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1991 12 19 HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY CHANHASSEN REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 19, 1991 Chairman Horn called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Clark Horn, Don Chmiel, Tom Workman, Charlie Robbing and Jim 8ohn STAFF PRESNT: Don Ashworth, Executive Director and Todd Gerhardt, Asst. Executive Director APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Chmiel moved, Bohn seconded to approve the Minutes of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority dated November 21, 1991 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. CONTINUATION OF PUBLIC HEARING pROPOSED CENTRAL PARK. Horn: I understand we have a few renderings for tonight. Chmiel: Do we have an additional rendering besides this or-is this it? Horn: I think this is it. We have a recommendation.to table'this again and continue keeping the public hearing open. Did you get Minutes Ben?- The public hearing is going to remain open. We do not have the cost information yet. We'll get that at our next meeting. Do we have any comments from any of the Board or anybody in attendance on this new proposal that we have tonight? Don Ashworth made some comments on the new rendering which was not picked up on the tape. Chmiel: What I'd like to see is the legend down here showing the species of what those trees are again. And also having it, the legend show where those lights would be and whatever else we'd have. I see that free skating area and it indicates there sort of an island. Would that be something that they'd be skating around as well? That's good. I like that. If that's going to be an island, I think what you should do is have a few benches in or on that so if people want to just sit down and rest. Some of of us older folks, we can have that opportunity to do that. Horn: You're still skating? Chmiel: Yeah. Horn: Congratulations. Chmiel: I haven't broke anything yet. Horn: I think too, one of the things we talked about was opening up the view to City Hall. It's not apparent from this that that's happened but'if . those are short shurbs, as the Mayor requested to be identified, we may actually have acommplished that. It's hard to tell from this what we have. Any other comments? 8ohn: I would have liked big trees there. Housing and Redevelopm Authority December 19, 1991 - Page 2 Horn: To cover up City Hall? Bohn: No. Because once they get taller, you'd be looking underneath the trees. You wouldn't even notice it. Then it wouldn't cover up City Hall-. Unless you're looking from the bridge and it would cover up the top. Who wants to look at the building anyway. Horn: How many plantings did they eliminate in this concept? It's not apparent. Chmiel: It doesn't look like too many to me either. Horn: Three? Chmiel: I was thinking maybe 10. Horn: Maybe for the next meeting we could get some numbers. Resident: I'm here to express my...not necessarily this specific plan but- the concept...conversations I've had with everyone have been very favorable... Horn: We hope that we can get good input from the chamber on the final concept design. Maybe what we need is a presentation to the Chamber. (Ben Gowen was asking some questions 't.hat weren't picked up on the tape.) Chmiel: That's a good question. We don't know what the dollars are. Ben Gowen: You know what the dollars are on the land though'don't you? Chmiel: Not really. I think we have a pretty good inkle. Horn: What we will do is set up a proposal to how we want to implement it but obviously you're going to have to come up with the initial buy to start with and then we'd like to have a concept of what we ultimately want to get to. Or more. Ben Gowen: What about your... Where's the money coming from 'to develop this?... Ashworth: That is also paid for by that... Ben Gowen: What does that mean? Horn: It means it's money we didn't have to[send to St. Paul. Ben Gowen: Did not have to? Horn: That's right. Ben Gowen: Then it's tax money? Housin~ and Redevelo Authority December 19, 1991 - Page 3 Horn: Well it's tax money that we get to keep here rather than sending to St. Paul. Ashworth: We would not use those dollars to... Those are dollars' that have to be used for capital construction.. . . Ben Sowen: I'm very much in favor of getting the land but I'm not very much in favor of... Horn: I think we've all got some concerns about the concept yet. ~e ~eed to, once we get a concept that we think might look good, then we want to go up and present it to the Chamber and some other groups and get feedback on it. Ben Gowen: ...change that whole street. Bohn: The street is being changed. Ben Gowen: I'm talking about the former Main Street. Chmiel: 78th Street is what you're talking about. Horn: It will conform to this plan. Chmiel: Yeah, it will conform to that plan. In fact it's going to be a little wider than the normal portion of what downtown is. Horn: The street will look like that whether we-do this or not. Ben Gowen: ...the strategy. Where do you stop and where do you start'.. Ashworth: ...The idea of the mall area is to allow...this past year but we had this whole area... Ben Gowen: Answer my question. How do the pedestrians use the mall? You've got a mall there... Don Ashworth's answer could not be heard on the .tape. Chmiel: Basically it's a sidewalk' is what it is' Down the center. Ben Gowen: You park your car behind the building and walk around the building and... You can't park in the street. Bohn: A lot of people will park in the shopping center once it's built and walking over too. Chmiel: That will be from some of those people that will do that. What you're saying right now but as far as, and I understand. Ben Gowen: ...the design for the next 6 hours... Horn: I think that's a more universal agreement than the concept plans that we have. Housing and Redevelopr Authority December 19, 1991 - Page 4 Chmiel: I think they're looking at that mall portion having a center purpose function going directly towards City Hall. F~om what Barton- Aschmann had indicated at. the time. And that is what they were trying to focus at so people knew exactly where City Hall was. And I think the sidewalk intent was to have that kind of circulation because you're going to have sidewalks all the way in front, all the way on the sides going up and along Kerber 81vd. as well. So if somebody wants to go out walking or if some of the senior citizens Want to go walking through here, they Can go in different directions. Horn: Or if people in City Hall want to shop at noon. Chmiel: Yeah. Bohn: You know the eclipse garden, if you're going to have a concert and they'll be using that bandshell, a lot of people might want to be sitting where that small ring is. You can get a lot of people in there and that'd be filled with flowers. Ashworth: ...grass. They're hoping a lot of the summer activities will... summer playground... Most of that... Horn: I think we made progress on the north side. I'm not sure we made a lot of progress on the south side. What's the feeling of' the group? Robbins: I like the north side. Chmiel: I think that flow going through there is going to be fairly decent. Ben Gowen: What do you mean by decent...? Horn: Useable for parking access. Ben Sowen: He said the flow. Horn: The flow through the parking areas. Chmiel: Yeah. The under drive as you come off of Chan View basically and come back and across towards Kerber. I' think that basically is needed within there. That was the first one. That was one of the early ones. Horn: I think we need some other concepts for the south side. Chmiel: I think what you're looking for is the accessibility of not walking directly on the grass at all given times. With that in mind and with the concrete coming in with grass in the center as well and I don't think that's too dumb because if you have people continually walking a direction, just as a cowpath, you're going to be killing grass all the time so you have to have something for them to walk on as well. Ashworth: ...associated with Oktoberfest... Horn: Okay. Well our public hearing will continue to be open. Housing and Redeveio Authority December i9, 1991 - Page 5 Ben Gowen: By the way this meeting was not published 'in the paper. Horn: Which meeting? Tonight's meeting? Chmiel: I think it was in last week's. Gerhardt: It was in an article. Ben Gowen: Well it was in an article but... Gerhardt: It hasn't been the HRA's...to publish their agenda. Chmiel: I don't know why not. Horn: I don't either. I think we should. Ben Gowen: ...talk about a $1 1/2 million program. Horn: That's double what we had the first night. Chmiel: That's right. We improved it 20OX. Ben Gowen: I wouldn't have gotten here this time except... Horn: Well we're continuing the public hearing. Part of the reason we're doing this is because we're really not pressed to move on this. The other one is, we hope to start getting some interest generated. Maybe this is the wrong time of year to generate interest in a park. I'm not sure. And we may have to go out and make some presentations to get some interest. Ben Gowen: ... Horn: I don't think we're holding up on that part. Chmiel: They're not overly anxious in selling it. They're waiting for our direction I think. Horn: Any other comments? Bohn: We can buy the land regardless of what this design is. Horn: Right. Okay we'll continue the public hearing then into our next meeting. We'll go onto the next item. UPDATE ON MARKET SQUARE DEVELOPMENT, BRAD 30HNSON. Brad 3ohnson: Mr. Chairman, members of the HRA. Where we are on Market Square is that we're going through each step. I tried to explain it now that you used to do development kind of 8 things in parallel and now you do it sequentially so now you do one thing at a time and waiting for everything else to happen. I think we've got a couple of hurdles that we've got to get through this week. I think we've made it. We're waiting for the final letter of commitment from Lutheran Brotherhood. We held that up until we had the commitment-from First Bank because the acceptance of Housing and Redevelo Authority December 19, 1991 - Page 6 the commitment from Lutheran Brotherhood involved a couple hundred thousand dollar commitment on our part in the form of cash and we wanted to make sure we had the bank commitment for the construction loan first. He hope to receive that tomorrow and then that would initiate the preparation of the documents for closing. I don't think we've not, we've had some hurdles but nothing like trying to find a grocery store o'r trying to find the financing. They're just questions that people are raising as we go along and I think as I've explained before, I've never done one of these deals where you kind of go backwards into the closing. It's just a little bit different and it's probably a sign of the times with the banks. I would say somewhere right around the first part of the year, the end of the year, right in there we'd have a better idea once we get the documents to see what kind of negotiations we have to do on there but we don't anticipate we have much choice on the negotiations side. So as far as we know, everything bas sort of been pre-approved. We've sent everything down. Just tons of paperwork that's been given to them. They've looked at most of the things that they could say it wouldn't work. The contractor is ready to start. January is not the best month to start but we've got things that we can do during the month of January so that's where we are. The grocery store is standing by. A lot of interest in the whOlel project as you all know and we're just kind of anxious to get going with it because it's going to cause a lot of other developmeot in town from what I can tell. I've talked to the hospital is wanting to expand the clinic which has to wait until we move Bernie and all kinds of things that can probably happen over the next year once we get this thing rolling so we're excited. City staff has been cooperating wherever they can and I think all the documents, like I say there's a couple of little ones that will be last minute anyway. Hopefully you guys are around to sign things the next couple of weeks. Horn: Is ground going to break before spring? Brad Johnson: Yeah. We're just like 14 days away all the time now. I would say sometime around, we don't have much frost and we've got' some work to do that we can do during the winter. During really cold months so they can open it and just dig like a son of a gun. It's the same kind of thing they're doing next to the Tonka Ford is going in there. Horn: In the industrial park they're moving ground every 'day. Chmiel: The snow cover that you've got over this. Brad Johnson: With the snow cover you .don't have deep frost. .They just have to go fast when they open. it up. And where the grocery store is, we have to go down 40 feet straight down and then we haul sand in. $o that's kind of where we are with that. Now the paper had an article saying'we've got it pretty much organized and we were okay with releasing that but we're not releasing much more. Chmiel: Yeah, I read the article in the paper. Brad Johnson: I thought that was fairly Straight forward. Okay. Anything else? Horn: $o you expect it finished in January? Housing and Redevelo Authority December 19, 1991 - Page 7 Brad Johnson: First part of January is what we're saying right now. We had a week delay because we can't find two people that are supposed to say something. It's just hard to believe. Chmiel: Get it done by the 5th. That's Clark's birthday. . Brad Johnson: Oh it's the 5th. We'll have the ground breaking that day. That's pretty close to where it is but that's probably on a Sunday. Is it a Sunday? HoT n: I 'm not sure. Brad 3ohnson: No it's probably a Monday. Anything.else? Hot n: No, that ' s great. Chmiel: No, just wind that sucker up. Brad 3ohnson: We'll try. Horn: Okay, is Don going to present the next item or are you Todd? Gerhardt: ...In front of you tonight is a request from staff to purchase the Hanus building. Basically that purchase would entail buying out...we feel that this is an important acquisition. One, this area has been a problem, thorn in the side of the city ever since the start, ever since the building went into the ground...heavy equipment being sold off the front of the building. The area also acts as an entrance to the future development, whatever may occur...Also with the TH 5 corridGr being put together... Don Ashworth's comments were not being picked up on the tape. Chmiel: What are we looking at Don as far as total acrious of property? Oh that's right, it was $200,000.00. The other concern I would have, if we ' were to pursue this for the property, I would like to see us still do an environmental review of that property so the City is not going to be picking up any superfund site that's going to cost us money. Brad 3ohnson: We're...escrow of $15,000.00. Chmiel: $15,000.00 sometimes won't touch those. Brad 3ohnson's comments were not picked up on the tape. Chmiel: Do we know whether there are any kinds of tanks contained on that facility? Brad 3ohnson: No. Chmiel: What about floor drains? Do they have existing floor-drains? Brad Johnson: The standard ones like... Horn: Storm sewer? Housing and Redevelo Authority December 19, 1991 - Page 8 Brad 3ohnson: Not storm sewer. Bohn: Sanitary sewer. Brad 3ohnson: Sanitary sewer. That's the way they handle...a special surcharge for handling that. Chmiel: Yeah, but sometimes there's a real given problem by. discharging and not knowing what they're discharging and it can cause a problem with the MWCC as well. Brad Johnson: Well we bad...just run it just like you run a normal...you haul it out in plastic tanks... Chmiel: The problem being it couldn't be a 55 gallon drum that was sitting there and it could have leaked into the ground sitting outside. It can be anything, a number of situations that' can occur with that piece of property over those years. Brad 3ohnson: What we have done...a whole bunch of tests... . . Chmiel: How deep are theY' going? Brad 3ohnson: Wherever they can figure out, remember it's all blacktop. The whole parcel is so they went down 4 or 5 feet wherever they can... Chmiel: Sometimes that 3, 4, 5 feet is not enough because of percolation over the number of years where that will go down farther in more depth. Brad 3ohnson: Generally speaking a lot of firms...blacktop on the whole lot. Chmiel: Yeah, I'm familiar with that. Brad 3ohnson: I didn't know that. Chmiel: What about in back of that building? Brad Johnson: That's city property... We've.done-everything we could to make sure that we have... Chmiel: I just want to make sure that we're not going to be the responsible party by acquiring that and then it becomes ours. (There was a tape change at this point.) Chmiel: Everytime I look at these acquisition r. equests for relocation it just disturbs me. Relocation costs for people living in apartments. Gerhardt: Well these are... Chmiel: I know. Housing and Redevelo Authority December lC), 1_,:)91 - Page C) Gerhardt: ...if they really want to push.it. I've got one person that's pushing it. He's looking for rent differential and...compensated 'for the City coming in and... Horn: Is there a motion to approve? Chmiel: So moved. Bohn: Second. Chmiel moved, Bohn seconded to approve the bills of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. All voted in favor and them motion carried. Chmiel moved, Horn seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Don Ashworth 5xecutive Director Prepared by Nann Opheim