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1991 08 15CHANHASSEN HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT ~UTHORITY REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 15, 1991 Chairman Horn called the meeting to order. MEMBERS PRESENT= Clark Horn, Don Chmiel, Tom Workman, 3tm Bohn and Charlie Robbing STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Asst. Executive Director; Paul Krauss, Planning Director &PPROVRL OF MINUTES~ Chmiel moved, Robbing seconded to approve the Minutes of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting date July 18, 1991 as amended by Don Chmiel on page 7 under Workman changing the word 'more' to 'move"; and on page lO, changing 'I said I live in Chanhassen" to 'he said I live in Chanhassen". All voted in favor except Horn who abstained and the motion carried. VISZTQR pRESENTATIONS: Gerhardt: Mr. Chairman, this last Monday night at our Council meeting you had the Americana Bank on for site plan approval. As a part of that approval, Americana had requested a left turn land off West 78th Street between Market Blvd. and Kerber. As a part of the City Council's approval of that site plan they had requested the HRA review the site plan and their request for a left hand turn through the existing median between the intersections of Kerber and Market. The architect and the President of Americana Bank are here tonight to make that request for the HRA. If Randy would like to stand up or Klm and explain why you're requesting that. Horn: Are you suggesting that we move on that this evening or schedule it for a subsequent meeting? Gerhardt: I'll leave it up to Klm and Randy on if they want action taken tonight and if so, why. Or we could schedule this and have it as a part of the formal agenda. ' RobbinG: Todd, wasn't this also something we had talked about at the previous meeting of where we were talking about the right-in as left turns cutting across? Gerhardt: I think Paul Krauss had. RobbinG: Had mentioned that and was going to discuss the general perameters of what the center needed for entrance into the shopping center. Krauss: If you want me to put it into context a little bit. What we've been doing is working with the bank over a period of months. They have, and I'll let them explain it but they have a rather tough deadline to meet. I think the regulatory controls are established to say that they have to be up and running by the end of the year and we actually squeaked them ahead onto a City Council meeting early to basically facilitate their timeframe. They're hooked into when Market Square actually gets going. Market Square has to sign the PUD Agreement and the contracts have to be in place because they're going to be using that infrastructure and just to put into perspective, the bank is to be located in the northeast corner of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 2 shopping center. The site plan itself is pretty well developed. There weren't a whole lot of issues with that per se. Ns're getting a fairly high degree of landscaping. The internal movements seem to work pretty well with some modifications. One of the very nice features Ne feel about this site plan is that there's a pedestrian plaza at the main entrance of the building where it fronts onto the intersection of Market and 78th Street. Being cognizant of the issues with the Medical Arts building, we made sure that this building is at least 25 feet back from the right-of-way in places because of your action at the last meeting. To get the additional l0 feet until the full lane width is built over there, it's actually going to look like it's further back. So it's quite a bit further back from the right-of-Nay than Medical Arts is and it's consistent with other buildings in the shopping center. The major concern I'd have to say with the Planning Commission was the initial architecture of the building. And we raise some of the similiar concerns but there were concerns about the roofline and the lack of it being an inviting structure. It looked a whole lot more massive than it Nas. It's really only an 8,000 squats foot building. 4,000 on a floor and to the applicant's credit, they came in virtually the next day and had three alternatives to show us and we reviewed them in house. The Mayor happened to be in my office when we looked at those and asked them to, Ne saw elements to pick and choose from and over the weekend they managed to crank out new elevations for the building that we felt were fairly exciting. Really transformed the building into what you see there and we were very much in favor of that when we came before the City Council and the City Council ! believe was as well. Also, by the way, the Planning Commission Chairman Nas in the audience and he took a look at the plans and also believed that they did a hack of a Job and it met the goals the Planning Commission had set for it. So I guess what it comes down to is the remaining issue has to do with the curb cut or the median cut more correctly on 78th Street. The bank has long felt that they needed to have access from 78th Street because they're a service facility and have a lot of movements. Now I should say that if this was solely an access to the bank we would recommend against it. Ne don't believe that median cuts should be made in a street that's as busy as 78th Street's going to be simply to servicing the property. But what was interesting to me is all the effort we spent almost 2 years ago on Market Square, we really sort of neglected the norther entrance to the shopping center and it really is one of the main entrances. I don't have the plan for the shopping center with me but this driveway rune right down here and comes back out to Market and is'the main drive, ay of the shopping center. There was never a median break proposed in 7nth Street. It was a right-in right-out only. I felt that this proposal had some merit but there were some traffic issues attached to it so we had Strgar-Roecoe who you're familiar with do an analysis of it. They came back and told us that a left turn only so you won't be able to leave the site and go Nest but you can turn from westbound 7nth Street into it could be accommodated. Now in all fairness the City Engineer has some concerns about it and even in spite of the Strgar numbers that say it can be accommodated, he prefers to be more cautious and if we get some more significant retail than Ne thought we might get to the west, if a Target opens up or something like that, we could conceiveably have a problem in the future. The Planning Commission voted in favor of the median break. The City Council did the same but the City Council wanted to bounce it off the HRA as well. You were Housing and Redevelopment Ruthorlty August i$, i991 - Page 3 instrumental in the design of the downtown and the 78th Street improvement project I believe is coming through the HRA so it's going to be part of that project if you approve It so what they did is they wanted your reading on that as well as the last stop t~efore the project got it's final approval. Horn: Do the members of the HRA who aren't on the City Council have more quest ions? Robbins: No, I think just in seeing lt, it's a ~nefit to the bank but it's also a benefit to the whole shopping center to provide access to it and as we all know, access to the center is obviously key to making tt work. So as far as my concern, yeah. I'm in favor of it. Bohn: I don't have any problem with it. I often wondered why we only had one entrance to the shopping center · Horn: I assume that you had adequate review on It Don and Tom? Chmiel: Yeah. Basically what Paul is saying, we discussed at the Council meeting is verbatim almost. The only thing ['d like you to point out Paul is the square footage of that building as well as the height. Krauss: I think Kim has an interesting graphic to show. I'll let Ktm show it. The original building is underneath there and it looks quite massive. We felt it was because of the roofline, the lack of windows and it made the building look 4 or 5 times as big as it really is. Also the perspective is a little unusual. It's been designed to emphasize the building and when you look at the shopping center in the background which is 10 times the size of this building, the perspective is kind of skewed. It makes it look like it's much bigger than it is. I believe Klm has a graphic to show you. Kim 3acobson: These are real close to scale. This is an elevation of our building. This is an average height of the shopping center· I think if you hold them up to each other you'll see that overall they average out to be equal. They were about 34 feet. They're about 36 feet at the peak. They go all the way up to 46 feet at the grocery store... We're a 2 story building. Bohn: It's a nice looking building. It really Chmiel: I must say they did make a vast improvement to it from what it was previously. Horn: Any other comments or questions? Workman: I think there was some concern by at least one council member about the curb cut. That it was going to cause problems. I think the median causes problem Just in itself. And there was some discussion about how tt would really come back and now I'm not exactly sure how it is coming back on Monday. Basically we approved it kind of with the blessing of the HRA and then was that going to be a precedence. If ~ approved it and left Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 4 it up to the HRA and everything else so I don't know officially where we're at. Krauss: I believe the action you took was as you say. Was that you approved it. If there's a problem, I ~uppose if the HRA has serious objections to it, we'd have to bring It back. But otherwise if it gets approval from you tonight. Chmtel: That's rlght. If the HRA approve8 it, the Count11 felt that then we should move ahead with it. Horn: Well it sounds like the Planning Commission or the Council has no problem with the concept. Obviously from an HRA per~pective we need a project that works but ! don't have any problem with it. Do we need an official motion to accept this? Bohn: I'll make a motion. Robb I ns: Seco nd. Horn: Further discussion? Gerhardt: I don't want to throw water on everybody's motion but I Just would feel more comfortable Just to express again, Charles Isn't here and he has expressed concern with this cut. With the cut you're eliminating half of the landscaping on that median. Two, if you do have a major retailer developing to the west of the Market Square mite, Strgar-Roscoe did express concern and would recommend not allowing that median cut to occur. That would be baaed on the number of cars that would be created from a larger retailer in that area. Workman: Are you talking about this specific curb cut? I mean guaranteed something's going to go in down there. Krauss: Well what they had figured. They took, Fred Hotmlngton had refined our Comprehensive Plan and tried to give acme estimate of what kinds of development would occur. For example on the Charlie 3ames piece ! think it shows a lot of service retail with soae office. Now that generates a significant amount of traffic but if you put a Target in there, it's another magnitude above that. Now they took into account Fred's scenario but if something more intense ~ent in there, they didn't do a new analysis but they did raise some concern. Basica1[y brought that concern forward. Workman: I think this project as the developers would say, this project's here and now and they put emphasize on tf they don't get the curb cut they may not build. That may or may not be true but it would spear as though this corner, without having that access could have problems. I brought up the fact that if it was a Chi Chi'8 or whatever It was, they're going to want that cut there. So realistically if they have to come from the west and go, well they're not going to go Monterey. But if they had to come ali the way around and come in the other side, it does make it difficult for a business. Housing and Redevelopment Ruthority Rugust 15, 1991 - Page S Robbins: Not only that but if a person that is not totally familiar with the area sees there's no way to get to it, they're going to stop in the middle of the street and figure out how can I get to where I want to go if I can't cross the road and that could tie up traffic as ~ell. Workman: When they see it, they want to go in. They don't want to see it and then be there 3 minutes later. Klm Jacobson: That's right. I think the same is true for your shopping center which you want to get people into. If you have them go down a block and...only other alternative is. Horn: Does the dotted outline there represent what's there today? Krauss: No. This is Strgar's preliminary look at what's going to happen in the future. What we're doing here is we're showing the...thru traffic lanes westbound on 78th Street with the new turn lane. This is where that would occur. They're also showing, this is the ultimate scenario. This isn't going to happen in the first phase... We're sho~lng two traffic lanes. Initially it will look like this but eliminate one thru lane right over here. Horn: Do we have any kind of drawing that sho~s what's there today versus what's being proposed? Krauss: Well Chairman Horn they sort of dashed that in. To go around and take this dashed line. Connect the dots here that run across the bottom and fill this in with green and you've pretty much got what's there. Because this turn lane is in. Horn: Is that slim piece of green ~orkable from a landscaping view? Gerhardt: That would have to be all concrete. Horn: So that wouldn't be green? Gerhardt: No. It would have to be concrete. Horn: So effectively it eliminates the median as we see it today? Gerhardt: Rs I stated earlier, you would eliminate half of the landscaping on that median. It would Just make se~ for maintena~ce and everything that from what would be the Market Square development driveway to the east would have to be ail concrete. I mean you Just don't have enough area to keep any of the trees in a liveable state. It Just ~ouldn't look great. Chmiel: I 'm not sure that the concrete would be the full answer to that. I think we could have some low types of bushes contained within there as we do on the balance of it. Not to change the entire concept of that whole downtown with the center median. Gerhardt: Well the nose tip~ on these things, you've got a nose tip that needs to be cut back and this is all concrete right now right here so this. Housing and Redevelopment Ruthority Rugust 15, 1992 - Page 6 all going to concrete. This is not very wide. Chmiel: What would the width be? Gerhardt: Less than a foot. Chmtel: That could present a problem. But ~e could up at the upper portion still have something in there. Gerhardt: You could probably get something in this area. Bohn: It should be the width of a car. No, up at the e~d. Gerhardt: You need to keep that tip concrete for tho~e cars that are making that manuever... We've seen problems where you've got it sodded up to the tip. They gouge it up and... Horn: So what you're saying is that whole section ~ouid be taken out? Gerhardt: Well you want to keep some type of barrier in there. Some type of curbing so where the green is basically would be some curb. And if we can put some landscaping in there, wa'il try. Krauss: and that's something that Strgar hasn't refined yet. They may be able to squlsh the line up a little bit.. · Right here you've got 10 to 12 feet. That's a full lane. Now that probably can support something. Chmiel: I think even if you put a hedge 2 foot high. Robbins: Crushed rock and shurbs. Chmtel: Something that would be acceptable to the salt as the rest of them are · Workman: But those shurbs really are not driving this curb cut one way or the other. Gerhardt: No. I wasn't saying to keep this for the landscaping aspect· mean again I have some concern as the engineer did with the safety. When you've got the two thru lanes through there and somebody trying to cut across two thru lanes. It's not a good maneuver and I would hope that your motion tonight in approving this ~ould be contingent upon, if there is a number of accidents that occur in that area, that you have the right to go in there and review it and close it if need be. Horn: Has this been reviewed at all by Public Safety? Gerhardt: No. It was expressed by this. Horn: Will they review it? Gerhardt: It was expreued by the City Council to have them look at it but they felt that it was needed. Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - PaQe 7 Horn: I have no problem with the concept of a left turn. What I do have a problem with is changing the whole character of our landscaping and removing our medians. ! think that will be. Robbins: I'm not sure the medians are leaving. going to be actually modified. Chmiel: You're going to have modification. I think it's Just they're Horn: I'm hearing two different things here. Chmiel: I think you're going to wind up seeing modifications all through probably that downtown in years to come yet. Wider than what's existing and when I look at the dollars, I bite my tongue. Horn: That's my only concern is I don't want to lose this concept that we have. Krauss: Again, Strgar has not gone into final design of this. The final design of 78th La kind of like hitting a moving target because everytime we think we've got it tied do~n, something ne, happens that's going to require that it be improved a little bit yet. We think we've got the final parameters down here and no~ what they're going to need to do is take that and do some engineering work. They know that we have concern to maintain as much landscaping as possible and you'll be reviewing the final 78th Street detachment plans probably sometime later this fall. Horn: I guess I would like to see the motion contingent not only the safety aspect but on preserving a reasonable landscape plan for that area. Workman: Given the park to the north that ~e're proposing, there should be plenty there you know. Chmiel: It's going to blend in with that particular area. Yeah, that's true. Horn: Other comments. Did you want to modify your motions to include the r ecomme ndat l cna? Bohn: Yeah, I will modify it to include the recommendations. Horn: Your second also Charlie? Robbins: I'll second but I think also comments within comments is, I'm sure we're ail ~orking together. We all ~ant to preserve the integrity of the landscaping in making sure we have thing~ appropriate so I think there Just has to be a blend of what's workable safety wise. What's workable aesthetic wise. What's workable realistically and I'm sure the consultants ~ill tell us, what's the 'happy medium' here to make it ali work together. Bohn: We have enough land on the north aide don't ~e? Housing and Redevelopment Aut~rity ~ugust ~$, ~99~ - Page ~ Horn= I would think we could move. There's plenty of land on the north side. We could make the lanes we need that way rather than taking out the medians. Randy Schultz= I'm Randy Schultz, President of the Americana Bank. I'm not sure i'm totally clear what you're looking to do with that motion. Horn: We're allo~lng the left turn lane the way you want it to be contingent on it being a safe turn and aisc preserving a portion of the landscaping that area and not becoming a slab of cement. Randy Schultz= What does that meant Does that mean this has to go in front of some Safety Board or Council? Chmlei: No. Randy Schultz: Okay. Because we happen to believe that it will be safe, That it won't be a problem and we do absolutely need that curb cut for it to be a feasibIe and economic project for us. And we're on a very tight time table. Chmiel: Right. As I mentioned at Council, we have to take into consideration what the safety of the residents within this community is and will be as well as I think your concern for your bank patrons coming into your bank. Workman: Which could be us. Randy $chultz: I hope so. Horn: And I think the other provision that Todd mentioned is if there did become a safety issue, that the City would have the right at some point to close that. Chmiel: Providing there were accidents that occurred at that particular intersection. Horn: Which we've done down at Park Road. This is not precedence. We obviously have to, we can't totally predict how things are going to work out when they get fully developed and we like to keep the options open in those cases to provide safety and also we do have a theme here that we're trying to preserve for the downtown and that's our concern. Obviously we want to have something that's workable for you because the downtown won't work unless it works for the businesses. Randy Schultz: I think on the landscaping you'll see that our facility going to provide a lot of landmcaping almo. Krauss: R suggestion Mr. Chairman. The condition as it implies to the street design, could or should that be directed to the engineer that's going to be doing the final design of the roadway that it's your desire to maximize the main landscaping? That way it's assigned to somebody to do it and it can be brought back to you in the design plan. Housing and Redevelopment ~uthorlt¥ ~ugus~ 15, 1991 - Page 9 Horn: Exactly. Any other comments? If not I'll call for the question. · Workman: What is the motion no~? Horn: The motion is to approve the left turn lane with the stipulation that ye maximize the amount of existing green apace in the median area that ye can and we also provide a left turn area that ~i1! be safe. Bohn ~oved, Robbine ~econded that the Housing and Redevelopment ~uthority appr~ the left turn lane froa Ileat 78th Street into the Market Square development with the stipulation that the existing green ~paoe be maximized in the mad[an area and that the left turn ar~ ts determlned to be ~afe. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Horn: Usually we don't act upon Visitor Presentations but since you're under a time crunch and. we're anxious to ese something go we'll do that. Randy $chultz: We appreciate that. Horn: Rny other Visitor Presentations this evening? I~D~TE ~ TCNB. ZNC. PURCHASE ~1~~ ~ FUTURE~~ OF THE SZTE. Gerhardt: We're biting our tongue last week. Wa we ~ere getting into the week we received a phone call from Mike Margolie~ in laying out severe[ options. One where he had thrown out that the HRR should buy the Quit Claim Deed from TCNB Partnership for a fee of about 120,000.00. We said no. That ye ~anted to close on the property. From that they turned around and said that they would give us a Quit Claim Deed. Thursday Jim Walston and myself went do~n, met with Mike. He had a signed Quit Claim Deed and passed that onto us. We returned his earnest money of $20,000.00 so you are the sole priorietor of Lot 1, TCN8 Subdivision and staff ~ould like to talk this evening about how to remarker that property. One thing that staff has been ~orking on and Paul and I have diacu~ed a couple of times ~as to put a proposal together and'sending it out to Red Lobster and asking them if they ~ould be interested in locating in this community. Paul and I feel :hat ~ith this location, the traffic count~ on TH 5, the location of the grocery store makes this site amenable to this. One of the drawbacks to that is they like to be surrounded by a lO0,O00 population within a 2 to 3 mile radius of the site. We aren't at that at this point but ye feel that ye could ~ork on the price of the land and with the special assessment reduction program, make it feasible for them to locate. What also makes this interesting is that I have had conversations with ex-Chairman Cliff Whitehlll and he had asked me to put a proposal together in making that request and he ~ould take it through the proper channels at General Mills ~hich is the owner and franchisee of all the Red Lobsters. Workman: Why ~ould ~e be going after Red Lobster specifically? Gerhardt: Red Lobster in the T~in Cities area is one of your elite or your 5 star restaurants. Your moat established. Workman: [ °ye never eaten at one. Housing and Redevelopment ~uthority August 15, 1991 - Page 10 Gerhardt= It was one that was brought up by a couple of HRA members that would Like to see. It's an option. It's not one you have to follow. Workman: It just seems to me we're really narrowing our options. You know what ! meant Chmlel: Red Lobster just closed in Bloomington not too long ago. Workman: I mean I'd rather have a Bennigan's or something. Gerhardt: No, that wasn't a Red Lobster. Chmiel: Oh no it wasn't eLther. It was something similar to that, Robbins: But Todd, can't we invite more than one person to be part of this game if you will? I'm Just basically echoing what Tom is saying...Just one franchisee. Why not look at more? Gerhardt: I Just remember the Last tLme we Invited a Lot of people. Robbtns: Within taste of course. Gerhardt: Hhen you bring in the nund>ers, you've got to remember the Last time we had three individuals. T~o of which threatened to sue us because we selected the first one. Workman: And we didn't get sued. Gerhardt= If you're working with one you could say that Lt's not on the market until we see if they're interested. If that Isn't of interest to the HRA, I mean we can. Robbins= Personally I think it's of interest but ! think it's of interest of putting something in there, i'm not sure that Red Lobster or anything... (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) PRE~e-d='_NTATZON BY ~ I~CKFR OF ~ UNIVERSI'TY OF HINI~SOTA ON THE HI6t-6~Y 5 ~;TREET~ ~ CZTY HALL PNa( PRO3ECT. Krauss: ...Look at the study areas of the Comprehensive PLan and figure out where those should be but al~o if you get an image of or develop an image of what Chanhassen should be. A lot of people are convinced that it's going to look better than for example Eden Prairie does but nobody's quite certain as to what that exactly means. This idea is starting to grow and be built upon and I'd have to gSve some of the credit to Richard Wing who's sitting back there. He had ~ome connections with folks at the U and we started talking to them and Bill More~h from the University who I think most of you know. BILl was on our bus tour of the corridor and we've now reached the point where we've put together a program that involves the University's design center. If Bill Moresh and Lance Necker are here tonight and more of the staff people. Xt also involves the Arboretum. I Housing and Redevelopment ~uthority August 15, 1991 - Page 11 think you're all aware of some of the concerns or the grading that's taken place a little bit between the Arboretum's concerns and the City's concerns and here's a way to bring everybody into the fold and hopefully come up with some creative solutions. ! think you'll see that this is the starting point in a long process· The University folks are helping us to envision what can happen out there In trying to develop our sense o1' ~hat we want. At that point it's going to be necessary to get a framework In place that's going to make these things happen. Thoughts are nice and getting an image of what we want is nice but ~e've got to then ~here the rubber meets the road make sure it works. The University staff is going 'to help us with that and we're going to get the process going. What they have tonight is a first shot of the technology that's going to be used.- It's basically an overview to give everybody a feel of the potential · What can happen. They've done some studies of the City Hall area basically to show you what's going to be done. ! think you've seen in the packet too you realize that this has become part of the program· Zt gets a little obscure but where we are going to be digitizing a lot of information about the city. Ns're getting a lot of information from our surface ~ater utility program. Ns're going to be doing all our engineering work in the future on systems. Ne want to use this information to have a ~orking ability :o get an idea about what's happening, not only on the corridor but elsewhere in the city ultimately. It's kind of an exciting ground breaking type of process. There aren't very many areas where this has been done before. With that ! guess Bill ~l[l you give the lntro? Horn: It sounds like we could have used hlm earlier in our downtown process · B111 Moresh= It's never too late. The great thing about cities ts you can always ~ork on them. They never get done. ['m Bill Horesh the Oirector of the Design Center for American Urban Landscape. To give you a little bit of backgroung to my organization, it started 3 years ago actually next month with a grant from the Dayton-Hudson Foundation who was the Director at that time Peter Hutchinson who' went on to become the Chief Finance Officer of the State. Was Interested in the questions and decisions that local communities were having to make in order to adapt and direct growth to make liveable cities. In that end they endowed the College of Architecture and Landscape Archite~ture ~lth acme funds to endow a position like myself and staff members to be available to communities to ask questions and work with them. Also they gave us several years of programming funds which we can uae to earmark to~arde projects which ~e think are representative of a set of questions that can be used as a case study for other communities. We have several projects underway now where we have committed our energies and capital funds to explore these issues., Yours is one of the projects and the reason ~e've invested in this co-venture here with you is ~e think that some of the problem~ that you're facing are similar to many other communities out in the outlying areas of the Metropolitan Area and in other communities around the United States. And it offers a unique opportunity to be able to look at not only the actual questions that we should be asking in reviewing projects like we Just talked about. Banks and roadways and so forth, but actually begin to start thinking about the technology that might assist you in looking at and evaluating those questions. And even do~n to a process where you might be Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 12 able to establish certain standards and rules so that. people kno~ before hand what the rules of the game might be so the discussion at least starts in a common ground rather than vying for' what you're talking about for the first couple of meetings and find out later that's not what you meant at all. 6Jhat we have Is, ! thought I'd do is actually we are lnvolved tn several projects right now with the common theme ~eems to be what kinds of resources do we have in out city and ho~ can ~e leverage those things to first start making the sense of place that we ~ant to be. Then find out what things are missing and what it is we can add so ~e can build a framework into the future. What ! brought for you is actually we're working in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. ]n the neighborhood downtown revival, the neighborhood rev~ttLlzation program and we're working with the neighborhoods to try to do the same thing we're trying to do with you and that is to help them understand what resources they have and what building blocks they can use and ! brought a newsletter to show you some of the work we're doing and you'Ll ~ee ~ome of the same issues. This is a newsletter that we produced several months ago for a meeting with neighborhood organizations. We'll be developing a handbook eventually coming out thls fall but one of the interesting que~tton~ of the neighborhood was, so what resources do we have? Ho~ do ~e Just go out and look at our neighborhood? There's all the~e cars a~d traffic and so forth so we've developed sort of 5 physical categories of things that they could look at. And this little newsletter that was even so small and Just for a meetlng has been very helpful for neighbor~ organizations as they sort out the political structure and reality of getting projects going. They've been out and able to actually go out and look at their neighborhood in a very basic way Just to start organizing physical categories of their neighborhood beyond zoning. Beyond the basic structures of the neighborhood. Ne have expanded this no~ a~d w~ll be coming out with about a 100 page guide book so that neighborhood organizations can begin to diagnose themselves and to begin to start making a structure. In that manner what we have here today ts a kind of sampler. An overview of the kinds of issues and the way in which ws might begin to start looking at this problem here in Chanhassen so that ~ can custom design and develop a same approach to your community and to develop the ingredient~. And Lance Necker will present the work that hie team's done and kind of give you a sample overview of what we'll doing over the next couple of months and any questions along the way, feel free to Just barge in. Lance Necker: Thanks Bill. ! don't want to do a formal presentation so what we're going to do Ls maybe you can move this back up here and get this closer to you. Now ! hope you'll Just kind of chime [n and stop me if I lose you because one of the things that's happening Ln this study is that it's, and I've worked with development authorities a~d community development authorities before and ! kno~ you're the folks that really do the decision making about exactly those questions of where the rubber meets the road. It's where the dollars go. Ho~ do they actually build it. Nhere's the curb cut. Ho~ many people are going in and all of that. For the moment, for tonight, for this pre~entation ~hat ~e°re asking you to do is Just sort of get in a different time frame .... Paul over dinner that you're Like the City of Nlnneapolis LO0 years ago in a sense. You have this incredible opportunity. You're at the cusp of a ma~or period of growth. Th/s is it for you. Now you're evaluating al! these changes Housing and RedeveLopment Authority August 15, 1991 -Page 13 incrementally. What's going to happen and you're giving it to the best of your ability. What the City of Nlnneapolis did 100 years ago is they said, ~eL! gee. Let's have some standard~. Let's try in their case to build a park system for example and ~e'LL try to ~ee if urbanization can't be threaded out on a park system. That is in fact the chain of lake~. ~nd they started with that as a kind of way of Just gauging ho~ they ~ere going to gro~. Kind of to measure the quality of life. In the ~ame sense ! think Chanhassen has that opportunity no~. The design land,cape. The landscape that is actually built can be measured against some pre-conceived ideas that you may have to help you develop. What ~e did ~as to try to get a handle on that from the point of view, just under~tanding the physical order of Chanhassen. What's it Like and specifically what's it Like along the corridor. It's very simple to think about a corridor that's just this Linear thing. You can draw it on a Land u~e map. There it is. It's a line. In this ca~e, you can read that line to say ~ell this is the north half of Chanhassen, this La the south because ~e kno~ that this is going to be a very heavily traveled line. Nhat we did in our first cut at trying to understand ~hat the effect of the corridor would be uae to take the opposite point of view. Say that Chanhaeaen is a unified community. Yes you have diversity but the point is that north and ~outh have to come together and that the cro~lng~ of the major north/south roadways, the crossings that you want to keep Low grade because of the topography that you have. The very wonderfu! topography. This community are the ways that you 'in fact will physically and ~43acially connect north and ~outh. And so you have to think about ho~ those really do ~ork. SO what we said was okay, and I'LL come back to this Later but I'Ll Just sort of sho~ you the big picture first and then wa'l! pick it apart. Nhat we said was, what you really have in TH 5 is a corridor around ~hich there are rooms. There are rooms in the Landscape. ! ~ant to pull it a~ay for a moment because you're all wondering, well where's my room. Nhat's happening in my room. t4e're not aura and to be painfully honest, this is Just a first cut but let me show you what we're trying to do so you understand ho~ the rooms work. Because you're at this cusp of urbanization, you have an enormous amount of existing vegetation which starts to make rooms around the corridor. You have an amazing amount of vegetation along the railroad track which actually, and we'LL sho~ you that in a moment, which actually has a very profound effect in terms of the entry experience to Chanhaesen. It is combined with the topography. The rise in grade. It is the gate,ay to Chanhassen. It's your skyline. It's your first sky~Ine image because it pops up and there's trees on top ac actually for many of you, for ail of us anyway, this part of. Chanha~en actually reachs more as a continuation of Eden Prairie. When you really .sense that you're in Chanhassen has ac much to do with vegetation and aa !'il sho~ you in a moment the grades. The topography. The same thing is happening out here throughout the drive as you go through the city. So you take that existing vegetation and then you Look at the topography. What ~e've done here is to sort of ~uggeet that it's really bumpy and that TH 5 is certainly no straight road that Just goes on the flats. First of all it's curved and it goes around the hLLl. Very important one because up over that hill and then do~n into what argueabLy might be the gateway to downtown and then bumps along. It goes high and Iow. It goes over the railroad track. /~oes very high. Gives you a big poin~ of vie~. A prospect of ~ay do~n ~outh and there are several other points like that where you come to a high point and you can see ~hat Mousing and Redevelopment Authority August ~5, 199! - Page l~ you probably always sense in your almost bodily that you are looking down toward the Hlnnesota River. That you're part of the whole ~atershed. In fact what we did was to then look at the drainage to Just see. I'll Just show you briefly what that's about. What happens is the draLnage is moving this way generally and so there's some major drainage routes that come under TH 5 and Join a major drainage area do~n to the Minnesota River. And those need to be taken... They are resources. Like resouTces in a neighborhood, these are resources in a city and they can help you to actually realize this conjoining this community of the city. The other thing that happens Ls that they are...right no~ wLth so much open Land. There are these ~onderful pieces of if you will overlapping topography and vegetation where you get Layers. The effect of Layers. No~ we kno~ that these lands are going to urbanize but the layers of such provide us with a principle if you ~LLL to go forwaTd into the future to start thinking about how you would preserve the idea of layers which is a generally positive one and it's correlated ~Lth what Chanhassen La about. How you feel about Chanhassen perhaps on a smaller scale. Perhaps on a large~ scale. It will depend to some degree on the kLnds of .Land u~es you're able to attract when going through this problem. Hc~e do ~e get a Red Lobster versus a Chi Chl's or versus a ~hatever? One of the ~ays you*re going to be able to do that is to have a vision about what Chanha~en is ~ing to be and ! think you're on the rLght track. You definitely have the right intentions here. What we did then was to say okay. If ~e can take this idea of looking at the corridor as a series of rooms created by vegetation and topography, Just to keep our brains straight. ~}e'll only use vegetation and topography. We won't try to mess it up with a whole bunch of other kinds of Ls~ues. What have we got? Well, it wasn't that simple in every case but let me take you through a couple simple rooms. ! mentioned the Chanhassen skyline. One of the things that happens is you're coming along through the flats here and you've got essentiaLLy the Press and the other buildings that are kind of reading as part of this Eden Prairie like landscape with frontage roads and so forth and then Oata~erv sits out here right no~ and is probably going to do something in here. And that's all on the flat pretty much. Then all of a sudden the topography fLLps up and there are these trees that are masking the Red-E-Mix and behind the Red-E-Mix. That's another thing about Chanhassen. One of the things that happens La that because of the scale, generally low scale of development, the trees al~ays tend to dominate the skyLLne. They tend to define the skyline. It's a tree Line rather than a building line that you think of when you think of the best of Chanhassen. ThLs is a wonderful development opportunLty right here. ThLs la an absolutely fabulous parcel which you mostly are going to own very shortly. The thing to think about is what Ls the quality of that skyline experience? What happens when you approach is that actually you see at Least 3 of the 4 cuts through grade that occur here from out here. You see main street. There's a little cut in the tree Line. You see the TH 5 coming up and cutting. You actually also see the po~er Line across. There is that as well. You don't see, from the road anyway, you don't see the train until you're right about Ln this LntersectLon so in fact actually the train is a kind of found resource in a way. The railroad line because again of all these trees. So you have this incredible possLbiLLty for example one thought ~ould be to really do a signature, another signature building. The same way ~hen you think about Rosemount and you think about the Dinner Theatre and you think about the church. You think about the Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 199! - Page 15 Eckankar. You think about all these signature land uses and buildings that are associated with It. This Is an tncredlble site because It's going to define your first Impression. Your Image of Chanhaseen from the east. When you think about It as you drIYe, when you think about what might pop up, you don't want to maybe compete with the church but something might pop up out of the tree Line Just as you're coming up hILL and the we thought one possibility might be to really enhance that hi:)1 by planting It very tightly against the road. Then what happens Ls then you're reaLLy sort of released Into the next space and your curving down, swooping down Into the area that's real~¥ kind of the gateway to downtown. And here we have a second sort of easy room which we call the pump room. This Is where all the gas pumps are. And It's great because what the opportunity here Is to say, here you've got all theme new gas stations and auto vehicular metrics kinds of things and the only thing that, I mean you've got some good architecture going. The on1¥ thing that seems to be missing Is that there's not a definition of wow there. Everything kind of le~d~ Into the next room which Is this mort of commercial district that comes along tn front of the tracks. So you might take the analogy of...but the point Is the hedge rows can in the agricultural landscape start to define farms and It has a agricultural base. Why not take that Idea, hedge rows and start to define the...room and here's what It looks ilks In perspective and here's what It looks like a little blt closer with the current Holiday. If the Holiday was defined from the front tier and then the rest of the things down the Line and It starts to read as a merle~ of room~ where things are Identifiable. Imageable and understandable. 5o that's another easy room. And mostly defined by vegetation In this case because ~t tends to be down in a bowl. It tenc~ to be relatively flat. The harder rooms, where 'it got hard was as we started to move out and there were fewer cues. And to be real honest we said to ourselves, well if all of theme crossing~ are portals to the wax that Chanhassen's going to urbanize and change, then we'd better at least take a kind of flier as to what that quality might be. Well we've got the land use plan which Is an Important guide to that and so we looked at the land use plan and said okay we'll Just take these Land uses. They're great. That works and wa'IL Just say now, how will they feel or look or how would this really be. So we sald for example, you've got a boulevarded street here which ~s 78th. Main street. What we call main street. And you're going to connect up with ~omething probably out here. If you thought of this as a boulevard, then maybe you would think of this as an extension of a boulevard. Perhap~ It's a part of it. Okay we'Ll draw this as a parkway for the moment and then we'll think of urbanization around the parkway and we'll just extend It out. We'1! pay attention to the vegetalon and the topography and move It out until It gets to the edge of town. Well pretty ~oon we started saying well walt a minute. That would be a big opportunity with these crossing roads to make a kind of net of well conceived roadwa)~ which are really the structure for urbanization. They are, if you want to pre~erve this country feeling, maybe If you think about them as country parkwa)~ and ~o what you come around to Is we call Chanhassen ts, what we call Chanhassen round. This notion that the structure of urbanization ts really on these boulevards and parkways, some of which are already In place. Some of which you have mapped and are going to be in place. But to think about them as essentially being of Chanhassen. Being of the menme of Chanhammen as It is. Not perhaps...1'11 just put the challenge to you. Not Perhaps taking Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 16 the model of Just putting out a frontage road and saying okay, come here and develop now. It's a different mind ~t. You want p~opl® to develop but you want them to develop in a certain way. $o if Chanha~en rounds became like, if you will the analogy of Minneapolis growing out on it's park system and what it is is the notion of the~e north/south connections. These north to south connecting the northern community ~hich at least in here, well maybe argueable a little more developed but then connecting down to the south and having the possibility of the community actually coming together. Now this becomes important because you do on the land u~e plan have some critical institutions in mind. For example, we looked at another somewhat easier room and that's the room where the school is. One of the school sites. We'll accept the ~chool site here and ~e'll talk about the possibility of how this develop~ then as a neighborhood. And so one idea ~ould be to say take the hedge row idea but use it as a shelter belt. The big northwest swooping slope. It's very beautiful. There's a wonderful long meadow view down over, almost down into the Mlnnemota River Valley... preserve part of that as an open space or maybe you have a signature land use that has a prospect. That has a view do~n through there. But then you take the area that's going to be high density, medium and low density housing and you design with the idea of that al~eCific site in mind. Namely it needs to be sheltered from the northwest ~ind~. So you take the shelter belt and schematically kind of move it into all the development there. What do you have ballfielde over here and... Whether you have houses in these layers of vegetation that are moving up the hill, Now you've got a neighborhood where you have a school and OhS of the things you want to do around the corridor ts be ~ure you can get from this part of the neighborhood to that part of the neighborhood. I'm sort of posing the idea that this is a room and so we're calling it a neighborhood room. One way to do that is to... We want to look very carefully at all these intersections out here. But another ~ay, because you .have the topography, because the drainage system is allowing you to come under the road, there are at least two spots here. There's another spot here across from Paisley Park and Lake Ann. There's a pouibility for Pede~trian connections as well. The thing you ~ant to do is do them ~ell. Obviously ye want to think about these connections as being bridged. So ~e draw up some sketches Just to remind you that it's not that you're going through a box culvert down here. You're going through a bridge. It's a real bridge. It has light, air. It feels like a bridge. That"s a lot of impact on how you think about the corridor. It already has some, you kno~ rubber meets the road on the corridor because the DOT understands that you really want a bridge...you've got a bridge and not the sort of thing that they're doing further down the road which is box culverts. We saw a whole sle~ of them going in as we ~ere driving into t~n. $o that's the kind of logic we're trying to develop. There's some ~ort of ~peciai things that we can do to kind of interweave Lake Ann, which we see as a kind of hub of recreation. It's sort of your recreational hub. It's the thing that ties the whole tent together in some ways. For a recreational point of view, it potentially serves the ~hole city and it. could do a better Job perhaps, and one idea might be to say okay, ~e'll take Audubon Road and make that the entrance to Lake Ann Park so you have a signalized entrance. You don't have this difficult turning maneuver that you have now. You maybe keep that little...that happens to be right there. You have this ravine ~alk. You have the parkway cross[fig and you really make that entrance into Housing and RedeveLopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 17 Lake Ann Park a very important thing and make that amenity that everyboc~ refers to. It becomes Like the other signature of the town. Now to the Arboretum, one of the things that we'd like to do, at least we'd like you to think about in terms of the Arboretum La integrating the Arboretum Ln the experience of TH 41 or into this larger aspect of the town. The Arboretum is a pretty unique' /nstttution. It's up there with around Rosemount and your other signature land uses. tdhen people think of Chanhassen, I guess ~hen ]: thought of Chanhauen, coming here originally as a new Mtnnesotan...that dram people ~o thinking about it as a p:lace t~hat has visitor appeal La one thing. ]:t's allays ~omethLng you ~ant to think about· But what ~e've done In this particular scheme, again th~s is. ·.a:l seeing but our idea ~as ~hy not make the Arboretum a Little blt more of the Chanhassen resiclent's experience because right now everybody, ]: don't care ~here you're from, you drive TH 5 or TH 4t and you go Ln there. Period. And that's it. And as TH 5 takes on more of a, it can't take any more traffic on Lt. ]: hope Lt doesn't. You kno~ maybe 212 really ~i:lL pull more traffic down but at any rate, one of the thoughts ~ould be to really interweave the Arboretum into the network of country parkways. So you might think about bringing at Least Tanadoona over to meet a country parkway to intersect at TH 41. Then you could come do~n TH 41. Maybe duck through here. Duck through there. There are a number of possibilities for connections for residents that ~ouLd not be part of the tourist experience but known to you as Chanhassen residents. This is the testily nice drive to the Arboretum. This is the really nice bicycle ride through here and that real:~y ~ou:ld be ideal because Lf you have the opportunity to bicycle there, Lb ~iLL guarantee a better experience. So these are the kincle of things ~e've been trying to think about. Aa ~e think about framing the questions. That's really the thing ]: ~ant to Leave you Framing the questions for ~hat TH 5 La all about· This framing of the questions is really the kind of thing that Paul was eluding to in terms of the :larger picture of the study. The other thing that ~s happening ia that we're going to be using some technology called video capture to help you :look at some a:lternatives. ]: want for you to, maybe Todd could Just cue up this :little video. ~4e're going to try to do as many...as we can of rooms Rooms along the corridor and alternatives in those rooms. The idea here, before you roll the tape :]: Just ~ant to ~ay a coup:la of things. The idea here is to take techno:logy that eseent~aL:ly takes advantage of this, which you already have. Takes advantage of all the ~ork that you're doing Ln terms of digitizing information in your geographic information systems and works with ~hat La going to be the eventual merging of all theme technologies. 14hat we're going to sho~ you is, it's going to Look prehLstor/c in a fe~ years but right no~ Lt probably ~ilL :Look a Little slick. It's the idea of taking an existing image and then altering it... and Lnser~ some change that might occur on a PC. ]:'m ~orkLng with Dave Hartwig so we make sure that ~e interface with Bonestroo on their ~ater study and the geographic information ~ystem. TechnoLgy that's put in place as a result of that. Thi's thing wi:IL, :]: mean it's inevitable. ]:f App:le and ]:BM can get together, then anything can happen. This La going to come together and 3 years from no~ you're ~ing to have at :Least the beginnings of a system where you're going to Look ab a proposal Like that one and probably going to be on video tape or at :~east it's going to be some kind of digital thing that's going Lo manipulate and manipulate It accurately. So ~he business of skewed perspectives and a:l! of that, which ~e a~! dee! Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 18 with, it's going to start to go away because you'll be able to tie the geographic information system will be based on some sort of coordinate system. You'll be able to tie the structure to that coordinate system and then you'll be able to transfer that to video. So let's right now. 8tll Moresh: Can I Just add one thing too? Lance Necker: Yes. Bill Moresh: When ~e were walked on the tour and ~e were going around talking about it was a matter of how we do things and getting people to know what it is you do here. What you can do is take this information and after we get done with the study We develop a set of principles of what you think Chanhassen's about. The possibility of a developer or anybody coming in and seeing and visualizing maybe how they can be here. They could go through this process and see these princIplu using images they can go stand and look at like we did on our tour. So what they can do is come in and get oriented through the system and then have an understanding of the rules of the game or they buy property before things start and they say, oh ! can make money in this context. ! like this. ! want to build into this system. $o that's the other side ! think of this information Is a way to advertise what it is you're looking for and be able to ~ork with it. Lance Necker: &ina, maybe you could talk us through this· This .is Gins who's been working with me and 6ina's the one who did the computer. Gins: Basically We're Just taking the City Hall site as an example and Just started looking at It with the Barton Aschmann scheme as was originally presented to us. What it might look Ilks. $o you can start seeing the arched walkway. Some other possibilities of prairie perennial planting... This is a basic prairie site. Then you can start weaving it into the Barton-Aschmann plan. We're u~lng the image capture system to kind of work ~lth different design ideas. On this ! decided to bring in some of that Chanhassen topography on the left side of the site. Just a little bit of grade change makes a big differe~e. Then [ kind of wiped the slate clean and started over on the next one. Then .! decided with alt this talk of wetlands restoration, what ~ould it look like .... I decided to bring the lakehome right to the front of the... This is kind of more your English landscape style. Bill Moresh: Actually the ~cheme that's up there nc~e contains more of the principles of that last one where you're asking for more. ·. Horn: That's the laser? Bill Moresh: Yeah. That's when you Just take red lines. hours would be? ·. ·the number of Gina: It was 8 together. Setting up the slides... Lance Necker: You've got almost a dozen alternatives. Now they're not all going to go that fast because some of th~m are more complicated than others but the idea is, and we're still in the stone age in some ways here. Housing and Redevelopment ~uthority August 15, 1991 - Page 19 B11! Horesh= As we go through this process and ~e start, the sketches are really the way of getting into the problem. Find out where all the holes are and where the possibilities might be. Xt's as you kn<~, standing out there it's a little hard to see where to start. You ~¥ ye X like all this open land but we knol~ that ~t's not going to be all o~n land. ~ Betsy came back and sa~d gee, the rura~ ~a ~s r~y ~re ~t y~ there's ~t going to be a rural thing o~e ~ou f~11 ~t ~n. But ~hat are the essence o~ those factors and ~hat ~e can do, as ~ start taking photographs and woFk~ng w~th th~s mater~al, we can start taking some of those principles ~ha~ ~e have Just ~n r~gh ske~h a~ beg~n to start making some story ~ards. ~~ ~t~en conceptual draw~n~ ~h~ch a~e up there ~hat one uses to ~ake notes a~ study a~ us~ actua~ frames a~ actua11~ ~ork on t~ c~ter to say ~ell ~t ~~ns ~f ~ ~t something here. B~k ~th~ng ~n Just r~ ~ck~. ~ ~t h~pens ~e Jus~ put ~meth~ng t~re. D~s that rea~l~ ~tro~ t~ frame of and beg~n to ~rk through that. ~ can ~g~n to start rea~ marking the points and t~n ~n t~ ~I s~etem, which ~s ~ch more of a structure ma~ng s~stem, x~ can beg~n to code that s~stem a~ start very 'bas~ca~ certain s~tes are gate~ay e~tes a~ we k~ t~t fr~ th~s ~nt, you can see ~he sk~ne of Chanhassen. .So ~t~er ~ ~ ~re, ~e ~an~ed ~o kno~, ~e l~ke th~s. ~n fact ~ w[11 s~ mo~y ~re ~ ~ keep th~s v~e~ going here because ~e can see d~ntown a~ tha~ k~nd of bhang. ~ the ~nformat~on ~t c~es ~n t~ m~t b~c data s~~ ~ts ~n acquire parcels, b~ns to not~f~ t~m ~n c~e t~n a~t certain that ~ou really ~ant to ce~ebrate a~ ~ld ~nto the s~stem. Rather d~scover ~hab ~abe a~ n~gh~ ~n t~ m~e of a ~e~ng at ~=00 at n~ght saying ~ou kn~, ] really don't l~ke th~s ~a~e ~t blocks t~ v~e~ of the church. Th~s stuff k~nd of co~s earlier. ~e ~a~ked a~t the oak ~r~ on the h~11. The p~s~b~tx, c~)d ~ ~e)~ t~re a~ keep t~ oak tree and some sense of the h~. Th~s ~s a ~ax ~n ~h~ch ~e ~u~d start bak~ standard ~velops which ~e can take p~ctures of ar~~ th~s place and masking them ~n there and sa~ng a~r~ght, ~re's s~e mater~a~ tha~ ~e're ~am~l~ar ~th t~t's ~n t~ area. ~t's ~t fr~ ot~r c~t~ee. Say th~s sor~ of rough~ what ~e're ~k~ at. ~t k~pe the tree. It ke~s the base of t~ h~l~. Tha~ a11~ x~ to sort of set at ~east t~ ru~es of ~he game ~h~ch then ~rates cr~t~v~t~ and an ~nteract~ve process between t~ devel~ent c~n~ty and ~ c~on sector. Later on ~ ~h~nk as the commun~t~ begins ~o ~ture, ~t ~omes a ~s~s ~n ~h~ch ~he commun~t~ ~tself or ~ghbor~ organizations beg~n to ~d on ~nforma~on and f~ne ~une t~ structure ~h~ch ~s ~ '~~n~ng ~n H~nneapol~s and St. Paul. ~ ~t's Just a sample. Lance Necker= ...a long way here and we're going to be going at least ~nto December with this and probably ~lll ~ant to come back and maybe have a Joint meeting of the Plann£ng Comm~ssion/HRA since the Planning Commission uses these kinds of things too. t~aybe Council as wel! but that's not normally...work very closely w~th Oon and Paul and Todd. Horn= Good. Questions? Chmiel= Looks good. No. G~ves you a ~hole new pe~spect~ve as to ~hat we can do ~lth the community. Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 199! - Page ~0 Horn.' It'd be nice to see it before it's in place. Chmlel = That's right. Horn'- We had a few surprLees once before. Bill Moresh: You'll still get surprises but. Chmiel: But we can be selective in Hhat Ha're doing. Tl~at's the part I like. Bill Moresh: I think what's Important is that many comauntttes are beginning to realize that a lot of communities are Horried about the term design guidelines but ! think it's the principle of us to say that actually it's the city should articulate what It's looking for and that's different than a set of guidelines. It's like a community has a strong sense of tradition. I mean if you were to build In Santa Fa, New Mexico, Hlth or without rules, you*re building there for a specific kind of reasons and you're doing it for a certain thing and you don't break the rules because you do It, you kno~ them. Well in an emerging place like this Hhere obviously there's a really strong sense of place here', that's Hhy people have moved here for a long period of time. Ho~ to manage that and hoH to build upon that. That basic set of investments that everybody's made and to draw out the power of that Is really very Important. I spent the weekend out at Faimouth and Hyannis and that Hhoie area and the Cape. l think what's Interesting ts that even Hlth a ma~lve amount of grouch, they've been able to manage the aesthetic of being on the Cape. The beach. The landscape and Integration of a lot of development. AIl kinds of commercial development. AIl the levels of housing development because they know that the landscape element Is a major part of that and the rules are part of that and in some areas it's getting tough but It ~as interesting to see, and I haven't been there in almost 9 years, ho~ much more development has gone in there. But it's gone In because everybody knows Hhat to do when you go to Hyannls. You go to Falmouth and what you don't do. And so I was very surprised to see in some real-aCts, ~ell there's your future. How do we now set up those principles ~o we can come back and say gee, ye're Just at Chanhassen. It's still great. Horn: Okay. Thank you very much. UP[~TE ON ~ET ~ DEVEL~. Gerhardt: In my memo to the HRA ! laid out that you Here to receive a copy of the development contract sometime prior to tonight's meeting. Don't feel that you didn't receive it because we didn't get It to you because we didn't get it to you. I met Thursday morning with John Dean to go through some concerns. Vernell Has there. There are three, what I'll say are minor conditions in there. However, Htth Don on vacation I didn't want to act on those untll he returned and he will be here on Monday. ~e w111 get you that agreement sometime next week. I'd say sometime around Wednesday- Thursday. With Don arriving on Monday. Talking to John Dean and making final decisions on those three items. As bo Market Square and their closing on the property, they're looking still at September 1 as my Housing and Redevelopment Authority August 15, 1991 - Page 21 discussion with Vernel! Clayton was on Thursday. Has that date changed? If you have more on that. Vernell Clayton: Brad ~ould have been here except he missed the plane...when you see him next but ~e have with respect to the closing date, it kind of ties into the financing obviously and certainly a lot of other documents that will have to be prepared. We have been extremely busy working toward that end. [ don't know if you're familiar, perhaps you are, with the appearance of the mortgage commitments the~e da~ from mortgage lenders but ever since about 6 or 7 years ago, or as long as !'ye been involved in commercial mortgage banking, they've become longer and much more specific. Very specific. And so ! think to bring you from where we were last time when you met, when Clayton told you that he had responded. We had received a commitment. We had responded. We have since received the response to that response and ~ent a~ther response to that response. Gotten a response to that and responded again. -And all of this has taken a while partly because the lender's under~riter ~as out of to~n for a week of that period of time. We're do~n to very fe~ items and ~e're down to really the issues are those which w111 make the construction lender comfortable that ~e really do have a take out commitment ~hich is an important criteria for the construction lenders the~e da~. It's our hope that the construction lender will be satisfied ~ometime either tomorro~ or the early part of next week and that they can meet their intended time table of going to committee next Friday. That being the case ~e'll go through much the same process with them as ~e have ~lth Lutheran Brotherhood on the permanent financing but it should not take as long because we've been working with them as we've been going through the... Being pinpointed as a time of closing is difficult. I don't think it will be September first because ! don't think that given the numbers of documents that have to be fit together, that your redevelopment contract, the City's development contract, the two lenders contracts and the various numbers of people that get involved, ~e're saying sometime in September. Oo you have any questions? Bohn: What does that affect the lease with Vernell Clayton: Well we're working with them and Gateway wants to be hare. They Just ~ant to be sure we're under a time table they can live with. It might set off about 15 days with them but. Bohn: Ho~ does it affect Bernie Han~on's moving into the building? Vernell Clayton: I talked with Bernie the day before yesterday and gave him essentially the same ~cenarlo that I Just gave you and he left ~miltng without indicating any problem. Workman: Is there a September 1st date or something in that co~tract that involved penalties with Gate~ay or something? Or isn't there something going on there? Vernell Clayton: Yes. Workman: Who pays those penalties? Housing and Redevelopment ~uthorit¥ ~ugust 15, 1991 - Page 22 Vernell Clayton: The developer. Gerhardt: The developer. Pk~ze the construction individual. So in this case it would be ~mcon if they didn't meet the deadline of getting the facility up. Not ~o much the developers or the partners in the agreement. Chmiel: Can conditional concentration be given to complete this before the timeframe we had of August previously a~d it al~ays ~eems like we keep sllpping a month here to a month there to another month. Vernell Clayton: I've been working with Brad for about a year no~ and when I started he said we ~ere golng to be c~ing it I think last September or October or something. Obviously it ~ure ~eems that way. ! don't kno~ that, we're Just working as hard as we can. Some of us are ~orking until i:O0 in the morning on the documents these past co~le of ~eeks. There are a lot of people that have schedules that are hard to work with and it just happens I guess. Having the lenders underwriter out of town slowed us down this past week. It's a very cautious climate out there and not only the developer. I guess we need to be cautious, the partnership is being cautious to some extent but we're deferring to the lenders really at this point and the construction lender ~ants to be cautl~. Lutheran Brotherhood wants to be cautious and ~e're ~nding a lot of time ma-king them comfortable. Horn: Rny other questions? Thank you. Workman: So it's no~ October let? Chmiel: I ~ould hope not. Vernell Clayton: I sure hope it's before then but ~e'l! be doing everything we can to make sure. Workman: But maybe October 1st construction date? The man on the street is always asking me, when is that grocery store going to be up and the Mayor said. Chmtel: We're getting clo~e to cros~ charges which pre~ents a problem with construction. Gerhardt: The important thing is to get the footings in the ground sometime before November. Chmiel: Right, and that"s my real major concern because if they can beat that timeframe, and that's something that has to be done. I would Ilks to see us really try to wind this up by September 15th at the very latest. know it's easy for me to say but at the same time I'm looking at it from coat aspect also for the developer to pay th<>~e penalties that exist. guess maybe we've talked about this ~o long that maybe I'm becoming obsessed with it myself. But I'd really like to see, and I kno~ that you're putting all the time in that you possibly can. Maybe we could gather all the forces to get everybody to work, ~e can probably pull it together by that particular time. Housing and Redevelopment ~uthority August 15, 1991 - Page 23 VeTnell Clayton: Amcon has been working on the time tlne...the city staff and engLneer in trying to get as much behind us... Bohn: How much time between closing and actual ground breaking? Vernell Clayton: Le~ than 24 hours depending on ~hat day you close. At clostng you get your money and you have everyone lined up ahead of time. Horn: AnyLh£ng else? ~erhardt= Chairman Horn? Vernal1 hit on a point that him and Dick and myself did meet w£th Amcon and their architects. There ~ere some concerns brought up at the last HRA meeting regarding some of the architectural styles of Market Square and ho~ they laid thea~aelves out. Co they match wtth the theme of the clo~nto~n? Is this ~l~t we approved? :Zs this what is acceptable to the HRA? 3tm and Char/La play an important role in making sure that the hotel had cedar shake or the cedar shake like shingles on that facility. Also they made aura thai the porch stayed on the facility. Under first designed there ~ere some ideas of tek/ag the porch off. 3.tm wanted to make sure that we did stay with the theme. ]:n short, our meeting yesterday, there ~as dl~cuseton~ about pitching. Putting a pitched roof on the retail center. ]: thLnk what came of the d/~cuseion was that it ~ou[d change the architectural style of the butldtng and there ~as a second thought. ]:f pitching what would be a 12 foot bu/ldLng and putting basically a 12 to 16 foot pitch on it, ~ould that be attTactlve? Would that roofllne be more of obscene than the bulldLng itself in pitching it? ! don't think 31:m was convinced that it ~ould but Z think the con~ensus wa~ that If ~e were to pitch Lt, that ~e'd have to go back and change the entire architectural style of the butldtng which ~ould delay the project 3 to 4 months. But what we d/d come up with ~ae tha~ there ~ere some elements that looked a little more poet modeTn ~ith it than a country theme that ]: guess we felt was established Ln the downtown with the 45 degree arches on the Retai! West. The arches on the new bank. The arches on the hotel. Medical Arts and the apartment building. And fell that they wanted to capture that into the retail center. The retail center does have some arches but they're more of a d/amond ~haped that are li~ up with accent lights behind them. With a green me~a! arch protruded back. Z've got a rendering upstairs thai ]:'11 brLng down here. Horn: I thought ~e mentioned green metal many years ago. Bohn: Hot n: Foods. Pat Swanson would be r[ght over here right a~ay. That was one of mine. ! dldn't want It to look like a Ratnbo~ Bohn: I'm still not happy ~Ith the flat roof of the shopping center. Workman: But are they going to be able to put a pitched roof? Bohn: They can. I've seen that. I kno~ of shopping center that's got a K-Mart and it's got a gabled roof. Housing and Redevelopment Authority ~ugust 15, 1991 - Page 24 Horn Bohn: Chmiel It's amazing ~hat you can do ~hen you ~ant to do lt. If you want to ~pend the money. And If you have the money. That's the key'. Workman: That's the poinl~. Nho's going to 8penct t~at money? Horn: No, kmart: I have an Inkling. Ha~ Richard can ~ ~A ~o. Ho~ n: NSP. No, kmart: NSP and NNA could ge~ some of ~ gove~n~n~ mo~x ~hex use. ~~ ~ BILLS. No~kman moved, Ro~l~ ~con~d ~o pre.ended. AI~ vo~ed ~n favo~ a~ ~he ~on car~. (The ~aptng of ~he mee~1~ e~ed a~ ~h~ point.) Bohn moved, Robb~ns seconded to adjourn the meeti:ng. AlL voted In favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Don Executive Prepared by Harm Ophe~m