So the increment that he would be generating by his new
construction would be falling back to him. This proposal has the definite
disadvantage that it does not generate any additional increment. And
again, I haven't read the letter so I'm making certain assumptions just
from verbal discussions with Bernie.
Horn: Is it safe for him to assume that the amount of incentive would be
less going into an existing facility than into a new facility?
Ashworth: Well, actually the way we had structured it before was he
received, and it's been such a long time since I looked at that agreement
Bernie but I believe it was $150,000.00 if you would go into the new Market
Square because we felt that that would help make that overall thing work.
If he went somewhere else within the district and created new construction
I believe the amount was $100,000.00.
Horn: And created new construction?
Ashworth: Created new construction. And I believe it set a particular
value. So in other words, he would have to construct a new facility within
the tax increment district valued at least and then there's an amount.
$200,000.00 or $250,000.00. I don't know what the amount was. A certain
value construction.
Horn: Maybe for Bernie's benefit we could get a sense from the group here
if we could, what type of. We can't go into specific numbers but we might
give you a flavor for what we think would be a reasonable kind of approach
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991- Page 14
to take on this. I guess what I'd like to get from this body is, is this
body leaning towards the same type of incent, ive as we would give to go into
Market Square? Would we be looking at the kind of incentive that Don is
talking about? In a free standing building and how would we look at going
into an existing building? Tom?
Workman: Well, first thing I want to kind of addres~ and I talked to
Bernie the other day. You know we're talking about studying this and the
next meeting and everything else. Edtna Realty pretty much had that
building bought or rented from Sorenson and were going to move 30 agents
into town and everything else and the next thing you knew they weren't.
There's not many other buildings, existing buildings in town that Bernie
could go in. That is probably it. Is 30 days asking, may not be asking
for too much. 30 days may be, the opportunity may be lost and it may not
be worth it anyway which would severely restrict Bernie's options again. I
don't know that I'm suggesting we make a decision tonight based on numbers
we don't have but is there anyway we can?
Horn: That's what I'm asking for. Could we give Bernie at some sense
without getting into specifics of numbers of what kind of a feeling we
would have for an incentive for a different location than Market Square. I
assume you'd like to hear that type of thing.
Bernie Hanson: Well it gives me some idea. See the other question comes
back, as I said in the letter, I signed a letter of intent with Market
Square. If Market Square happens, I have no concern. But if it doesn't,
what the hell do I do? You know. I don't want to pack up and leave. I've
put too many years into the whole business. That's why Jeff is sitting
here. I mean we had a go around today. I said are you in or aren't you?
I'm not going to keep busting my guts to try and make this and the stress
I'm under. And he said, well I want it. Well okay then, we've got to keep
fighting.
Bohn: Would you be adding onto that building or just remodeling?
Bernie Hanson: I would try to operate. First off, I haven't studied it
enough to know if I can add to it or not. Square footage on the ground and
all that. Right now it looks like I would try to go in there and operate
on a smaller basis. When I say smaller, we're sitting right now about
4,500 square feet. If I just went down there right now, and just took the
vacant that's there, I would have 5,500 square feet. The advantage is I
don't have 3 buildings built into one so I could make it a hell of a lot
more efficient. So I think that part would work. I think originally, and
I. was going back on some of the original things but might... Originally it
was set up for some screened storage and additional building on the corner
back there. When you see the plot, it's a real crooked plot back there.
It's got a finger that goes way in behind that other building back there.
It was set up to have a 20 x 40 storage building. That's where I addressed
putting up cold storage building on that property and fencing. I think we
could make it work. In going back to part of your question, my plan would
be to go in there and not change what's happening there now and trying to
get this thing off the ground and running. And back to your question Jim,
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 -Page 15
I'd have to see if I could. I would like to expand it but I don't know
that the square footage of the ground there would allow me to do it.
Bohn: How about the parking?
Bernie Hanson: The parking? You get can diagonally a decent amount and
there would be on the west side parking and I think we can handle that.
There's not any abundance but a few things that have to be studied...
Bohn: Would you be taking just the space that was used by Big A Auto or
would you be taking more space?
Bernie Hanson: Big A Auto and the plumbing. Big A Auto had 3,500 square
feet and the plumbing has 2,000. So the way I plan to go in there, 5,500
square feet. Then you've got the beauty shop on the west side and you've
got that little legal office where the drive... I'd like to have that out
of there but it looks like he's got a pretty tough lease. Again, I haven't
studies that deep enough that I can answer that. I would really like to
take the two of the small offices out but the west side could stay there
for right now. Because see that would give us another, see they're 1,500
square feet. No, they're less than that. It would give us about 6,000
square feet if we just left th~ beauty shop in...
Chmiel: Bernie, as you're probably aware, that outside screened storage
would not be permitted area in that particular facility. According to what
the zoning ordinance is right now. You're aware of that?
Bernie Hanson: No, I'm not aware of that. Because I was going by what had
been on this original plan.
Chmiel: $orenson's original?
Bernie Hanson: Yeah.
Horn: That had outside screened storage?
Workman: You're saying it's not allowed?
Krauss: I'll have to go get a Code book and research it but my
recollection is it's not. And I've been back behind there. That's a real
tight space. Parking's kind of tough on that building and I think you need
the rear area to park in...whatever happens around the front. It only
worked with Big A because it didn't generate a lot of traffic.
Ashworth: My recollection is that Mike had originally wanted to take and
have open storage in that area and as the item went through Planning
Commission and City Council, there was a great deal of discussion that that
was not desired and I feel fairly comfortable in stating that the final
conditional use permit mandated that any type of storage be inside. At one
time I thought that he even built a small shed in the back. I don't know
if that's there or not.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 199! - Page 16
Bernie Hanson: Well I didn't check into that. I'm just going by what he
told me had been approved.
Chmiel: I wanted to throw that out so you'd be aware of that.
Bernie Hanson: In fact I didn't even know who I'd call. I was going to
try to call somebody and then the whole day got away on me again. If
I could have...said yes, no. I don't know...but yes. That would have to
have some storage for me out there screened and I know it would be
critical. I know I would run into a problem there...real good screen. I'm
not walking into that blinded. Now you're saying it's not possible period?
Of course, that would really hamper it.
Chmiel: That would have to be checked out.
Horn: Getting back to where we might be coming from on incentive. It
looks like we'd have three options. The original, and I think what Bernie
is asking for if I interpretted your letter correctly, is you'd be looking
for the same type of assistance as if you were going into Market Square?
That's one option. The other option would be the option Don pointed out.
What we had previously offered to locate a new building someplace else. Or
a third option might be something to relocate within an existing building.
I think we should give Bernie some sense tonight where we might lean on
those three options.
Workman: And like I was going to say, because of the situation that, the
pressure that's now created because Market Square won't go with Copeland
and Company breathing down his neck and they want the building down and
everything, I would be all for trying to figure out an option.
Horn: Other than those three or one of those three?
Workman: One of them. That's pretty comprehensive.
Horn: Which one would you lean towards?
Workman: Well, when you bring in the fact that we were going to recoup
whatever we're going to give him from tax increment from new construction,
it does change the situation.
Horn: So you'd be looking at something less than the Market Square?
Workman: Well unless we can make that original option work somehow. I
don't know how.
Horn: Don, what's your feeling on that?
Chmiel: As I see it right now, the TIF portion that's not what the full
intent was with the contractual agreement that was signed and I'd like to
see staff review it and come up with some conclusion on it.
Horn: I think they'll make a recommendation too and I suspect, maybe you
could give us a feeling where your recommendation possibly lie in terms of
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 17
those three options.
Ashworth: Having just received it, I'm not sure what it totally entails. I
think there's more to the issue than Just the subsidy. I th~nk that how
the property would be used and how it could be used to meet Bernie's needs
as well as the needs of the city. I thought that I had read somewhere in
the letter that you would like consideration being able to keep the
existing building?
Bernie Hanson: Well I addressed that because his building plans showed
that there was an existing 20 x 40 storage building on that property and
that's what he said had been approved. Now I'm getting a different answer
here now so I approached it in the letter that we'd be using materials from
that building. In other words, tear that building down and build a 20 x 40
...cold on that property.
Ashworth: I would 'like to hear the comments from our planning department
and engineering. I'd like to be able to take a look at what the current
tax stream is off of that property and all of it in a report for you. I
really feel uncomfortable trying to come up with something off the top of
my head.
Horn: We're not looking for specifics. We're looking for very general
concepts at this point. Charlie, do you have any feeling on that?
Robbins: Yeah, as far as to try to help Bernie, I think we want to' try to
help out 8ernie. In terms of which option, I feel uncomfortable which one
I lean to. I think in terms of we agree to Bernie to give him assistance'.
What the dollar amount is, I can't comment since we don't know what the
exact specs are. But yeah, I would see it positively to give Bernie
assistance. Brad had mentioned that you wouldn't build the part of Market
Square if Bernie's not going to be there?
Horn: Right.
Brad Johnson: We still have to, we might need the assistance you offered.
Robbtns: What? I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said Brad.
Brad 3ohnson: Correct.
Robbins: So as far as the dollars, ! can't comment. Obviously Don's in a
better position for that but I would positively see to give Bernie
assistance of some sort. Whether it be to go to ab existing building or
new construction.
Hot n: J i m?
Robbins: But I think a question though back to Bernie, if in fact the City
or whatever the powers flying or code that says you can't build that outlot
building on that. In other words that storage, would your plans change
then on that?
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 18
Bernie Hanson: I don't even want to think about that.
Robbins: Are you looking for just that outside storage forgetting the
amount of square footage or is it just that you want outside storage rather
than having the storage inside?
Bernie Hanson: The outside storage is strictly for the ~etting ready for
equipment coming in, if you follow what I'm saying.
Robbins: Yeah, like the snowmobiles and the summer products.
Bernie Hanson: Like I said, I addressed it. I know it has to be screened
because I know where it sits. I mean we went through this with the Market
Square. I'm not taking that lightly and that's where I know I need
assistance because I know we're going to spend a good amount of money, if
it's okay to do and we can do it, I know it's going to cost money to do it.
Robbins: But that's what I was saying back though. In terms of whatever
reason that it's not okay. Would you still want the building?
Jeff Hanson: We have to have some kind of an outlot building to have as
what we call warehousino.
Bernie Hanson: You know when the stuff comes in because you can't just put
it.all under your feet.
Robbins: But if the driver's ed place and the legal place was to leave,
would that give you enough storage then?
3eff Hanson: No. It would give us more internal shop space. For repair.
8ohn: How about if the beauty shop was out of there?
Chmiel: Yeah. That was my question. Or the drivin(;.
Bernie Hanson: See we're still really hit hard with outside storage in our
type of facility. Like in the Market Square we had the storage behind.
I guess we just...
3eff Hanson: We can't afford to have a perfectly good building just to
hold equipment...
Bernie Hanson: A holding area is what it is. And yes, it's got to be down
sized. You've got to...faster. You might have to do a lot of things to
make it work.
Bohn: If the zoning isn't there, then what?
Bernie Hanson: Then I'm dead. But that's the big question we've got to
get addressed. I was going by what Mike had told me that had been
approved.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 19
Bohn: I thought there was a small shed there and I thought they tore it
down. I thought Mike had a small shed.
Ashworth: Can ! just add one comment?
Hot n: Yes, do.
Ashworth: We spend a lot of time and energy in terms of trying to locate
Bernie as part of the Market Square development recognizing that we could
develop a front face for him that would be very attractive. The tenant
within a larger structure. He would have to abide by the same rules as the
rest of the tenants and similarly he would have the ability to operate out
of the back of the building and a lot of the things he's talking about
here, without necessarily creating an eyesore type of a problem for the
community. I feel more optimistic about the supermarket or Market Square
thing being a reality. I realize that we are in a tough market but the
thing that has stopped us for the past 7-8 years has been a grocery store.
We have not gotten a grocery store commitment. We've got it. Now we find
this last little bugaboo and I think that we're all frustrated because of
that. I am. But what I heard Brad say, Clayton, is that they had a
partnership developed. That partnership was relatively financially strong.
Enough so that in a typical market they could have done the deal. They're
still going to try to but they've set a deadline that if they can't get it
done within the existing partnership, that they'll look to a Ryan, a
Krauss. There is money out there but they would have to change the
partnership to do it. And what I heard them saying is they're going to try
to do it.
Chmiel: Can we do that simultaneously?
Ashworth: Well I think what I heard them say was they're giving it one
more week. The end of one more week, if they can't make it, they'll look
at a. change in the partnership.
Horn: I'm optimistic too that this is going to happen but again...I
wouldn't commit to Bernie that this is going to happen. Don't worry. I'd
never tell you that.
Bernie Hanson: I was hoping you'd change your mind.
Brad Johnson: I think I can add a little... I think our process, like the
Mayor was suggesting, can be a parallel process. I told Bernie earlier
this evening that he'd have to make a decision as to which direction he
wanted to go by next Friday or he was out of Market Square if he should
decide.
Chmiel: A week from this Friday.
Brad Johnson: Well, what I could do is reconstruct my performa while I 'm
shopping and say we've got, because it doesn't make much difference anyway.
We've got Bernie in and ~ernie out. Quite honestly for the center to get
an end loan commitment, it's easier with Bernie out than in. Okay, because
one of the objections is his buy out rights. If he didn't have buy out
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 20
rights, he wouldn't have a problem. Not Bernie's. It's the way he wants
to structure the deal. I can shop that deal during the month. My big
concern for Bernie is, number one is he's going into a 3,500 square foot
currently vacant building, expandable to about 5,000. We have lO,O00
square feet over for you on the other side. I've redesigned the Hanus
building a couple times for him at 4,500 square feet and we ended up double
decking and we couldn't make it work there because we still ended up around
lO,O00 square feet. I don't know if that building's that big number one.
If you have to go to outside storage, I mean I would think that outside
storage in that area, after my last night's visit with the Planning
Commission, is difficult or more difficult than getting a sign change on,
which I consider a minor deal. In my mind and it's only taken, we've got
how many hours now into that one? We've got 4 meetings and for Bernie to
make a commitment not to go into Market Square because we're moving along
and I don't know if he could. Even if you gave him all the money in the
world to go in there, he may not make it because of the Planning Commission
and your own regulations that says he can't do what he wants to do.
Workman: Well he won't make it through the Planning Commission.
Brad Johnson: I know he won't.
Workman: I'm telling you that right now.
Chmiel: If you gave him all the money in the world, he'd be out fishing.
Brad Johnson: I know that. All I'm saying is, I perceive that site is the
gateway to Chanhassen. It's the main entrance to Chanhassen. He's on the
corner there and whatever you do in there you see. Someday all those trees
are going to come down between the railroad tracks and the dinner theatre
and they're going to landscape that so they can park buses. It's all
planned and the back of that building's going to be the front of the
building. And when the Planning Commission sees all of that, they're going
to say well why are we doing this? I was at a meeting last night about a
cul-de-sac. Well, why are we doing this? We made up our minds years ago.
In addition to that, I don't think you can build the same building there. I
think it's a metal building isn't it?
Ashworth: That's the question I asked. Bernie told me it's concrete.
Bernie Hanson: Sorenson's building is concrete.
Brad Johnson: Well you can't do a concrete block building there anymore I
don't think as a concrete block building. You've got to do a, the rules
have changed.
Krauss: You can't do a plain block building anymore.
Brad Johnson: The rules have changed. Here's the problem. Bernie can go
ahead and do that. Sorenson can say he's going to do what he's going to do
but the City process to do what he'll have to do, is a 3 to 4 month
process. And you know that. I mean you guys all know that. And I've been
here at the HRA and we've concocted a lot of ideas. You know the whole
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 21
downtown. I've gone to the Planning Commission and just gotten stone
walled with ideas we all thought were good ideas. Okay? And that's
reality. So I'm willing to work on my side to give him the flexibility up
until the time I close on the mortgage or as long as a lender will permit
so that he can be in or out because I don't think he significantly impacts
my problem. But on the other hand, I think you've got to be realistic
about what you're up to.
Bernie Hanson: All I'm trying to say is, $o I can stay in business.
That's all it amounts to.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And in addition to that, for your own information,
one of my partners is Copeland and Methune. We have a lot of pressure on
them not to pressure Bernie. Okay?
Bernie Hanson: You keep him off my butt and I'll stay there, as I said in
the letter.
Brad Johnson: But I think we've got a couple of more months there. But
the good news is that it's possible that the clinic wants to expand and a
lot of other good things are happening over there and you want to move in
so I think we can work both ends and I told him this afternoon. He said
what would you do and I said take Sorenson if it's a sure thing. I can't
guarantee you anything. You guys aren't going to guarantee him anything
but you could probably try to. See if it's feasible. I don't think you've
done the feasibility study and that's getting it through Paul. And getting
financing for what you have to do. You come back to these guys with a
number and say this is the number. Here's what I'm going to have to do.
They might like that and Don would have the time to figure out how to do it
if it's possible.
Bernie Hanson: ...tonight, it's to the Planning Commission might be the
biggest hurdle.
Brad Johnson: And the City Council.
Horn: Well, I think you can't say that the Planning Commission can kill
the project. They don't have the final say on that project. The City
Council has the final say on that project. They can recommend but City
Council has the final say on it. So whether the project is dead or not is
not their decision. It's going to be these two fellows and the other three
Council people that will decide that. Any other questions or comments?
Workman: Only that, if he does hang on and wait for Market Square and that
doesn't happen, then he still does have that pressure. Then there may be
another option.
Brad Johnson: I think what he should do is go for both and we'll do what
we can do to help so we don't have...we develop the Market Square. You
guys do...
Chmiel: You know where we're all coming from basically. I guess we're, as
I indicated, I'm frustrated and I still am. We've worked damn hard to get
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 22
that grocery store here and I'm still in the position to see Market Square
go. But with the time delays and problems that exist and Bernie enters
into, we have to just try to keep this thing going so everybody stays. I
don't want to displace any business person within this community, I don't
care who is it. I have a concern with it. But I think if we can try to
work it with the best of two worlds and try to get this thing going maybe
from both ends, see what happens. In the meantime, we'll pull together
something from the city.
Bohn: Would we be setting a precedent if we would give him the same
package, give Bernie the same package going to Sorenson's building as he
would in Market Square?
Chmiel: No. That's something for determination to be made by staff to
come up with a conclusion to that.
Horn: I think that's pretty safe to assume. Any other questions?
3elf Hanson: If we stay where we're at in our existing place right now and
say we have to stay there through this next season, the building we're in
is in bad shape. We have major repairs to stay in that. We have major
water problems...big factor.
Bernie Hanson:
really...
Through all the construction and all the vibrating
3elf Hanson: Separate the buildings. Since there's three buildings there
together...basically starting to separate.
Workman: It's four buildings and a trailer nowi
Horn: Anything else? Thank you gentlemen. Let's move on to the next
item.
DOWNTOWN TRRFFIC STUDY BY STRGAR-ROSCOE-FRUSCH.
Krauss: I think you're all aware that last year the.HRA retained the firm
of Strgar-Roscoe-Fausch to look at downtown traffic issues. Along the way
a lot of things happened. Target was here and then went away. Brad had a
redevelopment proposal he had to look at and...the focus has changed a
little bit to where you're looking at a lot of intersections and traffic
signalization and potentionally what needs to happen with existing place.
Improvements that were constructed in the last few years. SRF came to me
several months ago with...version of the report and we gave them some
direction as to where to proceed. One of the issues or questions that was
raised was by Chairman Horn concerning a need to look at Frontier Trail as
one of the intersections on the study. A real critical factor for us was
that the work that had proceeded up to that time was part of a continuing
process and it culminated in work that's been completed recently which
included a traffic modeling effort which was projecting forward where trips
are going to be going. Where they're going to be turning before and after
the TH 101 relocation and as traffic grows over the next 10 years. In
addition they did a license plate study that basically looked where, it was
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 23
used to determine where traffic's coming from. Where's it going to. If
it's not staying in downtown, why is it going through downtown. All that
worked together with the modeling effort to result in the report that you
have tonight. Over the last few months they've been quite busy months for
the consultant. They lost a little bit of time and I think you're aware
that some of this work couldn't be done while daylight was short and why
you couldn't read license plates because there was snow on them. Well here
we are and I think it pretty much wraps up or kind of culmtnates...effort
to date. With that I'd like to give this over to Denny Eiler and Jeff
Bedennauer from Strgar-Roscoe to give an overview of what's in the report
and respond to questions.
Horn: I think we'd like to concentrate or focus on the addition since the
last report rather than duplicate what we went through last time.
Denny Eiler: Exactly. After sitting and listening to this, I guess I
would question the forecast here maybe that we're using as to when some of
this development might occur but nonetheless, it's kind of picture of doom
and gloomand we've noticed that in some of the other communities around
here. We do a lot of traffic impact studies for the city of Plymouth and
some of the other cities where we've reviewed developer's proposals for the
city and that work has fallen off to zero. We're not folding our tents and
leaving town, we've got enough other things to do but we've noticed that
the climate has definitely changed. As Paul mentioned, we did go out and
make some additional traffic counts and the license plate survey and I'll
try to cut to the chase and find the appropriate spot in the figures here.
The one intersection that we hadn't picked up as of the last meeting
which I believe was in November was Frontier Trail and 78th Street
intersection and we made a manual turning movement count and you can see
those volumes there. This is the a.m. peak and it shows 36 vehicles coming
out of there of which 30 are turning to the left. We also counted the p.m.
which showed 32 vehicles turning right in so it's a pretty reasonable day.
We've got as many going out in the morning as we had coming back in the
evening. What that all meant when we ran it through a capacity analysis
for stop signs, it shows up in Table 2 along with the other intersections
and maybe I could leave part of this up here. We've analyzed the minor
approaches on all these intersections. The highway capacity on here which
is a document that was prepared on behalf of the Federal Highway
Administration under their direction and some research organizations,
measures stop sign capacity in terms of, or stop sign level service in
terms of lack of reserve capacity. It really doesn't have anything to do
with delay. It's more a factor of you have so many vehicles out there.
They have so many gaps to turn into. What percentage of the available gaps
are being used, or how few are left to be used?. In looking at those,
Frontier at a southbound left turn was at level of service D in both the
a.m. and p.m. peak hour for that left turn out of there and that's
indicative of some sort of a problem there. I guess there really isn't the
capacity problem but there are some delays there that are excessive and
some gaps that may have to be taken there a little bit less than ideal. We
also re-evaluated the other intersections and checked our math on those and
found that most of our observations were exactly the same as they were the
last time. That the side streets of a lot of these intersections are
experiencing problems. And as Paul mentioned, the next item that was
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 24
really of critical interest was the license plate check. The system we
devised doesn't work well. This shows the 8 stations we used to monitor
license plates and the way this is done. A tape recorder is used and
license plate numbers are read off at those locations and then those
recordings are brought back to the office and the license plate numbers are
typed into a computer matching program. For a trip to be counted as thru
trip, it has to appear at one location and then appear at a subeequent
location within what was it, a 5 minute interval?
Jeff Bedennauer: Well it was recorded by 5 minute intervals. If the plate
showed up in that interval or even adjacent intervals, it was counted.
Denny Eiler: So if somebody did indeed stop off for a few minutes, they
may show up as a thru trip. If they stopped off for 10 minutes or more,
they definitely were not recorded as a thru trip and did have somewhat of a
major destination in downtown. Persons stopping to pick up a quart of milk
maybe would show up as a thru trip. But stops longer than something like
that would show up as not leaving the area. In going through kind of the
key portals in the downtown, and these were done the p.m. peak, of the
traffic approaching from Powers 81vd., there's a total of 270 vehicles that
were recorded. 95 of those wound up going outside of downtown Chanhassen.
Now we didn't count, make turning movement counts at Powers along with this
at this time but one would have to suspect that there was probably very
little traffic that came down Powers and then went back up TH 101. So it
appears that of the 71 vehicles, now some of these might have actually made
brief stops in downtown but 25~ of the traffic approximately was going thru
to go north on TH 101. And there were some movements that maybe were
Powers, south on old TH 101 or out to Dakota. Likewise we, with the
traffic coming up Great Plains, old 101 where that was destine and we
actually found that 18~ of the traffic went in and came right back out
again and they would have had to make brief stops to show up on the study
in that manner. There were even 41 of those vehicles who came up to 78th
and then on up TH 101 which is approximately 17~ of the volume. Traffic
from TH 101, there were volumes that went in and came back out again of
course. There were 16~ going through and going down old 101 and then
another 21~ went on through to Powers. Traffic coming off of TH 5.
Traffic coming from TH 5 seemed to generally have destinations within
downtown. Not a lot of that, what appears to be a fairly obvious move, not
a lot of that was actually happening. The net results of all of this and
we were looking primarily whether the facts of the proposed straightening
of TH 101 on the east side of town and this is a fairly complex figure but
it does show some of the movements. The net results is we feel that 250
vehicles would be removed primarily from the focal point of downtown, which
is the Great Plains and 78th Street intersection and that's out of
approximately what, 450 thru we figured. You could likely expect that
you'd get over half of the so called thru trips that are occurring in
downtown that don't have destinations within the downtown are out of there
by making that improvement. Now that's a sizeable number today. It's 250
vehicles in one hour is a pretty good number. I guess compared to the
future development which we covered in our report, it may not be that
significant but that doesn't mean that the improvement is not worthwhile.
My memory's kind of failing me. When is that project proposed to be
completed?
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 25
Krauss: Next year.
Denny Eiler: Next year. Soon. That project does have some implications
on some of the recommendations concerning the existing volumes,
particularly at Great Plains and 78th. What the improvements are needed
and they may help some of the current problem intersections. Particularly
on the stretch of 78th Street between Great Plains and lO1. That 250
vehicles would almost be, all of them coming off of that piece of 7$th
Street in here which would benefit the Frontier Trail intersection
obviously. Now we took the land use that was given to us by Hoisington,
existing and future, and we have a traffic assignment model which we built
specifically for downtown Chanhassen. I mean built is kind of a generous
term there. It's a spread sheet and it does take trips from zones
according to land use and signs and thru intersections and...turning
movement volumes and Figure 16 shows the results of those volumes for the
p.m. peak hour and there are some pretty significant movements here. And
this does include the diversion that would occur with the completion of TH
lO1 down to TH 5. But this is a full build up. When full build up occurs,
we I guess at best we're assuming what, 2010. With the doom and gloom
picture that was painted earlier tonight, that might be optimistic. Now
what we attempted to do after that was we also generated daily volumes and
what these volumes indicate typically is that ultimately 78th Street,
certainly in this area, will need to be 4 lanes. Ultimately. Now how we
get from today's volumes to these volumes. ~5,000 is really about the
limit you can operate a two lane roadway with separate left turn lanes. If
you have a two lane roadway with left turn lanes and right turn lanes, once
you get over ~5,000 you're getting into problems. TH 5 for example east of
here where it's still two lanes, it's carrying over 20,000 and I don't
think you want downtown Chanhassen operating like that. And that's why
it's being upgraded. So the long range implication is that 7$th Street
will ultimately have to be 4 lanes when full development occurs and what
we've done is taken a look at some of the needed improvements and taken a
look at some development threshholds and looked at some of the proposed
developments and when they might occur and we've grouped it into three
stages and tried to take a shot at when those years would occur. The first
big chunk of development is ~70,000 square feet of which the Market Square
is part of that. I 'm not sure what. It's about 100, okay. 'And we've
tried to list the improvements that would be required to go with that. Now
the 7$th Street and Great Plains intersection currently does meet signal
warrants and currently, at least the westbound left turn is having
problems. And the question was asked earlier about the need for
signalization at the previous meeting and it's technically warranted. You
could put a signal in there and it can justified. It would improve the
operation. With the improvements to TH lO1, you would buy yourself some
time for that. If you didn't do anything today, the volumes are out there
to justify a signal but pulling 250 peak hour trips out of that
intersection would obviously improve it and buy you a few years to the
point where maybe those improvements would fall into the category that they
would go with the 170,000 square feet. The intersection of 78th Street and
TH lO1, once it's straighten out however, because the traffic is now
shifted onto TH lO1 and now TH lO1 becomes a mainline, what's left back on
78th Street is the minor movement. You have a T intersection with 7$th
Street and TH lO1. When that roadway improvement is made, that
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meetin8
April 18, 1991 - Page 26
intersection will meet signal warrants. I don't know if that's been
discussed. The geometrics looked pretty good from the plan as far as
accommodating a signal but I don't know if that was part of the plan or
not.
Krauss: To the best of my knowledge it wasn't. There's a signal on TH 5
but there was not a signal initially for the 101 and 78th Street
intersection.
Workman: Which intersection?
Krauss: The new TH 101 and 78th Street...will meet signal warrants now.
Workman: I thought it always did.
Horn: Probably wouldn't today.
Denny Eilers: Well the volumes are going to shift themselves. Now you
probably have a few more turns and less thrus and in the future you'll have
more thru traffic. It's a matter of conflicts, how they're organized. Now
we're not, just because an intersection technically meets the warrants does
not mean that one is necessary required to be installed and you're likely
to get sued if one isn't. That's a discretionary thing. One of the first
things they teach you in traffic engineering when you're in college is that
signal warrants are a tool where the traffic engineer can keep a signal
from being put in if he doesn't want one to go in there. 8ut if you really
want one to go in there for operational reasons, you can justify it. It's
not intended as an absolute. It's a guideline and the term warrant is
actually probably a poor choice of words for that. So the thing to do of
course would be to monitor it after the roadway construction gets done to
make sure that, we're doing forecasting here. It's not an exact science.
There's a lot of personal perception in what's a good route and it may take
time for people to redistribute themselves after the roadway improvements
are made. So the first thing to do is keep making periodic machine tube
counts out there and watch it. And likewise, you could monitor the 78th
Street and Great Plains intersection to find out what happens there. 8ut
if nothing is changed and nothing is planned to be changed, but of course
it is with the TH 101 improvement, 78th Street and Great Plains would
benefit significantly from having a signal. Now on the flip side of that,
one of the justifications for a 4 way stop on an interim basis is if you
meet a signal warrant and the way the manual words that is if signals are
warranted and cannot be installed immediately 4 way stops can be used on an
interim measure. As I mentioned before when we were out here, the
disadvantage of a 4 way stop is that it often destroys the flow downstream
for the next few intersections and degrades the gap availability at those
intersections. Now Paul had asked us in a meeting we had a week or so ago
to give some consideration to the west end of town and what to do there.
We would view, obviously there's some problems getting out onto the road
particularly in the morning but we would view an installation of a 4 way
stop on the west end of town as a stop gap measure. And I think care would
have to be taken and maybe a lot of open discussion about what intersection
should get it. The furthest east one would be the best one to try to
benefit the morning traffic. It's a matter of focusing the traffic in the
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 199i - Page 27
neighborhood to use that 4 way stop. That's primarily what the benefit is
to serve the residential area to the north and to get the traffic to funnel
into one intersection. So for the morning, the optimum intersection is
probably Laredo. But on the other hand, in the evening that would, a 4 way
stop at Laredo would destroy any gaps you would have at Market or Kerber.
I realize that putting a signal in for a city like Chanhassen, for any
city, their first signal, is really a major undertaking because you have to
have a whole area of maintenance that you have to be involved with. You
have power costs. We're putting this first signal in in Woodbury and
Woodbury's a pretty good sized city but there isn't even one non-MnDot
signal in all of Washington County. Washington County doesn't have any
signals of their own. Woodbury doesn't have any signals of their own. The
only signals over there are owned by MnDot and they're into some sort of a
research project to decide if they can let a contract to do all this
maintenance. Have some sort of a super group of communities that are going
to get together and maintain signals. Now you're in Carver County, except
for a small piece is in Hennepin. I don't know, Hennepin County does do
signal maintenance for cities on a contractual basis. Now because you're
partly in Hennepin County, whether they would come into Carver County and
do some of that work for you, I think you'll have to investigate that. You
don't think so?
Horn: They put a park in for us.
Bohn: When 78th Street was constructed, did we put any utilities in for a
signal?
Ashworth: The public conduit is in. Everything is in for the signals.
Denny Eiler: Well that's a fairly compact intersection and it's small and
it's a T so it would be a fairly inexpensive signal, as signals go. Not
that they're ever cheap.
Chmiel: Can I ask you a quick question? You mentioned by having a 4 way
stop you would not have the proper amount of gappage as you would with a
controlled intersection. That is proceeding on down from Market,
Laredo, Kerber, all the way down to Powers. What would happen if you put 4
way stops at the other intersections? How would that affect or how would
that work?
Denny Eiler: Well from a capacity standpoint, it would work. From a
driver irritation standpoint, it would be pretty bad. And then the problem
does arise when you do want to put one of the signals, one of the
intersections gets to be signalized, it's really tough to operate 4 way
stops a block away from a signal...4 ways stop. That's the danger of doing
that. Not necessarily there's inherently a big accident problem but I mean
there are a lot of public opinion and driver opinion to deal with when you
do that.
Chmiel: You can correct that by just putting up the stop signs, 2 way
stop.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 28
Denny Eiler: That's not to say that hasn't been done. I'm just cautioning
you on that. I mean we can look at the volumes and say we think this
intersection should get the 4 way stop or this intersection get the 4 way
stop but I realize there are a lot of circulation issues within the city
and who you want to serve with that first 4 way stop. And frankly, a lot
of it depends on when the shopping center gets developed. I mean if the
shopping center were to be in by the end of the year, I think the thing to
do would be to get a signal on Market. In the meantime, between now and
then, selecting one of those intersections for a 4 way stop would not be
out of line. I'm not here to say that. I'm just warning you what the
consequences are. You've certainly got the volume and the leeway to do
that. Now we took a look at the operations of a possible signal at,Great
Plains and 78th concerning left turn lanes and the storage capabilities.
There is a very short eastbound left turn lane but what we would propose to
do, as far as the signal operation, would be to set it up so that it would
be a traffic actuated signal. That means there would be detectors placed
on the approaches. And we would propose that the left turn, east bound to
north bound or east bound, left turn would be at the end of the north/south
greens. So what you would have is, if the signal starts out in an all red
position, the first green would be the northbound thrus and the southbound
thrus. And as soon as there was a gap in that accumulated traffic going
northbound, then you would bring up the left turn arrow. So the
intersection would more or less rest with the eastbound two movements being
the preferred movements. You could also add a right turn arrow that would
handle the westbound rights at the same time the eastbound lefts are on,
Chmiel: That center median too, you mentioned in here would have to be cut
back about 12 feet?
Denny Eiler: I don't know if we ever did get the final construction plans.
There was some talk that there were a few minor field changes made and the
drawings we had maybe weren't the most up to date. Did you ever take a
look at those? I think Todd you were the one that made the comment some
months ago.
Gerhardt: ...but there were changes made out there...
Denny Eiler: But with that operation, the left turn lane itself would not
be a problem. The average back up there would be about 3 vehicles and it
looks like you could get 4 cars in there comfortably. We also were worried
about the westbound to southbound left turn. That would be of some
concern that that might, it looks like it could handle 3 vehicles there
before you start pinching off the westbound right. But the trick to that
would be to keep the intersection timing really tight so the cyclings are
short. And by having detectors in and setting, what you do on an actuated
signal is you set a gap value that ends in green. The absolute minimum
usually goes down to like 2 seconds. That's the old 1 car length per 10
mph rule of thumb. So you could play around with that setting and for
whatever you wanted and then you could control the cycling there. The
shorter cycle length there. Shorter cycle lengths allow the storage to
work there. And then also reduces delays. The disadvantage of having
short cycle lengths is you have a lot more stops but that's not a problem
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 29
because the speeds are all low here. So you can operate that on a minimum
delay manner.
Chmiel: I'm just thinking. With Great Plains coming off of TH 5, TH 101
as well, if we were to put that controlled intersection within our
downtown, would that existing controlled intersection on TH 5 and 101, once
10~ changes, would that be removed? Because then you're going to go to
Kerber with a controlled intersections that you have presently which is
also going to blend in with TH 101. Right?
Denny Eiler: Are you talking about after TH 101's relocated?
Chmiel: Yes.
Denny Eiler: Well the volumes that we forecast here do reflect the
relocation of TH 101. Now initially when 101's relocated, of course the
volumes out there today will go down. I'm not sure that we fully
understand when that's going to happen.
Workman: But if I'm going to go westbound, I'm coming down TH 101 and
I stop at the new light. Won't I be able to just shoot right into
downtown. It seems to me the configuration shoed at least a right turn. I
mean I could go right into downtown whether there's a signal at TH 101 or
not.
Chmiel: A yield you mean?
Krauss: It diminishes the value of...
Workman: Or, if I've got to stop there anyway, now I'm thinking about what
I should do, wouldn't I go to TH 5 versus downtown? I don't know if that,
I'm convinced that that stops, you know what I mean?
Krauss: I guess intuitively I agree with you. That's sort of clarified
here. I always thought the benefit of relocating TH 101 on downtown
traffic has probably been understated. I mean the traffic's clearly still
going to be there and it's going to go...anyway. In terms of deviating
trips, unless you're going to continue southbound on the new TH 101 anyway
or you're really going west or somethirkg like that, you might as well still
come into town.
Horn: I think Tom's point is, and I think it's a good one, is if you don't
restrict the free flow down TH 101 to the TH $ intersection and you know
that the next intersection or so beyond a right turn off from TH 101 trying
to go through town is a stop light, that gives you a lot more incentive to
go on down to TH 5.
Krauss: If you're slowing down the movement of traffic through downtown
because of signals.
Workman: But that second light, presumably at West 7$th Street and Great
Plains would be another right so I could take another right. We've got to
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 30
get a left turn in there somehow. We've got to head them around the
Medical Arts building.
Horn: You don't have to necessarily assume though that that right turn is
going to be automatic at Great Plains without a stop. I mean that wouldn't
have to be a yield situation.
Workman: We could make it no turn on red you mean?
Horn: No, it could be just a signalized intersection.
Workman: But you'd still have to stop at that light and see that nobody's
coming and shoot. So really you could do that twice.
Horn: If you allow a right turn on red. If you don't allow a right turn
on red.
Bohn: There's a stop sign there now and they don't stop for it anyway.
Horn: Well nobody stops. We have so damn many stops signs that people
ignore them.
Denny Eiler: That's the other problem with the proliferation of 4 way
stops. Now what you're proposing to use 4 way stops for is an entirely
different matter than what some communities do when they try to exercise
speed control with them. I mean there's a street in Golden Valley that's
got 10 intersections, 7 of which have a 4 way stop and it's a State Aid
street which is kind of a joke but, you go through there and the speeds
between the stop signs are 35 mph. I mean they're trying to get people to
drive 25 and it's spinning wheels and getting up to speed because people
feel they've got to make up all that lost time at those stop signs. So
there's an art to doing that. It's not that you can't do it but there's an
art and as far as operating that signal in a manner that manages traffic
flow in downtown, that's done all the time. I mean if you want to control
right turns in order to insure that you've have downstream gaps, banding
right turns on red, doing signal timing, things like that, that's a
laudable goal. I mean you can't just look at one intersection and say this
is got to be operated at it's maximum efficiency. I mean you're spending a
lot of money out there for that device. You might as well have it affect a
couple of intersections.
Horn: It's becoming clear to me from looking at this that if we're going
to have a signal light, it should be Great Plains and West 78th. Just from
a lot of things it seems to me to make sense.
Ashworth: I think it makes sense as well in terms of, they can put arms
out over the roadway with little arrows and people who are not used to
downtown, I think the size of that intersection, that's where part of the
confusion comes about. If you've got the arms out over there with the
green arrow, as they're coming up they say oh, that's the way I should be
going.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 15, 1991 - Page 31
Denny Eiler: Plus you also have the opportunity to mount signs on those
arms too. That might help you out in some other directional things. Maybe
it's confusing now that you've broken the pattern of West 7$th Street and
people aren't sure when they go around that curb if they're still on 78th
Street or something else. You can put a little directional signing on
there too. Those are all good things you can do.
Horn: I think, especially based on Tom's argument, I'd be hard pressed to
push for one at the new TH 101 and West 7$th intersection.
Chmiel: Maybe we can get MnDot to absorb 50~ of that.
Horn: Well I think that's what we should do is install it while it's still
TH 101 so the State would pay for it.
Denny Eiler: Well based on entering legs, they'd pay for two-thirds.
Horn: What's that?
Ashworth: That's a temporary state road though. I mean we haven't gotten
dollar one out of them.
Denny Eiler: But usually when they do a turn back, they meet all past
obligations on one of those. I know we got rid of, I worked at MnDot and
we got rid of part of TH lOl on the north end and we did a bunch of things
before we got rid of it. There was a big general swap with Hennepin County
and a lot of stuff didn't get done because Hennepin County gave us some
liabilities too but generally when a road is turned back. Now being that
it's a temporary state highway, that's always a stickler. Supposedly MnDot
can spend money for safety issues and a signal counts as that. Now you may
not be able to demonstrate a hazard because the intersection would be
dramatically changed but that is really not a true major capital cost that
they're limited to on a temporary trunk highway because we put signals on
TH lOl further north at a couple locations.
Ashworth: Will you go over with me when we go knock on their door?
Denny Eiler: Sure, I'll go over there.
Workman: The key term is get rid of. He said it twice. They got rid of
it. They got rid of it.
Horn: Just tell them you'll sic the coalition on them if they don't give
you a light.
Denny Eiler: From their point of view, and we worked some on their 20 year
plan, they really have no business operating highways that have any access
or orientation to them at all. I mean they should be operating the major
arterials and not roadways like, TH iOl is a county road. I mean that's
the way it should be. I don't know what sort of arrangements are going to
be made for the turn back in this area because you're dealing with two
counties, and two cities at least.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 15, 1991 - Page 32
Gerhardt: We could have some of the downtown businessmen put signs on
there.
Workman: I'm all for that, which brings up my next topic. Last night I
was at the, well I think one of the reasons that we're doing this is
because the HRA has been so successful at downtown and Don Ashworth and
Todd and everybody. We've been successful for bringing people down there.
There's not a damn thing to buy downtown but everybody's down there hanging
around and last night and yeah, today we began a process of moving my
small, humble office into the Medical Arts building just like every free
enterprising young man wanting to make a living for his poor sickly
children. I wanted a sign, a little sign and I'm still working on it and
it looks like we might be able to get things worked out, right Paul? But I
was chomping at the bit last night at the Planning Commission meeting
because of a clashing of philosophies and I kept thinking about the HRA and
what would the HRA, what are we trying to do? And of course I had this
report in mind and everything else like that and there's a light at Kerber,
there's a light at Market and about 100 feet away there's another one, 150
feet away at Laredo and bing, bing, bing we've got 5 lights all the way
down the road. We're doing all of this and we're taking out medians and
we're widening it and then we're trying to restrict it and my concern as a
downtown business person is that traffic is good. No matter what kind,
although it can get out of hand. Let's face it. People can get killed but
traffic is good. Even if they're just driving through and they see
Bernie's chainsaw sign, somewhere in their mind they know that there's a
place where you can buy chainsaws or get one fixed or related other
businesses. So when people are driving through, it's nice to have that
traffic. So my point is, we want the traffic but we want it to be
reasonable and controlled and safe but we don't want to shut it off and
make it unreasonable and ridiculous almost. Are you listening to me?
Robbins: You mean like Hopkins?
Workman: Well yeah, or like St. Cloud. You know I spent some time in St.
Cloud. They built this magnificent railroad. You got on the damn thing.
They spent I don't know how many millions doing it and then undoing it.
And maybe we're in the process of that and geez, you go around this thing.
You got on. I think they're in the process of getting it, they got it
fixed now. But you get on this road and that's it. You're gone all the
way around town.
Horn: We understand what you're saying. You just want to keep room for
the paying customers.
Workman: Right. We want to keep room for the people that want to buy
things downtown and get things downtown as we get more things down there
and make it friendly to be down there so I guess I'm saying, I would like
to be conservative. I don't like the idea of even putting up a signal. We
probably need one but signals are, unless somebody can show me, but due to
the State guidelines they've got to be so high and everything else.
They're not attractive. They're just not good looking and they ruin.
Chmiel: Maybe we can get different kinds of standards.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 19gl - Page 33
Denny Eiler: Yeah, there's a whole variety of poles out there. MnDot's
truss type arms that you see, I mean you obviously see every intersection
in Hennepin County where they have the single arm that's curved. There are
straight arm versions of that. There are versions that you can do things
without even using arms. I guess it's a question of whether you want to do
some signing and some other things. I've seen different design pedestals
where they've mounted them up high but not hanging them out over the road.
You can do all sorts of things. But MnDot's arms are designed to handle
massive amounts of signage. They're interested in signing their junctions.
That's why they're huge like that. To handle the wind loads and handle
the signs.
Workman: My final point is that, as you look at TH 5 it does teardrop
below West 78th and downtown for a reason, because West 78th used to be the
way you'd go. There was no TH 5. There was no by-pass and so they kind of
asked for that and there's definitely traffic going around town. They're
not all coming through town. But now we're back to that point where we're
trying to get them out of downtown again and now we're going to try some
other thing. The businesses downtown are still giggling a little bit about
the road downtown and the medians and the difficulties and everything else.
And Bernie's building comes into this and where are you going and what are
you trying to do and it's still confusing. I'd like to get it fixed but
I'd like to say let's make sure that we are fixing it and not creating a
new problem. Is that possible? I don't know.
Robbins: With that intersection by the clock tower, has anybody looked at
redesigning that whole intersection? I still think it's a poorly designed
intersection.
Denny Eiler: Well we were asked to review that and we're speaking ill of
another consultant here so that's kind of a professional criticism thing
but.
Workman: Feel free.
Denny Eiler: Our observation initially was that this is what happens when
you let landscape architects call the shots. I mean as an engineer that
was my impression of that, and I work with some landscape architects and
they're not all the same. Some of them are real egotistical like some of
the traffic engineers I know are too but it was designed primarily to
handle automobile traffic. And while it technically has all the curves and
stuff to be able to do that, most people aren't used to driving on roads
that are strictly designed for cars. They're used to driving on roads that
were designed for trucks and people get used to that. Having large cars
and not crisply driving and things like that. If you want to see a road
that's strictly designed for automobiles, drive in a parking garage. Those
roadways inside a parking garage are designed just for cars. So what you
have is an intersection that was squeezed down a little bit so it's very
difficult for a truck to get through there and so there's a certain
percentage of drivers that also have some difficulty. Plus because of the
curvature, because of the tightness of the intersection, the trees, there's
probably just one too many tasks that are asked of the driver when he gets
to that intersection. And that's one extra one and I don't know whether
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 34
it's the trees, the curvature, the tightness of the intersection or the
fact that maybe the heavy movements aren't the ones that are favored there
but something just doesn't sit right with the average driver going through
there. I don't know which one thing it is. Perhaps signalizing will
resolve what, it takes that one decision that the driver has to make out of
the loop.
Robbins: Wouldn't it be a safer intersection if it was just a plain T
intersection? Right now it's not a T intersection because the cars coming
from the north on TH 101, they go right through that stop sign now and
continue down 78th Street like it was before they put the curve in the road
there.
Denny Eiler: Yeah. When you have a flat angle like you're talking about
going westbound, it is very difficult to convince drivers that they are
making a right turn. They're not just making.
Robbins: I mean people are coming from the north, going down TH 101.
They're going to the, say the bank. That stop sign is worthless.
Denny Eiler: Right. Yeah, that's been a problem. I operated an
intersection in Wayzata that we had problems, which was signalized but we
had problems with people flying through the crosswalk. They had a green
light and they were technically making a right turn but the angle was so
flat, that they were not really yielding to people in the crosswalk. They
thought people in the crosswalk were walking across on a red light. So
those wide angle intersections are a problem. Any time you have an
intersection on a curve, you've got some problems.
Robbins: Well if it was a straight T, you wouldn't have that curve in
there. If they came more at an angle straight towards the.
Denny Eiler: You're talking about replacing it back the way it was.
Robbins: No.
Denny Eiler: That's r'ight. Great Plains was moved over a little bit. It
used to come further up east. Well obviously there was some other agenda
that was trying to be accomplished when that was designed that way and it
looked to me like you were trying to break that pattern. I guess that was
the goal at the time. What we found from doing the forecast, and doing
this license plate study is that while the 250 or so vehicles we might keep
out of downtown, or encourage to go elsewhere by straightening out TH
is a pretty good size number today. It's really going to pale by
comparison when Chanhassen's fully developed. That's not to say you
shouldn't do it. 8ut the volume of thru traffic as a percentage of the
total traffic coming into downtown is going to continue to drop as more and
more development comes on line and that's really I guess the point maybe
Tom was trying to make. That ultimately most of the traffic on 78th Street
is going to be going to destinations there, which is good for the downtown
business community. I think you'll see that, we've been doing some work in
Wayzata and there were some concerns about the lakefront in Wayzata.
Whether the traffic should be on there or not on there and the volume is
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April lB, 1991 - Page 35
way down after Wayzata was by-passed. But it's down really to the hard
core drivers who want to go to destinations down there. You don't see
anybody going from Navarre to Minneapolis by way of downtown Minneapolis
anymore, unless they want to stop there in the first place. I mean some of
the locals still think that's going on because it's always been that way
but the last 20 years it hasn't been that way. The counts show that. The
thru traffic that's going through town now, some of that can be gotten out
of town but it's going to be a small number in the future, as a percentage
of the total.
Horn: Any other questions?
Workman: I think the report shaped out nicely. ! think we were kind of
wondering where and how it was going but I think it's good hard data that
we can use and choose to ignore. Whatever we want to do with it. So I
felt a lot better once we got this copy and the way it was sitting. It
really analyzes the situations and I guess the summary is really the, we
still got a mess down there and we've got a mess to fix and we're not sure
we can fix it but.
Horn: I think the staff letter sums it up well. At least the impression I
got from the staff letter is that probably some of the changes aren't quite
as dramatic, or the recommendation for changes aren't quite as dramatic as
a lot of people believed that we would need. Which is kind of encouraging.
Ashworth: Before Dennis leaves, in my own mind we really do need to
signalize that Great Plains and 78th Street intersection. I don't know how
long before we do it. I think the need is there right now. If I listen to
the HRA/Council, they would like to try not putting signals on the other
intersections and going with 4 way stops as some type of interim solution.
Where I'm having a problem is, if you put it at Kerber, a 4 way stop, you
will benefit the people coming out on Kerber. People in the morning but
you're not going to help anyone on Laredo because all that's going to do is
just create that gap and almost make it impossible to get out on Laredo.
Similarly, coming back in the evening, you're going to be flying through
there. All of the cars coming from the east and then you're going to have
this gap situation. It's going to be really bad. So then I said, well put
the 4 way stop at Laredo but see that's not going to really help Kerber. I
guess where I came down to it in my own mind is, if I were doing it, I'd
have put it in both. 4 way stop at both Kerber and Laredo.
Horn: I wouldn't put it in either. I'd put the stop light in at Great
Plains and West 78th Street and then wait until we got our development
done. Wait until we got the intersection changed and then find out what we
really need to do beyond that. I think 4 way stops in an interim are bad.
I think they're going to really screw up the traffic.
Denny Eiler: If you have an isolated intersection of two equal roadways,
where you're not going to impact the surrounding intersections, that's a
good place for a 4 way stop.
Ashworth: ...recommendation though in terms of, which way would you go
with the different scenarios?
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 36
Denny Eiler: Well I think I would follow...but you could do this as a
staged thing. I mean to rush in there, I agree. I think the signal is the
way to go. Put that in and then see. I also think I would wait until TH
101 was relocated and see how things spread out. A 4 way stop can be put
up in an afternoon so that's, as I understand it there really hasn't been a
major accident. It's just a delay. Now I'm not sure how the circulation
works to the north. If you put one in on Kerber where they can get over at
all in the neighborhood.
Krauss: Not very effectively.
Robbing: If you put a semifore in at Great Plains and 78th Street, that's
going to attract people to have a crosswalk there. Right now that
intersection is not designed for a crosswalk.
Ashworth: I think I totally agree and I think that you would agree right?
crosswalk should not be in that intersection.
Denny Eiler: Well not on the west side. You can certainly cross the north
leg and then go across the south. East leg and the south leg. Whatever.
But the west side is going to be where all the action is. Because of the
flat angle, you may have problems...
Robbing: People always definitely go across where the semifores are
because they figure they're safe. Children on bikes are, people walking
are going to cross wherever there's a light because they figure that's a
safe place to cross because the cars are going to have to stop to let them
across. I tried to cross in front of Pauly's and it's supposed to be a
crosswalk there and nobody stops. You could be out in the middle of that
intersection and become road kill.
Denny Eiler: One of the comments that, when we had our discussion here a
week or so ago, was that Don was asking about whether the whole 78th Street
project made any, I don't know if the word was make any sense or anything
like that but I said the one thing you have done out here by putting that
median and doing all that work is you solved the problem of left turn
access into. Maybe you haven't solved it if you're in the business
community but you've addressed that and got that out of the way. That's
usually the last thing that gets. resolved in areas, business districts is
what to do about left turns. And with that median there, you've restricted
that to a few locations. It's now controlled and I think the issue of
widening it and adding extra lanes on the outside at a later date is going
to be a battle in itself but the real battle, and we're doing that in
Wayzata, some of the stuff there now, is fighting that need that
businessmen have to have those left turns into their individual driveways
and you already won that battle. So I think you've gotten a good product
out there. There's no such thing as a finished road in the first place. So
it's just a question of whether you bought your money's worth for a long
enough period of time and I think that the numbers indicate that you're
going to get some more use out of that road the way it is before it starts
needing some tweaking here and there. That median down the middle and
those turn slots are a good deal. I'll tell you that.
Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting
April 18, 1991 - Page 37
Robbins: With that semifore at Great Plains Blvd, what are you going to do
for the pedestrians who are going to try to cross at that? They're going
to try to cross there. I can guarantee it with the signal lights. It's
going to be the safest place for them, assuming that's going to protect
them.
Denny Eiler: Well the thing to do there, you could put a separate
pedestrian movement only where the other movements that are crossing, so
you don't allow the rights to curve at the same time th~ walk is on. That
can be done too. A separate pedestrian actuated phase that would not allow
a right turn if you do have a pedestrian that wants to cross that leg. The
other way to do it would be to sign at the band and of course, how
effective is signing for something like that. But MnDot does it all the
time. They'll selectively band a crossing, particularly at interchanges
and things like that at signals. But it's tough to do that in a downtown
areas. So the thing is, you really either got to accommodate them or
you've got to band them effectively. I don't really know if you can band
effectively but ideally that is not the lane to cross and if you can get
them to go over to the other side...
(The tape ran out at this point in the meeting.)
APPROVAL OF THE PURCHASE AGREEMENT REGARDIN~ THE SA[.E OF THE ABBY BONGARD
HOUSE, 100 WEST 78TH STREET,
Bohr moved, Robbins seconded to approve the Purchase Agreement for the Abby
Bongard House at 100 West 78th Street. All voted in favor and the motion
carried.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF A DECLARATION OF RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS FOR LOT 1,
BLOCK 3 AND LOT ~, B~OCK 1. CHANHASSEN ~AKES BUSINESS PARK SECOND ADDITION,
Workman moved, Chmiel seconded to approve the Declaration of Restrictive
Covenants for Lot 1, Block 3 and Lot 1, Block 1, Chanhassen Lake Business
Park, Second Addition. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
APPROVAL OF MARCH BILLS.
Workman moved, Chmiel seconded to approve the HRA Accounts Payable for
March, 1991 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Robbins moved, Norkman seconded to adJourn the meeting.
and the motion carried. The meeting was adJourned.
Submitted by Don Ashworth
Executive Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
Ail voted in favor