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EDA 2004 04 12CHANHASSEN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY SPECIAL MEETING APRIL 12, 2004 Chairman Furlong called the meeting to order at 9:25 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Furlong, Steve Labatt, Bob Ayotte, Craig Peterson and Brian Lundquist STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Justin Miller, Roger Knutson, and Kate Aanenson PUBLIC PRESENT: Steven Mosborg Paul Nesburg Valaire & Fred Riese Brandy Geiger Edina 9093 Sunnyvale Drive 9154 Sunnyvale Drive 2403 Ash Grove, Ambler, PA 19002 REVIEW PROPOSAL FOR PONY/PAULY/PRYZMUS SITE. Miller: Thank you. Fortunately this item isn't near as complicated as the bowling alley site, where there's only one landowner. ! don't think there's any easements, at least that we know about right now so. Furlong: Get an attorney involved. He'll find some. Miller: This site is what we had normally called Pony/Pauly/Pryzmus site. It is adjacent to old St. Hubert's Church, across the street from the Dinner Theater, and where old Village Hall sits right now which is used by the Chamber of Commerce. Periodically we receive proposals or requests on this site, and we haven't had a whole lot of success in cultivating those. If you remember probably about a year ago we did have a request come through for a restaurant with a drive thru. The EDA directed staff to work with them more on some architecture and drive thru designs. We just couldn't come to terms with them on that and that proposal went to the wayside. Since then we have received some other requests. However this one has take the step of actually going through some preliminary site plan and some architecture review. The proposal is for a, ! believe it's 8,000 square foot daycare, as well as 1,800 square foot coffee shop which would be at the south end of the property. Reviewing this with Kate and Todd and some other people among staff, we feel like this is a good use of the property. It compliments the existing church in that there wouldn't be any parking conflicts. There is still a congregation that does use the church, old St. Hubert's Church that is, as well as the parking lot on Sundays and some periodic Wednesday nights. There wouldn't be any conflict to the parking there. It also has a, I'll call it a synergy with Chapel Hill across the street so there is some good uses there that compliment each other. The coffee shop is also we think a good use. We still have some concerns with the location that we would need to talk with Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 the developer about, as well as some traffic issues, especially with the drive thru. That would be something that we would need to talk to the developer about. Some of the main concerns that we have with this site is one I've addressed already. The traffic. But two is respecting the architecture of old village hall and old St. Hubert's Church. We want to make sure that any building that is in that area, is probably one story or below so it doesn't impact the views of the church. This building respects that. Staff feels comfortable that this is an adequate and a good use for the site. We haven't seen really in depth architecture at all on the coffee shop building and very limited on the daycare building. So at this point we're not ready to just flat out say that we fully endorse it. However we do approve or we do think we like general use in the area and the way that it compliments, not only the uses but parking and so we would be comfortable in having the EDA direct staff to continue negotiations with the developer on not only price of the property but also architecture and layout, and that would be our recommendation tonight. That you direct us to continue negotiations with them. ! know the developer is here tonight along with some representatives from the two uses that are going to be on the property, and without anything else I'd be happy to answer any questions. Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Ayotte: Have you had any discussions with Chapel Hill as yet and to what depth? Miller: No, we have not. Ayotte: And your conclusion that this would be synergy with the school is simply because they're both schools, that's what you're? Miller: They're schools but also this school would be, as ! understand, kindergarten through, or age 3 through kindergarten and then the next step would be to go over to Chapel Hill. Ayotte: And if we say go forward, you're going to begin talks with Chapel Hill? Miller: Yes, we would talk to them as well as the Remax building, which is also impacted. Ayotte: Okay. Furlong: Other questions at this point? Lundquist: Are the developers going to speak or? Furlong: I expect so. I expect so. Do you want to wait and listen? Lundquist: Yeah. Furlong: Okay. Why don't we do that. 2 Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 Steve Mosborg: Good evening. My name's Steve Mosborg. I know you guys have had a long night already. I'll try to keep this short. First thanks to Kate and Justin for their work and the meetings that we've had already to try to develop the site. Kind of the 30,000 foot view from our perspective. First, I wanted to introduce some people because they are sort of important about how we've gone about viewing this site. Brandi Geiger is here from Goddard Learning System. Flew in from Philadelphia to be at this meeting and also to take a look at the site. Brandi. This will be, the reason we kind of view this as being important is we basically have two birds in the hand. One with Goddard Learning System and one with Dunn Brothers Coffee as being users for the site, and this will be the first Goddard Learning System school in the state of Minnesota. They have 162 locations across the country, and she's here to answer any questions that you may have. Fred and Valaire Riese are the franchisees who will be working underneath the Goddard Learning System banner, and Paul Nesburg is here from Dunn Brothers Coffee. He currently owns the Savage store. Is negotiating on a Fridley and this would be his first ground up location. Interestingly enough both Fred and Valaire and Paul Nesburg live in your community. In fact if they used a strong golf ball they could hit each other's windows from their houses. What we feel that we have here is we have two proven franchise concepts, and that we have two strong franchisee groups that live in your community and two birds in the hand that basically can help move this process along more efficiently as Justin said than perhaps some of the issues that you had on the bowling alley. We do feel also that it's probably the highest and best use for the site. This site is triangular in shape which makes development somewhat difficult, and we also feel that as it relates to the ratios of coverage and then also the parking ratios, that it can make a lot of sense for the site. The other thing about the site, just as an FYI for the group is that there are significant utility easements that run through this property, and we're not proposing to interrupt any of those existing utility easements. Justin talked a little bit about the architecture. We feel that there is a strong fit, if you got the handouts on the prototypical Goddard Learning Center, we feel that kind of does fit in already with your architectural uses that line 78th Street. It is true that we don't have one for Dunn Brothers but we've hired Kathy Anderson, who spent 20 years as a partner at KKE Architects. Well regarded firm and Kathy is a past president of MSCA. In fact she designed that little kiosk as the entrance to your city many years ago, and she's going to be the lead architect on this. She went out on her own about 6 months ago in what's called the Architectural Consortium Inc.. Few comments on the cons and then I'll open it up for questions. It's just that yes, there is some duplicated uses here. The city of Edina has 8 coffee shops within about a quarter mile of each other. We feel that Dunn Brothers can be the third and probably the most likely coffee user for your community, especially with the drive thru, and then we also, we just kind of want to clarify this point about daycare. It's really a, Goddard runs a very sophisticated preschool program as part of their work. The other thing as it relates to the drive thru, when we met with Kate and with Justin and actually Kate, we had a couple meetings when we were reviewing our actions for Dunn Brothers about 6 months ago and we found this to be the only site in the city of Chanhassen that made sense that already was a conformed use in your zoning criteria for your downtown zoning use. Purchase price, we are talking about a number. Architecture will be coming and we will be very respectful of the historical nature of the Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 site. And not as much retail as we possibly want on the site. I guess my only comment there would be that I feel that this is not truly a retail site and it's sort of reflected in Brad's project with Cameo Cleaners across the street. That there have been some problems on that 78th Street corridor and we think that this is a nice hybrid between the two, so I think those are my comments and if you have any questions, we'd be more than happy to answer anything you might have. Furlong: Questions? Peterson: The only one that I have is, as you look at the play area on both sides of the building, is that safe to assume there's going to have to be some significant fencing? Steve Mosborg: Significant fencing and actually the architectural version of this, those play areas are over sized. Typical square footage on play area when you can actually have one on each side? Brandi Geiger: ..36 by 27 feet... Steve Mosborg: Yeah, but Goddard has a very, as most do. Most preschool programs or daycare facilities have very strict standards of how their play areas get laid out with the fencing. They're also, we looked at a couple other sites in your community but had to reject them because of the high power tension lines and the railroads, so we just really couldn't, this is a site that seems at least clear of those kinds of obstacles. Peterson: I guess my point, and I realize that there's, that's probably my only concern about what I've seen other than a little bit of the architecture that we'll probably get into later. Steve Mosborg: Sure. Peterson: You know having fencing that's going to be almost the same size as the building, whether it's proportionately less, ! don't know but ! think that's the only challenge from an aesthetic standpoint is it's a prime area. Next to a historic site, then to see typical metal fencing around there doesn't really trip my trigger. So being more creative with that and ! don't know how you be creative with fencing but. Steve Mosborg: Yeah, well actually there are several ways. They're kind of a hybrid, the picket fence to the wrought iron detailing that's become pretty common in a lot of life style centers. The other thing that we like about this, as you may recall out in front of your town hall and the church you have sort of this common area, court yard area and ! use the example tonight as we were waiting to come into the room that my daughter goes to a Montessori school, Step by Step in ghetto Edina and every once in a while ! pick her up early and we wait for mom to show up and we'll just go, sit down in a chair and it's really kind of a nice little cooperative area there that's right in front of the town hall. That ! think can actually sort of be an extension of this corridor along with the walking 4 Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 path that goes all the way down to Highway 5. But we'll certainly keep your concerns in focus. Furlong: Okay. Other questions? Lundquist: Can you give me a little bit more detail about the Goddard program. Steve Mosborg: Yes, and I'd actually like Brandi to come up because that's why we brought her here. Brandi Geiger: Hi. My name is Brandi Geiger. I'm with Goddard Systems. We're based out of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania which is near Philadelphia. And if you'd like me to answer your question first or give you some background on the school, whatever. Lundquist: Background would be fine. Brandi Geiger: Okay. As Steve said, we do have 162 schools open right now. 15 under construction. About 25 or so that are in development that are at this stage across the country in 21 states. We have been in operation for about 15 years and we are a franchisee operated system. Being that the corporate office does not run the system. It's run by local citizens who live and work in the area. We'd like to say again that Chanhassen would be the first location in Minnesota, which we're really excited about because Minnesota's such a growing area, especially this area in Minneapolis/St. Paul region so when we met Valaire and Fred, we were pretty excited. They came to us with this site. We've taken a look at it. Our real estate folks are coming out ! think next week to take a look at it as well and we feel really positive about it. A little bit about Goddard. It is a preschool program. It's not just a daycare and what makes it a little bit different, we're actually a lot different, is that we have two licenses. We get a child care license and we also get a Department of Education license, depending upon what the state requires. Because we do have a fully integrated curriculum that includes a variety of different areas, language arts, social skills, cognitive development. We focus really on the social and economic. Economics? Social, emotional, cognitive and the physical development of a child and we really move at their pace and we encourage their creativity. And through that it's more than just child care. It's really the development aspect of it. We do maintain low teacher to student ratios so we can have the one on one care so it feels more like a home away home than it does an institutional type facility. We do meet or exceed all local and state standards, and that is our policy across the board. We regularly review curriculum and our equipment that we use to make sure that we are state of the art. That we are leading the industry and as a result we have been named for the last 2 years as the number one franchising company for child care in the nation by Entrepreneur Magazine. That's the business side of it and the curriculum side of it. And how we monitor the curriculum that's in our schools to make sure that the quality is as high as the corporate office intends it to be, is our quality assurance program that are done randomly on every school. On a new school it's done 3 times a year. After their first year they can have it done twice a year, and depending on how they do, but this quality assurance is very rigid, very stringent and there is a minimum to have to be Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 passed and anything that's missed has to be corrected and so from that perspective that's really the corporate office. Their role is to make sure that all of those standards in the curriculum are maintained at a high quality. So that when we come into a community, we really are a benefit to the community and you don't look at us 5 years down the road and think, you know we thought it was going to be so great and it's not. It's something that we really focused on. We also focus on a very high level of communication with parents. We have daily sheets that go home with every student that says what they did. Maybe what they didn't do. What they did really well at or tell the parent really how the day went for their child and unfortunately I'm not a parent but from what we hear from our parents, that's really a key for them. ! would like to talk a little bit about our drop off process at the school. We are a school but we're not typical like an elementary school in that we have, everybody has to show up at 8:15. We have this long line of cars waiting to get in. We have a staggered drop off time between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m.. We are open from 7:00 to 6:00 12 months out of the year. Legal holidays we're closed. Parents can drop off their kids between 7:00 and 9:00. They have to pull into a parking space. Turn the car off. Bring the child in. Sign them in and then leave. We do that obviously for it's a good transition for the child and also we don't want children running around the parking lot. It wouldn't be very safe. I'd also like to say that we have 130 students maximum planned for this facility. It's an 8,000 square foot building with 8 rooms. In looking at the state requirements of Minnesota, we could fit a maximum of 130 students. The students could be part time or full time. There's always a mix of that. About 30 to 40 percent of the enrollment will be part time, and probably leave around 12:00 to 1:00, so you do have some pick-up's on the 12:00 to 1:00 time. So then by the evening pick up between 4:00 and 6:00, you have 30-40 percent less traffic than you do in the morning. The staff ratio builds with the students and of course declines as students leave. And that's just a really brief overview so, any questions? Furlong: Questions? Lundquist: General, it sounds like ! would anticipate your fill ratio is pretty rapid and don't anticipate it will take you long to fill all 130 of those spots. Brandi Geiger: Typically no because what we do about 3 months, once construction starts and they've got about 3 months before we actually go in for a Certificate of Occupancy and we open the school, we do start advertising and marketing on behalf of the owners. So we generate leads. It can be several hundred leads, depending on the interest in the area and typically there is a large interest in the school. Being that we are new here, we understand that there is a little bit of explanation of who we are and why we're different than some of the other schools. But we do provide them with leads and then the owners can go in and when they get close to opening, they call and schedule tours and we actually train the owners. They come in for a 3 week training. Very intensive. It teaches them how to close the deal to bring somebody in. Explain their program. Tour them and close that deal so it's really up to the owner/operator. It's their business. They buy a license from us to use our name and our program and our curriculum but their business and so they have a vested interest in it. Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 Furlong: Question, and typical class schedule, and I didn't hear the closing time but it sounds like that's more variable in the afternoon. Brandi Geiger: It's 6:00 p.m. closing time. Kids are normally picked up between 4:00 and 6:00, depending on the parents schedule obviously, but typically we do not stay open later than 6:00 p.m., and that is a Monday through Friday schedule. Furlong: And is it typically, are the children there on a daily basis Monday through Friday from that, somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00 and 4:00 to 6:00? Brandi Geiger: Right. About like 35 percent ! guess, 30 to 40 percent of the kids are part time. That means they can come 3 full days a week. They could come 5 half days. They could come 3 half days. Again it's tailored to the needs of the parents. Some of the kids could obviously be there full time, 5 days a week. Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? No, thank you very much. Anything else Steve or questions from us? Steve Mosborg: Just would like to continue the opportunity to work with staff and see if we can't get this off the ground. Furlong: Okay. Alright. Brandi Geiger: ! forgot to ask something ! completely forgot about. The ages that we focus on are 6 weeks to 6 years. We do have an in-fill program, pre-toddler, toddler. We do offer all the time. Furlong: Thank you. Any other questions? ! guess traffic. Traffic flow is one. What have we done, and ! think ! recall the last proposal we saw here they were also looking at a drive thru and there were issues about traffic and traffic flow, especially at that intersection. Aanenson: And we're working closely with Mr. Mosborg on that because that was one of the issues that came up is peak flows, and again that's kind of why we looked at these two uses. Was looking at peak hours. How they all set in the surrounding uses, and that we have a use that doesn't require heavy Saturday or Sunday use. If you had a wedding or something like that at the church.., so we're working through those. ! think that's kind of as we get to crunching it down, the circulation. The coffee tends to be a little bit earlier, so that's kind of how they're looking at it but certainly we're going to look at that, ask them to give a sketch to us. Similar to what we've done on other projects. Trip generation. Peak hours. Furlong: Who else has parking rights over this area? Is it Remax? Miller: They don't have parking rights. They have an access right on that right side, as the church would and the Chamber. Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 Steve Mosborg: And what's kind of interesting is that of course when the school closes, typically when the church is in operation so there's kind of this nice co-tendency that goes with that. Also the morning traffic with the coffee shop is, does start quite early and we do feel that with the swing that Kathy Anderson created there with the drive thru, is that we really stay out of this kind of typical issue that you have stacking close to the entrance and exit. If you take a look at the loop on the diagram there at the lowest part of the triangle, you've got quite a bit of room there to stack and move people through because they would actually impact the access to Remax and to Great Plains Boulevard. Furlong: So the stacking obviously is an issue. Potential issue and perhaps the design. Aanenson: Just some little things that we looked at... Yeah it flows through there. We're blocking their building. There's some...! think all those things we can work through, and we've made a lot of progress in kind of looking at the uses and what seems to make some sense. Labatt: Kate, did you lose any parking stalls with the way the position of the school is there? Miller: From the original proposal that was sent out to you, probably yes. The way the building is now, it's all grass. Labatt: So what's currently there? Is there any parking stalls lost? Miller: Yeah, you probably would. Labatt: What if we took, and maybe this is getting the cart before the horse here, but if you took the school and you rotated it. Aanenson: It was rotated before and ! think we're still looking at all those iterations. It was at a different angle before. We kind of like the street presence with the presence of the kids. We liked that about Chapel Hill. That energy when you're coming down the street and you see the kids, they're doing the same thing. They're out playing in that area. Labatt: Yeah, but I'm just wondering if you, ! agree with Mr. Peterson. We're talking on both sides. Aanenson: Right, we don't want it chain link. We want to do something nice. But we can research different orientation. I'm not sure we've gelled on that yet. Steven Mosborg: Yeah, ! wouldn't say we have, our original drawing did show the other direction and then Goddard came back and said, well in a typical 8,000 square foot facility, also because of the age groups, we separate the play areas so, and also in an 8,00 square foot building, we typically see the 80 foot of frontage and 100 foot depth as being Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 the front to back ratio if you will on the building. And so that's why we came up with this plan. I think this plan over the previous plan, when it was turned the other way I think made a difference in only two parking stalls if I recall correctly. I think there were 43 and I think we went down to 41, is that right? Kate, does that sound about right? Yeah, 43 to 41 so it wasn't a huge impact item. And so we were basically trying to follow Goddard's typical prototype as much as possible. Aanenson: Some of the things that we need to figure out, or activities where there need to be a lot of parents, because actually you don't require a lot of parking. It's just dropping off a child.., so there will be some activity for an event, where they have parents coming in for an activity or something. That, we'll work with them on that. Furlong: Before you go, you had mentioned and I think I forgot to ask, purchase price considerations. That was one of the items raised in staff's memo. Have you had discussions? Steven Mosborg: Yeah, we have. We tried to say 7. They said 9 so, they said any piece of dirt in the city is 9 bucks now so. We do think with the ratios that we have and the types of uses that we have, that we can probably make that Performa work. And then we also did some projections on the tax implications too with the real estate taxes for the site. Be a gain to the city and also how it would impact the tenants. Miller: I think we said we'd start at 9. Steven Mosborg: I thought we were starting at 7 but anyway. Lundquist: He's been hardened through the bowling alley. Steven Mosborg: Yeah, yeah. Furlong: Usually when you're selling you start higher. Okay, alright. Steven Mosborg: Bottom line is, it will get down to Performa. Furlong: Alright, other questions? Peterson: If you're looking for feedback, ! think we shared it directly and indirectly but ! think architecturally it's going to be, the only issue that ! have, ! outwardly want to see some architectural interest and articulation in the building. Probably more than the original plans that ! saw. That didn't overwhelm me. And ! think that you do have a good opportunity to use the fencing to accent it. And chain link isn't going to work. ! think that the other thing, you know what kind of play ground equipment's going to be there. The stuff you see now, the red, white and blue and green. Steven Mosborg: It's very interesting you should bring that up. We had that conversation at about 3:30 this afternoon and she said you know this is going to be a Economic Development Authority - April 12, 2004 perfect site for us to get into our muted tone play equipment. Just exactly just for that reason because of the fact that we run a, we want to keep in step. Also about brick color, between the church and with Remax and with the buildings all the way down to Byerly' s, you know, ! think that done tastefully this is going to really fit in well so it almost seems like it's been for a long time. Yeah. Furlong: Additional comments, thoughts? ! guess we've been looking at this site before. A lot of the neighbors or residents talk about, preference to keep this green and so maybe this goes back to the architectural but to the extent that you're doing something in those play areas, especially look for the opportunity to... Steven Mosborg: Very good point. Furlong: Plant grass where possible. Obviously that takes wear and tear so. Steven Mosborg: Yeah, and ! would also say that you know the other thing, just as a point of maybe a confidence builder with your team is that this was, this is pretty preliminary and this is before Kathy Anderson really got a chance to look at the 40 page spec sheet from Goddard so it was really based on this meeting and that we would move forward to take on those kinds of considerations. Furlong: Alright. Okay, well there are things to work out but it certainly has some possibilities and some good prospects so, are we looking for, is staff looking for a motion at this point or you're comfortable with the comments. We'll move on with your recommendation and keep pursuing it and see if we can't put something together. So good, thank you every one for coming. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Peterson moved, Lundquist seconded to approve summary and verbatim minutes of the Economic Development Authority meeting dated January 26, 2004 as presented. Lundquist moved, Labatt seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 9:52 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt Executive Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 10