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PC 2004 07 20CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JULY 20, 2004 Chairman Sacchet called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Uli Sacchet, Dan Keefe, Steve Lillehaug, Bethany Tjornhom, Kurt Papke, Rich Slagle and Craig Claybaugh STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; and Matt Saam, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Debbie Lloyd Janet Paulsen Melissa Gilman 7302 Laredo Drive 7305 Laredo Drive Chanhassen Villager PUBLIC HEARING: REOUEST FOR AN AMENDMENT TO PERMIT A HEALTH CLUB IN THE ARBORETUM BUSINESS PARK PUD WITH SITE PLAN APPROVAL FOR SAID HEALTH CLUB AND CORPORATE OFFICES WITH A VARIANCE FOR PARKING, OUTLOT A, ARBORETUM BUSINESS PARK 4TI~ ADDITION (22.184 ACRES), LIFETIME FITNESS CENTER, PLANNING CASE NO. 04-22, ALLIANT ENGINEERING, INC. AND CHASKA GATEWAY PARTNERS LIMITED. Public Present: Name Address Parham Javaheri, Alliant Engineering Jay Amundson Jeff Podergois Rick Dorsey Tracey Rust Dave DeCon 2540 Jeff Sandberg 6442 JeffMelby 6442 Joe Leonard 6442 William Doerr 6442 Mark Zaebst 6442 Steve Thorpe 8896 233 Park Ave So. Suite 200, Minneapolis 6442 City West Parkway, Eden Prairie 2932 Water Tower Place 14215 Green View Court, Eden Prairie 6442 City West Parkway, Eden Prairie Christian Drive, Chaska City West Parkway, Eden Prairie City West Parkway, Eden Prairie City West Parkway, Eden Prairie City West Parkway, Eden Prairie City West Parkway, Eden Prairie Lake Place, Eden Prairie Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thanks Bob. Questions from staff. Kurt, you have questions? Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Papke: I get to go first. Any issues with the round about right at the entrance there with the fire truck? Saam: No, we verified that this afternoon with our turning radiuses. Our fire marshal can get his truck around there. Papke: Okay. Round abouts are a little rare in Chanhassen at this point. What's the signage like there to prevent people from just cutting the corner and making a left turn in that round about? Saam: It'd just be some directional signage. Papke: Do you have any issues or concerns with that? With that entrance and the configuration because that's going to be a pretty busy three way there. Saam: Yeah, it will act like a driveway entrance. ! mean that's what they are, three driveways. We do have these islands in residential cul-de-sacs with multiple driveways coming off there so with signage we believe it should work. Papke: Okay. Now this is proposed as a three phased development. The first phase is the health club alone, and then the second phase, are we only looking at the health club piece tonight or are we looking at all three pieces? Generous: The entire site. Papke: Okay. Are there any plan B's for phase 3 that have been presented or proposed? Sometimes companies don't do as well from a revenue perspective and they decide not to build the additional building and so forth. Is there any proposed alternatives? Aanenson: That was discussed internally and I think that's why we felt based on going with the recommendation for the PUD amendment, that we wanted to approve the entire site plan and they're locked into this. So if they change from that, they'd have to come back through this process to amend the site plan. Papke: Okay. Aanenson: Because that was again our concern originally that we wanted to see the corporate office so in order to amend it to allow the fitness center, we want to see the corporate office so. Let's say if they chose not to, if the applicant chose to not move into one or two of the buildings and as long as it looked like that and was still office, would we have a concern? That wouldn't be an issue per se. Where our intent is that we wanted to see office building there. Generous: The applicant is proposing that this be platted as one lot so they would be the owner of the entire site. So they couldn't convey any of those parcels without coming back through the subdivision process. 2 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Aanenson: So those are the two control points. Papke: Okay. Question on page 5 of the traffic forecast. There's an estimate that 30 percent of the trips to the fitness center would be generated by the office and not involve vehicle trip and so the trips were reduced by roughly 30 percent. Just gut feel that just sounds like a lot. Does this seem realistic to you folks? Saam: Why don't ! take an opportunity to introduce Ed Terhaar from Benshoof and Associates. Ed completed the traffic study for us. Ed Terhaar: Yeah, we looked at that pretty extensively and we actually discussed it with Lifetime staff and they told us that everyone at the office building, or every employee has a membership to the fitness center, so their feeling was that the 30 percent would be realistic. Papke: So that 30 percent is not employees that are going there to work. They're employees that are going there to work out? Ed Terhaar: Right. Papke: Okay, got it. That's an important piece. Last question, and then I'll give up the floor here. The number of trips being estimated in the traffic study headed southbound on Century down to 82nd seems low to me. It just doesn't seem like a lot of trips. You know if! was going to work out here and ! lived somewhere south of here, ! would likely want to sneak out southbound here and try to, you know for instance if ! lived over in eastern Chaska somewhere. Rather than going up to 5 and making a left on 5 and then a left on 41 southbound, ! would probably want to sneak out going south here. And the same thing ! would, if ! lived somewhere else in southern Chanhassen, I'd likely take Coulter over to Galpin or something like that. Can you tell me anything about the assumptions that you made about the partitioning of the trips northbound and southbound on Century. Ed Terhaar: Well the overall trip distribution is shown on, described on pages 6 and 7 was based very closely on the original study that was done in '97 for the entire business park. And those numbers seemed reasonable to us and that includes 10 percent to and from the south on 41. And 10 percent to and from the south on Galpin, so there is a fairly good amount that would go to and from the south and the majority of them were assigned to that using the internal roadway system. Now the access is relatively close. The corporate place is relatively close to 5 so some people may see that as an opportunity to get out to 5 even if they're going south, since it is so close and it is signalized. Papke: The only difference being, you know if this is a corporate headquarters, which it is, you're likely to get more people coming from the surrounding area. People commute into places like this to work. Whereas with a health club we're likely to see more local traffic. Is that a valid assumption? Ed Terhaar: Well ! think so but ! think the trip distribution percentages would remain very similar ! think. At least that was our assumption that the distribution percentages remain the Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 same. The distance that they're traveling may be different, but the direction that they're coming from. Papke: Would be spread the same way? Ed Terhaar: Right, right. Papke: Okay. That's all ! have for now, thanks. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Craig. Claybaugh: Let's see, I guess I would direct staff to page number 5. Just wanted clarification on how the parapet wall was identified there. Just wanted to clarify with the elevations that are put in front of us. In the context of this statement since the building height is 42 feet high to the top of the parapet wall. Parapet walls may extend up to 4 feet above the building height. Is that where they're at right now? Generous: The 42 feet would include that parapet. Claybaugh: That's the way it's depicted at this time? Generous: Right. Claybaugh: Okay. Page number 6 regarding lighting issue. Saw that the applicant had addressed a letter to yourself here. Today. Still not necessarily in agreement with staff report regarding the lighting. Any new developments or dialogue this afternoon that'd be noteworthy or you just agree to disagree. Generous: We would leave it up to the Planning Commission and council to make that decision. Our ordinance says you can't have up lighting. Claybaugh: So staff's position hasn't changed? Generous: Correct. Claybaugh: Okay. Page number 6, the signage. There were some things in the way that it was worded that led me to believe that they would require a variance. Is that an inaccurate statement or? Generous: ! don't believe so but we didn't have all the information to analyze it as part of the sign permit. Claybaugh: Well specifically one of the sentences in the paragraph, signs shall not exceed 80 square feet in sign display area, nor be greater than 8 feet in height. The applicant is now showing 170 square feet of signage on one elevation and also proposing an 8 foot tall, or I'm 4 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 sorry, and 120 square feet on the west side elevation. So both those are significantly greater square footage. Generous: Well no. Those are the wall elevations. Wall signs. They can be bigger than the 80 square feet. That's the monument and that's my fault for not clarifying that the 80 square feet only deals with the monument. Claybaugh: Okay. Just wanted to clarify the language, make sure ! understood it. With respect to the landscaping, there's been an intensified canopy plan. Clearly didn't care for shrubbery. The understory trees, are they deciduous or coniferous nature? A concern was the winter months. Just that the ornamental trees, that's fantastic during the summer. Are some of those of the coniferous variety so there's some buffering during the winter? Generous: Yes. Claybaugh: Is that a blanket statement that the bulk of them are or is there a percentage with that? I'll certainly accept a ballpark, just on your best recollection. ! just wanted some feeling. Generous: Yeah, there was a mix of it and Jill seemed to feel comfortable that there was sufficient to provide the screening for the parking area. Claybaugh: Okay, during the winter months? Generous: Yes. Claybaugh: Okay. Let's see. One of my concerns in reviewing the plan, the thing that struck me, and ! may be way off base with it and I'll let the traffic expert or staff comment on where that threshold would be, but was the single point access. That there was only one form of ingress and egress. Ed Terhaar: Well the analysis showed at the intersection of Corporate Place and Galaxy that it would operate adequately all the way through to 2012 with the volumes that are there so it was planned to have one access and it operates adequately based on the forecast, both the a.m. and the p.m.. Based on the volumes. Claybaugh: Okay. Just to expand on that question. At what point in terms of the size of a campus like that would a threshold be met where you would view it differently? How comfortably are they coming in under that? Ed Terhaar: Well they're coming in very comfortably. In this case it's more of a factor of the through volumes on Galaxy and the fact that those aren't excessively high. ! mean it's spread out. This is a good location. It has multiple access points to the roadway system so you don't have all the traffic on Galaxy. Aanenson: Can you correct the street. That's not the correct street. Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Ed Terhaar: I'm sorry. The majority of the traffic you know is spread out so. Slagle: Not Corporate Place? Ed Terhaar: Century. So it's on Century. Claybaugh: You feel it's just perception on my part? That there isn't any cause for concern. Ed Terhaar: Based on our analysis we're comfortable with it, yes. Claybaugh: Okay. Staff concurs? Aanenson: Yeah, that was originally the EAW recommendation, correct. ! think again looking at their mix with a part of this too with the peak hours, the mix and that because originally we anticipated it being a major corporate user which probably would have had greater peak hours a.m./p.m. Claybaugh: Okay. Just have one more question then I'll wrap up here. Page 10, the movement ratings statement ! believe in effect that, see if ! can find my place here. Let's see, goes on through the LOS gradings of E or F. Let's see. Although the LOS is poor for these movements, it is not uncommon to see low LOS for left hand turn at signaled intersections. The point that ! took away from that, or what my concern was, is that when the service is already functioning, they identified that the development would have a minimal impact. When surface level is that poor already, is it a possibility that that minimal impact can feel like substantially more? Ed Terhaar: No, because it's already at E. They're operating at E today. Even when we add the additional traffic they continue to operate at E and there's a level, ! mean there's an amount of delay that equates to E and it' s within like 15 or 20 seconds, so it can vary within that but the amount, you wouldn't really notice it as far as the impact. You're still going to be waiting a fair amount of time but that's the operation of the, as a result of the operation of the signaling. Claybaugh: Okay. That's all the questions ! have. Sacchet: Thanks Craig. Rich. Slagle: I've got a few. Let me touch upon the traffic again if! may. ! noticed, correct me if I'm wrong staff but the revision or the second look that this gentleman and his firm undertook, ! think ! noticed where there was no additional counting. It was just an analysis that was done. Is that correct? Saam: I'll just explain how we did that. Because of time, delays in getting this going, Lifetime's engineer Alliant took the counts. We took that data, shift it over to Ed at Benshoof and that's what he analyzed, in addition to all the other background data. So you're correct in that his firm didn't do the counting but you're incorrect in the assumption that we didn't do any counting for the existing traffic because we did. Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Slagle: Okay. So Lifetime's firm did the counting, okay. And then I saw some notation that they compared it to the Warrenville, Illinois. Ed Terhaar: You may be looking at the Alliant report. They did a report as well, and we did a separate report. Slagle: Okay, so we did two. Ed Terhaar: Yeah, there were two reports and they focused on some other information as well. Slagle: Okay. Well here's my question I guess is, with the single point of entry and exit, that being Corporate Place. Matt, maybe if I can ask you, what is the plans for traffic control at that intersection? Saam: At Corporate Place? Slagle: Yeah. Saam: Slagle: Saam: Slagle: Saam: Slagle: Stop control. Three way intersection so there'll be a stop on Corporate Place. So there's not going to be signalized lights at this point? No. Traffic doesn't warrant it. In peak hours, people coming. I guess I'll ask Ed what his opinion is. People coming out of the health club in combination with two office buildings, we don't feel the need. I'm just asking. Ed Terhaar: Right, no. We summarized in our report Figures 4 and 5, we looked at both a.m. peak hour and p.m. peak hour and the left turns out through 2012, level of service C or better, which is acceptable. Slagle: And this is with the new figures of 6,000 some odd. Ed Terhaar: Correct, it took into account the entire development. Slagle: Okay. Sidewalks. I appreciate Bob you mentioning that the east/west north/south connections. I guess I have a question in that certain areas of the parking lot, I'll call it the one to the north that would be closer to the office buildings or to the far west. Maybe southwest. Was there any dialogue with the applicant where we show the island of having any type of pedestrian protective sidewalks, and again all I'm wondering as you hear often on applications, is could someone literally park on the far west parking lot, southwest side and have to cross 1, 2, 3, 4 in essence lanes of traffic trying to tug 2-3 little kids, depending on the volume of traffic and Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 parking spaces available. I guess what I'm asking, from what I see, is there any safety area that they can walk across or is it walking between cars and looking both ways. Walk between cars, look both ways. Generous: Yes. They don't have a separated pedestrian path if you will. Slagle: Okay. And there was no dialogue? Generous: No. My concentration was I was looking at connecting, making sure the building. Slagle: To the office buildings, yep. Okay, fair enough. And let's see what else I have here. Oh, just a quick question. I noted on page 2 where we, and I was part of this. Where we put the permit for health clubs on various sites built prior to December 10, 2001. Why did we do that? I'm trying to think. I mean what was the. Generous: Fungo's. Aanenson: And then a gymnastics. Generous: Well and there's a dance studio in there now. They limit their, Gateway actually limited their request at that time just to the.., building. Slagle: That's it. Sacchet: Thanks Rich. Slagle: Thanks. Sacchet: Bethany, any questions? Tjornhom: I do. I think one of them has been answered. The traffic study then, when it was done, it was for the whole 2012 picture so when all three buildings are up and running, so there won't have to be another traffic study for every new building that comes in, is that correct? Ed Terhaar: Yeah, we did account for all the land that could be developed within the business park. Tjornhom: And how many people would be occupying the building. Ed Terhaar: Correct, yeah. They assumed full occupancy. Tjornhom: Okay. Okay. Has there ever been a traffic study where you get an A or a B? Every traffic study I see it's an E or an F and I just. I guess I don't remember one of them. Ed Terhaar: Yeah, there are some... Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Tjornhom: When you're getting to the F level... Ed Terhaar: No, the lower levels of service we're seeing on Highway 5 and 41. Tjornhom: Okay. Another question I have is the building, the two perspective buildings, the corporate headquarters and the other office building, they're going to have underground parking, is that correct? Generous: Yes. Tjornhom: Now do they require the same amount of parking spaces as they would if they were going to be parking like a regular parking lot? Generous: Yes, we did calculate it based on the office use and they provided the... Tjornhom: So how many underground parking spaces are there going to be? Generous: I don't remember that. Tjornhom: And not to put you on the spot, ! just didn't know. A new thing to see an underground parking lot coming under a building. ! didn't know if they had special ways of measuring that or. Sounds like no. They just require the same amount of spaces. Aanenson: Right. Everybody provides so many spaces. They chose to put some of them underground. They still have the same ratios, they're just placed underground. So as long as they meet the entire requirement... Tjornhom: Okay, and that's it I think. Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. Dan. Keefe: Sure, I had a number of questions. And I would quickly add to the sidewalk issue, and at least my understanding there's 6,000 trips per day for at least, into the office buildings and it looked like there was 30 percent of that was going to be coming, or 6,000 trips into Lifetime and of that 30 percent of it was coming from the office buildings. Did ! read that correctly? On a daily basis. Ed Terhaar: Yeah, it's a daily trip ends are 6,050 and that's a combination of the fitness center and the offices. So half of those would be in and half of those would be out. So it'd be 3,000 vehicle trips in and 3,000 vehicle trips out on a daily basis. Keefe: Let me understand this. 30 percent of the 6,000 are coming from those office buildings, is that correct? Ed Terhaar: No, the 6,000 accounts for the 30 percent has been reduced by 30 percent so the growth number is 30 percent higher. Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Keefe: Okay, so what number would that be, just part of the set-up. 30 percent of 6,000. Like 1,800, is that something like that? Ed Terhaar: Yeah, somewhere in that range. Keefe: So we're talking about 1,800 people or cars that are going to be coming from those office buildings? Ed Terhaar: Well it's defined as a trip and a trip is an in and an out. So it's you know, I don't think you can equate it to people. It would be somewhere below that number. ! don't know exactly where though. Keefe: Greater than 1,000 people coming across there. My concern, and what I'm driving at is in terms of the sidewalk issue. ! mean if we've got 1,000 people that are coming from those office buildings, they're making the trip across the parking lot to the health fitness facility. ! would think that we would definitely want to supply them with a direct path of some sort that they could access. Aanenson: We do have a sidewalk... Generous: We have a sidewalk, and then we have a connection in the south here. Keefe: Right. So we're proposing that... And we don't know, it might be 1,000 people. It might not be. Ed Terhaar: Over a course of a day you know it could, ! would imagine it could be that much. Keefe: ! was just trying to interpret the numbers. You know is 6,000 trips to the health club and then Lifetime said some 30 percent, so ! was just trying to get a sense on that. The, can you clarify a little bit more on the parking issue as to why we don't allow parking on the Highway 5 side of the office buildings. I'm not sure what that. Generous: The ordinance didn't want a preponderance of parking available or on Highway 5 so it says you're limited to one row of parking on that elevation. Keefe: Okay. Generous: That's the design standards that the city's adopted. Keefe: Okay, and then in terms ofberming, there was some count in there in regards to berming. It looks like they were proposing putting some berming in. Generous: Yeah, we want it expanded. Keefe: Expanded a little bit more. 10 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Aanenson: Should we show you that on the map? Keefe: Well and the question really relates to if we were to have parking there, which doesn't look like it's allowed, we would want more berming for sure and. Aanenson: ! think we need to look at, maybe we could talk about where that elevation of Highway 5 is integrated. Similar to what we brought up on the site that we looked at, the bank building with the changing grades so you're not finding a slope. Generous: Yeah they are proposing some in there. The recommendation is that that berming be expanded from what they've originally proposed and they work with staff to do that. By taking out this row of parking we get additional area where you can put slope in. Keefe: Right. Saam: Commissioner Keefe, one other point I'll bring out. Along the Highway 41 side, just want to make the point that right now Highway 41 is up in the air. Even the site is sloping down into this site. In 15 to 20 years when 41 eventually gets upgraded and the road brought down, it would create a natural berm there just because of tying in with the slope so just wanted to point that out. Keefe: Okay. One of the other things in the Alliant report, it looked like for 2012 they made the assumption that both Highway 5 and 41 would be widened. It looked like Highway 5 would be widened to 6 lanes and then 41 would be widened to 4 lanes by 2012 and they pulled that into their assumptions. Then it sounded like they took that data and pulled it into your report. Is that? Ed Terhaar: No, they based their's off the original '97 study. It was just kind of a continuation of that and at that time the recommendation was what you just said. Some vast improvements which aren't going to happen by 2012. Our report looked at the, or we looked at it with the roadway as it is today, but the data that they collected out there today is what we used as our basis. So we didn't use their forecast numbers. We created our own based on the data and the roadway that's there today. Keefe: Good, great. One other question in regards to the traffic pieces. It looked like we made, there's an assumption that there be a 3 percent increase in traffic volume along 5 and 41 for like 8 years. I'm thinking to 2012, and then we're going to reduce that amount by 20 percent because of 212 coming in, is that correct? So if you were to take simple math, you know in 8 years, 8 times 3 percent is like 24 percent. It probably comes out to a little bit more than that. ! mean we're really looking at essentially like a 4 or 5 percent increase in traffic on 5 in 2012. Is that a way to look at that? Ed Terhaar: Well ! guess if you look at it the way you had, and you had a 24 percent increase by 2012, well then a large portion of that would go away with new 212. So the actual increase was much less than 3 percent by 2012. 11 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Keefe: Well and so the way I'm thinking of it is, okay if it goes 24 percent and then you reduce it by 20 percent, you essentially have got a 4 percent increase over what it is today. Is that a. Ed Terhaar: Over the existing, correct. The assumption is that 212 will have that much of an impact. Keefe: Okay, so ! mean the use on Highway 5 really won't be that much different than it is today. That's kind of where it comes out to? Ed Terhaar: Right. Keefe: Okay. Last thing in regards to the traffic piece, I'm a little concerned about the bank and the child care exit and I'm thinking of all these people coming out and people going into the child care to get their kids and coming out. Are we comfortable that we've got enough room for the bank customers and Kindercare customers to get out without a signalized. I'm concerned that they're going to stack up in there pretty badly because we've got all these people taking a left. It looks like most of the traffic coming out of the Lifetime and the corporate buildings is going to be going north to 5 and they're going to stack up somewhat but there's a comment in there that it might not affect that intersection but ! need some clarification on that. Ed Terhaar: Right. Well it will impact that intersection to some degree because there will be more traffic but the analysis did show that those movements exiting there would operate adequately. Level of service C or better in the a.m. and the p.m.. So it did work okay. Keefe: That's it for now. Sacchet: That's it Dan? Thank you. Steve, any questions? Lillehaug: Sure. The double parking, two rows of parking on the north end of Office Building 1, the staff report indicates that it needs a variance but as part of the CVS, is that right? Development, a variance wasn't addressed because it was included as a PUD. Generous: No, they requested, that was a variance also. Lillehaug: So we did grant a variance for that? Generous: For both the double row of parking and the parking setback. Aanenson: And your rationale for that was the pie shape on the lot, and the orientation that you wanted to get it available. Sacchet: We wanted them oriented with the entrance towards the intersection. Generous: The entrance on. 12 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: There was a variance with that? Aanenson: Yes. Generous: Yes. Aanenson: I think it was with the odd shaped lot, correct. Lillehaug: Scratch that then. Sacchet: It's good to know though. Lillehaug: Let's see. On page 11, ! hope ! got my notes right here. Oh-oh. Notes were wrong. Part of recommendation A. We wanted to have a permitted use as personal services. Is that too vague or we're talking specifically for the health club, correct? Generous: Right. It should say health club. I'm sorry. Lillehaug: Okay. That's an easy one. Bob, ! spoke with you earlier on conditions 19 and 20. That they just don't seem to be conditions. Do you have a re-wording of them or do we need to swag at that ourselves here? Generous: ! wasn't able to talk to Steve. Before they do a building permit, they're going to have to provide a utility plan for review. Sacchet: We can re-word it. Lillehaug: Okay. On condition number 26. Ah, ! shouldn't even be talking about it ! guess. Submit storm sewer design. As part of the code it says that's supposed to happen before, ! mean with the site plan. Do we need to change city code because this constantly comes in here as part of the building permit application? Aanenson: And I'll reiterate it again. We always put everything in here as a catch all to make sure this project was designed, so we know that this drainage will be handled by an existing pond. But we always put it in because this is the letter that goes back to the applicant to make sure, it's kind of a catch all. Everything's in the report. Lillehaug: Even beyond the calculations. ! mean even the storm sewer plan, the specific storm sewer plan, isn't that part of the site plan when it goes to City Council for approval? Saam: They do have, I'm sorry, a utility plan showing the storm sewer. Now the detail of that may be a little lacking. Lillehaug: Okay, if you guys are comfortable with that, I'll go on here. Get the big hitters first. Parking requirements. There's a lot here and ! haven't looked at every single word but they do have a parking data summary on page C-2. Does staff, does that take into consider the 13 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 underground parking into consideration? Because I mean on all the previous applications we've always seen the number of parking for underground, the site parking, etc. And I guess I just want to make sure that it does properly match the city requirements because there are health clubs out there, Plymouth for example where they've had to allow on street parking. It's just a mess up there. I don't know if they've corrected that but it's been a mess up there so I wanted staff to be 100 percent sure that this site is adequate for parking because I don't want to come back there I guess and see all of a sudden on-street parking on the cul-de-sac and out to the. Generous: I compared their total numbers against code and their, you know that comply with that. They exceed it actually. So I don't know if when they say total, they're including underground parking. Lillehaug: We can ask them that then. Okay. Boy, that's a good traffic study. Sacchet: Two of them. Lillehaug: Yes, I commend you on that, but just to make it a little more valid in my mind I'm going to ask you a couple questions on it. And the growth rate that you used of 3 percent. When ! looked at SRF's study and ! look at their ADT's that they had projected into 2012, if! look on their, they, with the 2003 ADT they had 26,700 on Trunk Highway 5. My concerns, there's a couple of movements that are on the bubble. Out on the main line on the regional road, and that's where my concern lies. ! think internally it's going to be the traffic is going to be well accommodated. But SRF's, they had 26,700 a little after the base here, and then in, and maybe I'm looking at this wrong. It looked like it went up to 41,000. Maybe I'm looking at this wrong now. The existing ADT is 25,000 and then, and that was '96 and '97. And then in 2003, you know just a short few years later, it's up to 41,000. Boy that sure is a growth rate more than 50 percent. ! just want to make sure that these two studies are correlated and together. Has the city coordinated with MnDot as far as this growth rate on 5? Even with 212 taking some of that traffic away, there's still going to be a growth rate there. Ed Terhaar: Right, and our study did account for the 3 percent growth, which is very similar to what SRF used in their report. I can't speak to why there' s such a difference between those two. I don't know why it comes to 41,000. That seemed a little extreme but we looked at the peak period, the peak hours and we didn't account for the background growth. There are, like you said, there are some movements that are on the bubble and some of that has to do with the signalized intersection at 41. Lillehaug: Okay. And then I just want to get a feel for where we're using the 25, 20 percent reduction on 5 from. I'd like to see that. I don't know if that's going to happen. Is your model calibrated with anything that MnDot or that they did for 212? You know just to kind of was it calibrated and correlated with that. Ed Terhaar: Yeah, the 20 percent number was taken from your comp plan. Your traffic forecast in the comp plan, so that was based on the forecasting that was done at that time on the regional model. And that's the assumption at this point that it will have that much of an impact. And I 14 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 don't know if there's been any newer forecasting done on that, but that's still the feeling is that it will have that much of an impact. Lillehaug: Now our comp plan, does that take into account the 212 build out? If that's where you're getting the numbers for 5 from, is our comp plan updated with Trunk Highway 5 volumes? Saam: The '98 comp plan, the transportation component done by SRF gave various options with build and no build for 212 and we took the build for 212 and saw 20 percent reduction. That's where it came from. Lillehaug: Okay. Yeah, ! think some of these are on the bubble but it's not going to break down the main line traffic so maybe ! won't get nit picky with them but ! think it was a pretty good job. ! think I'll just save the rest of the questions for the applicant. Thank you. Sacchet: Thanks Steve. ! have a few questions as well. Bob, first of all, ! got a little confused about north, south, east and west in terms of how the elevations are labeled. Either they're not labeled right or I'm confused. One or the other, they don't agree. So ! would like you to show us where exactly we're asking for additional columns and so forth. Just to be very clear about that. Generous: They did revise the plan to show that. This is the south elevation and they've added four columns to that. The north elevation was oriented towards Highway 5. This is the east elevation and there were no structures that were added. This is the west elevation. Sacchet: And those columns are new there? Generous: These are new and they've added... Sacchet: Okay, excellent. Generous: ... windows and so that gave additional break to that wall and we thought that gave a nice rhythm and it repeated. Sacchet: That's good. You actually see it drawn already. Then on page 2 of the report, there's a statement when he talks about Building 1 and 2. The office buildings and just below the middle of the page, and it says it is currently necessary that office building 2 will be constructed by 2012. Is that necessary for whom? Generous: It's estimated. Sacchet: It's not necessary. It's estimated. Generous: Based on their, they're actually thinking that it will be done before that. 15 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Sacchet: So they're estimating. Okay, ! was just wondering where the necessity was. Okay. On page 8, and you already touched on this potentially additionally berming on the north side. There' s a statement, it appears that an undulating berm will be added on the north side, so is it or isn't it? Generous: Well they show it on the landscaping plan but ! don't know if the grading plan takes enough. Saam: Yeah, the grading plan really didn't show what I would call an undulating berm. However with, if the parking goes away, ! think they should be able to get something in there. Some sort of berm. Generous: Another little pitch for that parking to go, okay. Actually that is a similar question ! had. ! was a little confused whether retaining walls, we're on the bottom of page 8. There's a statement that there are significant three retaining walls along the east side of the development. Can you just point out where these are because some of them are pretty high up to 13 feet so I'd like to be, ! tried to see where they are. ! think ! saw them but I'm not totally sure. Saam: ! can show you the general area. Generous: Okay. Saam: Based on this plan here. They're actually shown on here. There's one right here, if we can zoom in on that Nann. Okay, that's good. Right here. In the southeast corner. Then just up to the north on the south side of the cul-de-sac. ! believe the last one is right here. Sacchet: And where is the 13 feet high? Do we know? There's a range here. It says 2 to 13 feet. Saam: It's in the north. Right up in this area here it's rather high. 13 feet. 10 feet. Sacchet: Alright. That answers that question. Then question for our traffic specialist. Now this a, b, c, d and f. How long do you wait with fY. Ed Terhaar: F is greater than 60 seconds of delay. Sacchet: It's over a minute. What is E? Ed Terhaar: E is ! believe 45 to 60. Sacchet: And then D would be 30 to 45? Ed Terhaar: Yeah, it's in that, roughly. 16 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Sacchet: Roughly. So we're not talking really endless waiting. It might appear endless. Another question for staff with the conditions. The site plan includes the office buildings, or does it just include the health club. Generous: It includes this office building. Sacchet: Okay. So we want to be clear when we, well ! guess condition 11 drops away since it's already been re-drawn or? Because at this point it's not clear, we know it applies to the fitness building. Generous: They've revised their elevations. Not the plan sets that we have. We'd leave it in and then they would show that they complied with that. Sacchet: Okay. Okay. Then ! think you addressed to some extent, ! have a concern about condition 25. Eliminate circle or islands in parking area. So we're talking about that right in the middle. Generous: Right in the middle. Not the one to the right, the public right-of-way. Sacchet: Never forget, ! love round abouts. ! definitely don't want to give the impression we don't want round abouts. ! think it's wonderful they have a round about. Okay. Now one more traffic question. ! don't know whether ! understand this correctly but it looks like the study that was made by the applicant actually shows a far greater increase in daily trips. As a matter of fact if! read this correctly, 3,589 additional trips, while the study you did for the city shows 952 trips additional per day. Am ! reading this correctly? Ed Terhaar: I'm not sure about the other study but our's, they, the report that, the information that they had, they used the information from the '97 study, which has been updated. The trip generation rates have been updated. Actually two times since then so we have used the most recent data and the trip rates actually did come down a little bit. Sacchet: So that was consistent. Ed Terhaar: So that would be a part of it and ! don't know exactly the full degree of it but there was some change due to that. Sacchet: Okay. Yeah, because ! thought it was a pretty significant change from out of 9,000 trips, with their study, 9,200 trips were what the original study apparently was, was 5,600 trips. The difference being about 3,500. While the study you did shows 6,000 trips per day for the whole thing, and 5,100, if the fitness wouldn't be there, right. Ed Terhaar: And one other thing to consider is that they didn't account for that 30 percent factor that we learned about from Lifetime. The reduction. Sacchet: Oh, they did not. They didn't have 30 percent there. That accounts for a big chunk. 17 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Ed Terhaar: Right, they did not have that information. Sacchet: That's 30 percent of the total? Ed Terhaar: Right. Sacchet: Yeah, that explains it very well because the 30 percent and a little bit of lowering, that explains that. Alright. That's ! believe all my questions. Thank you very much. With that I'd like to invite the applicant to come forward and tell us a little more. If you, what you have to add. We may have some questions for you, if you want to state your name and address for the record please. Mark Zaebst: Yes, my name is Mark Zaebst. I'm the Senior Vice President of Real Estate for Lifetime Fitness and ! live at 2325 Hunter Drive here in Chanhassen. Sacchet: Alright. Mark Zaebst: Thank you for taking time for us this evening. ! know your time's precious so I'll try to be quick. ! could probably talk for 20 hours about Lifetime Fitness but I'll try not to take that long. Could ! ask you to bring those boards up for me. What I'd like to do is just give you just a little bit of a feel about our company. Talk a little bit more about the development itself, and then if you'd like ! have a video presentation where ! can actually show you the inside of the actual building that we're contemplating to build as far as the Lifetime Fitness facility is concerned. The company, Lifetime Fitness, we started the company approximately 12 years ago. We are currently headquartered in Eden Prairie. Obviously hoping to move out here to Chanhassen. We're a good size company. We have over 7,000 employees right now. We have 45 locations either open, under construction or contracted and ready to go under construction in 10 different states. We currently have over 400,000 members throughout the United States so we've been very blessed in that wherever we've opened one of these facilities, they've been extremely well received, and the core group of us that run Lifetime Fitness have actually been, each of us in the industry for over 23 years, and before we started Lifetime Fitness 12 years ago we studied the industry, and there are many wonderful providers of health and fitness throughout the country, but what we noticed was that there was quite a gap in the industry for comprehensive facilities that really met the health and fitness needs of an entire community, and especially of an entire family. There are great workout facilities all over the country but they always seem to possibly forget the children or they forgot the senior citizens or the teens or some specific group so the key to our success so far has been in designing and constructing, it's a massive facility but the mass of it allows us, as you'll see in the video presentation, to offer a myriad of different types of programs that are available where the entire family can come and have a good time. So dad can go play basketball and mom can take a spinning class and the kids can go to swim class and they can all meet in the afternoon and have lunch out at the pool, and we really at Lifetime Fitness try to get people to come and stay. We want you to come often and we want people to come and stay with us, as opposed to some facilities, and again I'm not trying to down talk other facilities but they're more geared towards you know get in there for 20 minutes, get a workout and get the heck out of there. We actually want to become what we call the third place for a family. Your first place is your home. Second is your work, where you 18 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 spend the most amount of time, and we'd like Lifetime Fitness to become the third place for people, where we can really become a gathering and healthy way of life area for a community. So that being said, ! know that staff talked a little bit about the site plan, and just a little bit further. Our goal here was, you know as you know, to build our prototypical Lifetime Fitness facility, which again is what we're building all over the country right now so it's an extremely tried and true product. We have value engineered it to the square inch. We know exactly how to run it. We know how to make people feel comfortable and welcome, and we see a great synergy in bringing our corporate headquarters right across the street from one of our prototypical facilities. So that being said, we've worked very diligently on trying to blend this into kind of a corporate campus feel, so from a building, architecture standpoint, the Lifetime Fitness facility that staff talked about. Again it's our prototypical facility. It's the same facility we're building out state, all over the country but we really are firm believers that we make our first impression before you even enter the door, so we work very hard on the site plan and try to make sure that it was, and ! apologize. ! guess ! was informed that our landscapers messed up on the number of over canopy trees but if you visit one of our outside prototypical locations, you'll see that they're very lushly planted. We almost want to have the feeling of almost a mini country club as you come on. So a long, beautifully planted drive. Lots of flowering plants. Combination of coniferous and deciduous trees, and so there's always something going on. There's always something flowering, blooming, really giving a pretty look to the site plan. The building architecture, it's not your typical health club. It's an expensive building. It's brick and stone on all four sides. Great fenestration. Lot of movement in the walls. Gigantic gridded windows. Nice cornice line. Sandstone window sills so it really is, as you come up to the building, it tells you before you get into the front door that this really is going to be a quality experience. And what we've done, with the corporate office buildings we've tried to have that same feel and that same look and similar architecture flow into the corporate office buildings so that as you come onto this beautiful 22 acre site, you're really going to have the feeling that you're on a master plan campus, and that was the idea behind designing the corporate office buildings in that manner. I'd like to, if! could, if we could switch over to the video, and is this okay? Sacchet: Yes. How long is it? Mark Zaebst: ! can probably get through it in 5 to 10 minutes. It really helps. You know ! have the colored floor plans but if! can actually take you in, and this isn't a virtual tour. This is a true tour. We have, all disciplines are in house at our company, which is really unique within our industry and also almost any user, but we have our own real estate and development division. We have our own architectural firm. We own our own construction company. We have our own IT firm. Our own marketing group and our own operating company and by doing that we're able to bring everything in house, which gives us great control over the process. It also helps us save a lot of money when we build these things, so as ! show you this building you'll notice it is absolutely top shelf. ! mean it's granite counter tops. Cherry wood lockers. Slate lined hallways. It is absolutely the best of the best from top to bottom, but by bringing all these disciplines in house, we're able to save millions of dollars in producing one of these in house and we're able to pass that savings onto the consumers. So that's another one of our keys to our success is, we're building these massive, beautiful facilities but we're passing that savings onto the consumer. We're not the cheapest clubs in the country, but we are the most beautiful and best finish and best operated and we're bringing those prices more into the mid level pricing 19 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 market, so people really see a great value proposition in the Lifetime Fitness. But alright, where ! was going with that is our IT department went into one of the recent clubs that we just opened in the Chicago market and took 1,800 still photographs. Built a computer program, ! don't know anything about this stuff but built a computer program and gave it to me and said here, you can point anywhere on the building plan and actually take people inside for a 360 degree view of everywhere within the facility so it's really nice to be able to show you an actual facility. So this is the entry point. This is where all the ingress and egress to the building happens. Beautiful open lobby. Marble and granite floors. Granite counter top .... nice bright way to enter into the facility. And in the design of the finish design of our facilities we've concentrated on what we call our natural theme. So as with the exterior architecture, we've tried to design a building that isn't going to look dated, where somebody 20 years from now will drive by and say, oh that was built in 2005. It has, we're trying to get some timeless architecture and with the interior finishes, with the marble, granite, the natural stones and woods, they wear like iron. They're very expensive but they also are timeless. We've gone into some of the older buildings in downtown Minneapolis that are 80, 100 years old that were done with granite from floor to ceiling. Those are the original lobbies. They still look great. They're still impressive and that was the theme that we want to bring through with Lifetime Fitness. Off to one side of that entry level, we're looking right now into an area which we call life spa, and life spa is a full service hair salon, spa and estatic so anything you could get done at a salon and estatic is available here. So hair treatments, nail, full massage treatments and it's also a full Aveda salon from a retailing standpoint. So a nice addition to working on your body, we can work on skin and hair also. To the other side of the lobby is a great area that we call Life Cafe. This is a beautiful little restaurant that operates kind of like a deli. We do breakfast, lunch, dinner, everything inbetween so all the Starbuck products are available to you at any time. You can drop in at any time and get a protein shake, a bar, quick sandwich. You can get a full meal. You can get breakfast and the members absolutely love it because, especially folks that come in prior to work, you know can come in. They can get their meals. They have beautiful, I'll take you in the locker rooms in a few minutes. Beautiful locker rooms and get ready. Have a meal and get off to work. We also produce and market our own line of health enhancement products which you're looking at right here, so anything that you could get at another retailers as far as bars, vitamins, proteins, any of those types of items are available under the Lifetime Fitness brand at the Life Cafe. As you come down this main corridor here, you would be able to enter the gymnasium complex. Right here we're looking at these glass walls are racquet ball and squash courts. But the gymnasium complex is very nicely done. Two full sized regulation volleyball and basketball courts. All the walls are done in acousticord which is a nice sound absorbing material so you don't get that big echo that you get in some gymnasiums. And there we're looking into the rock climbing gym. The rock climbing gym offers you three 36 foot tall rock climbing structures so anything from beginner all the way, you see up in here, we've got, you can climb upside down on a cross over cavern. Which ! have never done and never will but you do have the availability of any expertise of climber. And this is one of the components that we put in the club and we've kind of coined the phrase health entertainment. So you'll see from a regular health club fitness standpoint, we have more equipment than any club honestly ! can say this, in the world per facility, but we've also combined a lot of fun things to do. So this is a physical activity. There are pools. There are racquet sports. There is all kinds of classes and programs and what we found is people get bored doing the same thing all the time so if ! brought you in and you had to run on a treadmill every day for 45 minutes, you'd stick with me for about 3 or 4 months and then you'd quit the club. 20 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 But if we have all these different things for you to do, it's great for your body. It's called cross training but it's also great for your mind because we have all these different activities. Great things to do with the family. Great things to do on your own, and we found that that gets our members to show up more regularly. The more regularly we get our members to show up, the better shape they get in and that's why we're in the business. Coming down the other main corridor here, we have a wonderful area that is our child activity center, and this is 10,000 square feet that's dedicated to children 12 and under. It's broken into many different components. Right now we're looking into the children's computer and library training area. We have 13 kids computer stations with educational CD Rom programs that they can check out. We have another control desk here where the parents drop the kids off and they're tagged. Everything's computerized. Make sure the right kids go home with the right parents at the end of the day. We're looking into an area back in here that's dedicated to infants. This area that we're looking is dedicated to toddlers with a children's theater. As we move through the kids complex, I'm sorry ! missed the wrong button there, we have $175,000 soft play center that the kids can use, and that's with the tubes and ball pits and all that fun stuff. And then the kids also have their own gymnasium so this is scaled down. Padded walls. Same hardwood floor but lowered basketball goals and they can play basketball and floor hockey and badminton and they really have a good time in there. And then throughout the back wall here you can see a number of doors and those exit out to, in about a 3,000 square foot secured outdoor play area for the children, so only accessible through the children' s area. And again, as ! mentioned, I've been in the business for 23 years and back in the old days we'd have a little room, you know mom and dad would go work out and the kids were warehoused in these rooms and you know they couldn't wait for mom and dad to come and get them and ! really get a kick out going through our clubs and seeing mom and dad coming to pick up their kids and they kids don't want to go home, and ! always say okay, we did it right this time. We have the right components. Number of different locker rooms available. We're in the men's locker room right now, so as ! mentioned, very almost spa looking. All the vertical surfaces are done in limestone. The floors are done in limestone. Counter tops in granite. 440 custom made cherry wood lockers in each of the adult locker rooms, and these locker rooms are just for adults because I'll show you in a minute we have family locker rooms. Locker rooms have private lounge areas with the plasma screen and leather sofas. This is, we're looking in the steam room now and individual showers. Again all done in lime stone from ceiling to floor so a very luxurious, very relaxing environment from the locker room standpoint. In the ladies locker room is a similar layout. A big hit at our clubs is our family locker room, and so if you're a dad and you have a 3 year old daughter, and you want to go to the pools, you don't have to take your daughter into the men's locker and get changed, and then go to the pools. We've designed a locker room that's full of, we're looking right now into a private changing room, all done in lime stone, but you have your own private changing room and shower. Lock the door behind you. Get your kid showered up. Get everybody geared up and then you come out into, this is a coed locker area, so everybody's clothed, so you have moms, dads, kids. Your kids can be noisy because everybody else is noisy and so if you're there, you know you're a dad and you're there on your own, you can go to the adult locker room. If you have your kids, you can have, have them have a good time in the family locker room. All of the locker rooms empty out into a beautiful indoor pool complex which in our environment here in the winter is a real plus. We've got a gorgeous, as you can see, very large recreation pool. These are two-two story water flume slides down there at the end. Active play features for the kids. And then for warm water swimming, we have lap lanes that go 21 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 across the middle of the pool, and this is a zero depth entry pool so it's just like being at the beach. There are no ladders or stairs. You just walk right into the pool, and then we're looking out over here into the other body of water which is our five lane, 25 meter lap swimming pool, so that's dedicated just to lap swimming and also when we teach forms of aqua exercise. Two very large hydro therapy whirlpools and then you can see as we spin around here, that whole room just fills with sunlight because of the big windows that staff had mentioned. There's also in this opening that I'm highlighting here, very large finished dry heat sauna is available to the members. For the ten nice outdoor pool weather days in Minnesota we do put outdoor pools in these clubs, and even larger outdoor recreation pool with multiple lap swimming lanes, the water slides, zero depth entry so you can see a massive outdoor recreation pool. Lots of nice deck space. We were just getting this set up but we normally have large numbers of umbrella tables and potted plants. There's also an outdoor food bistro here so you can get all of your normal pool fare but really a wonderful place to go and spend the day with the family. Upstairs is where we get all the heavy lifting done so on the upstairs portion of the club, we actually have over 2.2 million dollars of exercise equipment up here. It's like nothing that you've ever seen. It's a little bit overwhelming when you first walk in and that's why we require everybody to go through 3 different orientation programs, but we know from experience that if we have massive amounts of equipment and absolutely the best of the best, our members don't get bored working out. You've got lots of variety which keeps you motivated, but you also have lots of repetition as far as the machines. There are over 50 treadmills in one of our facility, so worst thing we could ever do to you is have you get up the gumption to come in and work out, want to run on a treadmill and there's a half hour waiting list to get on them, so we brag at Lifetime Fitness you are going to be able to get into the facility and you are going to be able to get the workout that you want to get. Throughout the upstairs portion of the facility we have a number of what we call video walls. These are 60 inch television monitors that are built into a cherry wood cabinets up above so that as you're working out, if you'd like to catch a certain television program, CNN, HBO movies, lots of different variety for you, you would just tune your own personal FM radio and you'd be able to pick up the audio portion because it will say on the screen what you can watch, so if you, I know I keep talking about treadmills because that's my most hated workout but if you're pounding out 45 minutes on the treadmill, you can watch a Vikings game or the news or something like that. The times goes a little bit more quickly and the members really enjoy that option. Also upstairs, we were just looking at the cardio vascular training area. There are over 185 pieces of cardio vascular training equipment. We're looking here into the freeway training room. This is almost 10,000 square feet of the absolute best of the best so this is your bar bells, dumb bells. Lots of duplication. Four bench presses. Four inclines. Four pull down machines so again if somebody's using a bench, you're not going to have to wait. You just go to the open bench. Multiple poundages of the same dumb bell so again, keeping you from having to wait for your workout. And the third training area is what we call our selectorized and resistance training area so we have over 130 pieces of this type of equipment. This is pneumatic, electronic and also weight stacked oriented equipment, so incredible variety and again the absolutely best of the best in the industry. We offer wonderful group exercise classes. We have two very large group exercise studios. The floors are hardwood, custom designed on rubber shock absorbers which helps eliminate stress injuries from repetitive movement injuries. Incredible sound systems. We attract the absolute best instructors in the industry and we're constantly updating, changing, bringing in new variety of classes. The members really enjoy that. I don't have a picture of it but this area back in here that I'm highlighting is another private studio where we have a yoga 22 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 studio and also a Pilates studio is available to the members. So I'm sorry, I probably took more than the 10 minutes ! said ! was going to take but. Sacchet: Pretty close. Mark Zaebst: But that's kind of a quick look. The other thing that we did in analyzing the industry, you know we built the club to take care of the needs that we saw but we also heard some complaints within the industry and that' s people hated contracts. You know they hated going into a club and having to sign a 2 year contract when they didn't know if they were going to stay there. They didn't know if they were going to move. They didn't know if they were going to like it and so what we do is we have a 30 day money back guarantee so you can come in, try it out. After 30 days, if you don't like it, you get all your money back and then beyond that point there's no long term contract so it's just a month to month membership. Now what that does is it gives members all the flexibility that they want. They're not pressured into joining, and it puts all the heat on me and my company so if we don't have an intensive capital improvement program for our buildings to keep them updated, to keep them clean, keep re- carpeting, bringing new equipment in, painting, making sure that they're fresh, and making sure that we have a staff that takes care of our members, people vote with their feet. You know we said we should not be treated any differently than a restaurant. You know a good restaurant you'll get great service every time. You'll keep coming back. If you get bad service, you don't go anymore. We actually have the lowest attrition rate in the industry of any commercial health club chain, and I'm not trying to pat myself on the shoulder but it shows that over the 12 years we have done a good job of keeping the clubs clean. You know offering a value product and taking good care of our members and that's really been the key to our success. So we're very excited to come to Chanhassen. Again as ! mentioned, I'm a resident here but we do an incredible amount of research before we come into a market and my own antidotal experience from all of my neighbors beating on me for the last 5 years to bring a club out here, and my own in-house research has shown that there definitely is the population base. There's the proper income level. There's a predominance of families out here and on our historical precedence, we feel that this club will be very well received and it's something that we really feel that the community needs so we're excited to come if you're excited to have us. I'd be glad to answer any questions. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Questions from the applicant. Lillehaug: ! have one. Have a video for your corporate office buildings too? Mark Zaebst: We don't because we haven't built one yet. Lillehaug: Staff in their report indicated that you're going to attempt to relocate your corporate headquarters. On a serious note ! mean, is it more than just an attempt? Mark Zaebst: Oh absolutely. We're, just to kind of give you our space situation right now. We're in an office complex called Prime Tech in Eden Prairie and when we started our company we had 1,500 square feet. There were 5 of us in that 1,500 square feet in a 50,000 square foot building. Lifetime Fitness now leases all 50,000 square feet of that building so as time has gone 23 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 on ! kept taking other tenants out and we filled that building up. We thought well we'll never grow beyond that. Well, we're beyond that. We just leased the building right next door which is another 12,000 square feet. We moved in there last month. We're out of space again. We had to move 15 of our staff members into one of our local facilities here for temporary office space, so we're definitely at an office deficit and we've done an extremely detailed study, both from monetary standpoint. What we pay in rent and also from a space efficiency standpoint, and the company feels very strongly with the growth that we're going to be experiencing into the future, that we could get that space, taking down other buildings in our office park but there are great inefficiencies in that. You start to get divisional, separation. You get separation within divisions. If my group wants to go over and meet with the construction group and they're in a building that's 400 yards away and it's 30 below, it just hurts the communication so we feel very strongly that we want to put the company in at least just one or possibly two buildings on one particular corporate campus, but we see great efficiency in being able to custom design those facilities. And layered on top of that, at this particular location, having an LTU, Lifetime Fitness facility right on campus for all of the corporate staff to be able to use as our model, our test kitchen. We can bring in our upper level management from all over the country to train at Chanhassen Lifetime Fitness right next to the corporate offices we see incredible efficiency in that. From monetary standpoint, again since we own our own construction company, our financial analysis shows that we will be able to build this building, and on a per square foot basis actually pay less per square foot than in our current lease situation, so all indicators show us that we're out of space. We can save money going here and we can gain great efficiencies in going here, and that's why we've gone through the time and the expense of putting this particular plan together. We also like, the reason that we're not building one 200,000 square foot building is, it's more economically feasible for us to build the first 100,000 square foot building. Grow into that and as we're a couple years away from exceeding that 100,000 square feet, then we can start on the development of the next building and you're not having to sit on massive quantities of space with all that carry cost over an 8, 9 year period before you actually have the need for the second building. Lillehaug: Okay. Now I'll come to the specific questions. ! think we received a letter from your firm regarding a couple conditions that you would like to discuss a little more. One being lighting on the building. Could you explain that a little more in what you guys would be proposing. Mark Zaebst: Sure, and we're not trying to be difficult with that, and we understand that you folks have rules and regulations but we, and I'm sorry about this. It probably isn't going to reproduce very well. That' s a shot of a new facility that we just opened up in Dallas, Texas at night so the lighting that we put on the buildings is extremely low level and all it does is it gives a real small wash and you can see the up lighting is right here at the tip of my finger. Those are up lights on the building, so we're not talking about throwing gigantic spot lights up and lighting up the sky. We're just trying to get the building, ! mean it's a beautiful look at night ! guess is all we're saying. From an aesthetic standpoint, it wouldn't keep us from coming to Chanhassen. It probably won't cost us a member. It's just that we've done it and it's just such a incredibly beautiful look with just a little bit of wash up and a little bit of wash down on that massive front of that building. So that's what we're asking for. 24 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: Okay. Mark Zaebst: And we have our architect here if you want to talk about specs on the lights or anything like that. Lillehaug: Has this been shown to staff?. And if! can divert a question to staff. How does the intensity of this proposed lighting, if you've seen that compare to what was discussed and approved for example with Family of Christ Church. Would this be more intense or less intense? That either was or wasn't... Generous: No, we didn't discuss the intensity of this lighting. However Family of Christ was a spot light and so that was on a pole and it was directed skyward and people saw it from miles away. No, they were denied. Aanenson: Oh, they applied for a variance. But we did give a variance to the cinema. That was the most recent one that we did review that had up lighting, if you recall the cinema, and at Market Street Station. When they came in for a building modification, and the justification or the rationale for that was that it was a cinema. The energy that wanted to be created in that area called for that based on the fact that it was largely commercial in there. The Planning Commission did recommend approval, as did the council. Lillehaug: So with that said, does staff support what they're proposing with the up lighting then? You didn't in the report but have you changed? Aanenson: Well ! guess our original concern was, there is a big parking lot out there. You've got the Arboretum across the street. Actually on two corners, and we were just concerned about too much lighting. Now some of that is being shielded because you're looking at the Lifetime Fitness as opposed to the office buildings which is screening some of it. So there was photometrics that was submitted as a part of the application, but ! believe those were just for the. Generous: Those were just for the parking lot lighting. Aanenson: So we can visit that again but that was the original concern, was just it's so much spill light and how much would you see. ! guess if we could have that shown on the photometrics, then we can look at that. Because there will be the two office buildings in front, or ultimately will be two office buildings in front, but that's kind of what our concern was. You have residential across the street. Generous: You have the Arboretum to the west and so we didn't want to create this glow in the sky out there. Lillehaug: Maybe more lighting, more up lighting equals more trees or something like that. Aanenson: Correct, or again looking at the photometrics, what's being shielded by the other buildings. 25 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: How about parking, another big concern. Can you address that? Mark Zaebst: And again, not trying to be difficult on this. We know you have your rules and regulations, it's just that. Lillehaug: Maybe not the specific parking. Parking on the site. Mark Zaebst: As a total? Lillehaug: On the site. Mark Zaebst: The other thing that we like about combining our corporate offices with our Lifetime Fitness facility is, in some of our locations that we have around the country we were presented with sites and areas that we wanted to develop but the sites weren't large enough for us to have self contained parking. We've gone into a number of classy office parks around the country and what we were able to do is do a shared parking agreement with the offices that are there, and it's really interesting, if you analyze Lifetime Fitness's parking needs in an office, we get busy as the office is spilling out, so we have, we're open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day so we have people coming and going at all times, but the bulk of our usage occurs after work. So at about 5:00 so from about 5:00 to 7:30-8:00 on week nights is the busiest time for a Lifetime Fitness facility. Our corporate offices, if you went over to our corporate office at 5:00 in the afternoon, there's maybe 20 percent of the parking at 5:15 is still being used so, the shared parking works out extremely well. And where I'm going with that is, including the underground parking in the proposed buildings, ! believe we have over 1,300 parking spots that are going to be available really just for the health club at night, which is a massive quantity. All of our out state locations that we're building right now that aren't on a shared parking, so they're on their own individual, self contained lot, we need about 650 total car parks at our very busiest time which is January 2nd at 5:30 p.m.. ! can say that with great certainty after 23 years in this business. That's the number that we need, so we made, this particular parking field is for the health club for it's peak needs is way beyond anything that we'll ever have at that club, so we're excited about that too. Works out well. Lillehaug: Okay. One other quick question. With the different phasing of this project, it seems like they won't be done for a few years after this, the Lifetime Fitness is in here. Mark Zaebst: Correct. Lillehaug: ! would certainly like that not to be an eyesore on the undeveloped parcels, so do you have a plan of establishing some turf and maintaining it. Mark Zaebst: Yes. We feel the same way. ! mean we're putting millions and millions of dollars into this thing so we don't want to have this beautiful club and then piles of dirt and junk out in front of it, so what we, and we do have sites around the country where we also have some excess land that we have developed, but what we're going to do here is, after the grading is done, we'll put down some topsoil and then we will plant a natural grass out there, and we usually cut it to about a 5 to 6 inch level so it's not, doesn't look like perfect turf but at 5 to 6 inches it gives a 26 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 nice green finish look out across the front of the site, and then obviously when we start to develop we'll tear that up and put the finish product in. Lillehaug: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Question Kurt? Papke: Yeah. First question. We had a pervious health club applicant in here who was investigating a joint venture with the school district, and ! know your Plymouth facility has a sharing agreement with Wayzata. Have you explored any potential with the Chaska school district for a shared pool facility? Mark Zaebst: We have not, and ! did meet, ! believe it was about 3 or 4 weeks ago with the Chanhassen City Manager to just, to talk about that particular issue, and it's certainly not that we do not have a desire for joint ventures. We actually have 3 joint venture facilities here in the Twin Cities, so Plymouth, Savage and Champlin are all joint venture facilities. The reason that ! mentioned to him that we can't explore that on this particular site is two fold. The site won't accommodate a larger facility. We start to run out of room. We run out of parking. The other problem, well ! said two problems. There's actually three problems, or challenges ! should say instead of problems, is the contract that we have on the land right now does, we're on a very short time leash, so the seller would not be willing to do what is then the third challenge which is negotiate that particular joint venture. I've negotiated all the joint ventures for the company, and they are extremely, they're beneficial but they're extremely time consuming, and just because, you know it's hard enough when you own your own company and you're trying to get these things done. It takes a long time. When you try to blend in the needs, uses and finances and the votes that have to go through to do a public/private venture, we estimated that it would delay this project almost a year. We'd lose the contract on the site and we would also possibly lose market share and not bring the product here, so that was our motivation in not exploring that at this time. Papke: Second question. Do you foresee any kind of special events at this facility that would cause very high traffic levels? Now it sounds like you have a large enough parking buffer when you combine with the headquarters that you wouldn't anticipate an issue but ! know the Wayzata facility, when there's a swimming meet or something like that there, it gets pretty hectic. Mark Zaebst: Oh absolutely, and again that's another challenge with the joint venture product. We have, not only at Plymouth we have the Lifetime Fitness traffic, but you have the swim meets and then we have the ice arena, so you get a couple hockey games and meets or practices, plus the Lifetime Fitness and that is a real parking crunch. Whereas here, we will not have any special events because it will just be, this facility will only be servicing the normal numbers of clientele that come into the facility, and we don't, we do a number of running events and triathlons around the country but we don't run those out of the locations. We just did our national triathlon and we ran that over at Lake Nokomis over the weekend, so in answer to your question, no. We won't have any big events that would cause parking or traffic problems. 27 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Papke: Next question on the sports facilities. There's no tennis and there's only two racquet ball courts. And maybe a side question to staff. Are there any indoor tennis courts anywhere in the school district at this point that you're aware of?. Aanenson: I don't think so. Papke: Don't think so. Have you contemplated any kind of tennis? Mark Zaebst: We have one tennis facility out of our portfolio, and it's a massive facility. It's this prototype and we bought an older tennis club for a bargain, which came with about a 25 acre site, so we were able to financial fix up the tennis facility, marry it to one of these prototype clubs and then finish out the site. It actually turned out to be a beautiful facility. But the, and ! like tennis but the problem with tennis is, from a revenue producing standpoint, it is like pulling teeth to try to make enough money just to meet the expense of putting the tennis courts up, because if you look at the square footage that's involved in putting one tennis court up, it can only service 2 or 4 people at a time, and the revenue that you can get from those people isn't anything near to what it costs to buy the land, build the improvements, heat it, cool it, and insure it. And it takes up massive amounts of space, so I'm kind of giving you a long winded question, or answer to your question but it's not our core business. The reason that we have the one tennis club was that the opportunity presented itself and there was already a tennis community established within that building that we were able to kind of nurture and get to the point where that tennis facility now actually makes a profit for us, but it doesn't make a profit to the point where the company can continue to do that. Papke: How about the racquet ball, do you think two courts is enough? Mark Zaebst: We actually have two racquet ball and two squash courts. And what we find in our facilities, those are, we study usage for all of our sports, but racquet ball and squash have both been on a declining usage chart for almost 20 years, but it's starting to stabilize. So you have kind of a hard core group of squash and racquet ball players that play it as a sport and enjoy that, and those courts in our facilities are really enough to take care of that. And we also have enough down time that the folks that want to play it just recreationally, you know they walk into the club and they think gee, I'm going to play some racquetball today, there's usually a court available and we're able to handle those peoples needs so yes, for now that court combination is working well for us. Papke: Okay. In your video presentation you mentioned seniors and you spent a lot of time talking about.., can you comment on what type of facilities you have for seniors. Mark Zaebst: Well we treat seniors like everybody else, so we figure, and we have gosh, we have folks that are 80 years old and come into our clubs and they do a lot of the things that the 20 year olds are doing, so we don't really have anything absolutely dedicated to them, but the club is so large and so expansive that a senior, ! guess where ! was going with that is, no matter how old you are or what your fitness interests are, there's something in that facility that is going to meet your needs, so we get a lot of seniors that like to come in at 3:00 in the afternoon, which is an extremely slow time for the facility, and they like to do their lap swimming and they like to go 28 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 outside and lounge by the pool for a little while and have a bite to eat together and go socialize in the Life Cafe. We have seniors that are still competitive triathletes that will come in and actually physically train for 3 hours a day so, ! guess where ! was going with that is, it doesn't really, if you're a competitive athlete or you just want to come in and sit in the sauna and get a massage, there's something for everybody in the community at the facility. Papke: Okay. Last question. Two buildings. You mentioned meetings you know with different departments when it's 30 below zero. A number of different corporate campuses in the Twin Cities have done tunnels. They've done walkways. ! didn't notice any particular accommodations for people shuttling between the two buildings. What are your thoughts on that? Mark Zaebst: We, and to be honest with you, we have not thought that process through completely. We understand that if we did want to do something like that in the future we would have to come back and that would I'm sure require plan approval so, ! guess to answer your question, we're not sure right now how those buildings would be connected, or if they would. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Questions? Slagle: I've got a few. Mark ! don't know if you followed my questions regarding the sidewalks on the parking lot. Mark Zaebst: Yes, on this parking field over here? Slagle: Yeah, as an example. Mark Zaebst: South west. Slagle: Any thoughts? Mark Zaebst: Well we, you know we have all kinds of different parking configurations around the country and we have not experienced any problems with side loaded parking like that. You know complaints from members but ! guess ! would say that if you folks needed us to possibly put some sort of a walkway through that median there, we would be open to that. Slagle: Okay. And then ! had a question, and again being a resident of Chanhassen, you're familiar probably with sort of the traffic patterns and so forth. Mark Zaebst: Yes. Slagle: Do you have a take on, or a comment on my question as to the one entrance at Corporate Place and Century? ! mean do you think... Mark Zaebst: Yeah, that's a great question. And the reason that we're comfortable with it, and we, you know as a real estate developer ! will take as many entrances and exit points to a site as can possibly get because the more convenient it is, the better the traffic flows. It's just that this 29 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 particular site, from the investigations that we've had with the County and with the City, we're locked into that one ingress and egress point, but we're still comfortable with it because we have a number of different facilities around the country where we do have really a singular point of entry and exit, and what saves us there is the comings and goings of the club, and also of our corporate office because a lot of our folks at corporate are out in the field so it's not, we have a lot, you know a good number of 9 to 5'ers but a lot of us will show up really early, work really late. We'll go in the middle of the day and have a meeting up at our Plymouth facility. You know that type of thing so it's not a mass entrance and a mass exodus for that 1,200 parking field, and what that does for us, with that kind of constant coming and going is, we don't really get these, you know again a mass exodus where you have this giant cuing problem because not everybody's coming and going at the same time. Slagle: And I guess to follow up on that. The absence of any electronic regulating light, if you will, no concern? ! mean you've got the stop signs and, just, not that ! don't believe traffic numbers but I'm just trying to picture. Mark Zaebst: Yeah, I mean if you gave me a choice, if we could say that a stop sign or a stop signal, or a traffic signal, I'd always take a traffic signal just because my experience is traffic flows better with a traffic signal. But we're not, Century is not a real busy street. That's the other thing. If we were coming out of this spur here onto an extremely busy road, I'd be very concerned. But we're, you know ! drive that street a lot, just to check it out and see what it's like and boy, it's rarely do ! see a car on it. So ! don't see a lot of stopping, waiting, waiting, waiting for 5 cars to go by and then go out. It's going to be pretty much stop, go, stop, go, and ! believe that the traffic will flow well. Slagle: Okay, that's it. Sacchet: Any questions Craig? Claybaugh: Certainly. In the interest of beating a dead horse, I'll pick up on Rich's thoughts. Sorry for that. Again, exiting out onto Corporate Place. Office building number 1, ! see that you've got an access point coming into that cul-de-sac. Those people are going to have to make a left hand turn onto their. Mark Zaebst: I'm sorry, are you here? Claybaugh: Pardon? Correct, yes. You've got the people coming off from behind the actual fitness center. They're going to be able to merge with the right hand turn and then you've got the main drive aisle for your main form of egress out onto Corporate Place. Any cause for concern in your mind? Coming off of office building number 1. Mark Zaebst: So making a left hand turn here? Claybaugh: Right. Are those folks going to have to navigate with the incoming traffic and have to try and merge in effect if there's any stacked traffic. 30 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Mark Zaebst: I guess again, just based upon that we have a lot of these and I know. Claybaugh: Yeah, that was my. Mark Zaebst: Yeah, ! know how the traffic comes and goes. ! feel pretty good about it because again, it's not like all of a sudden you're going to have 100 cars trying to leave at the same time. Claybaugh: It's hard not to look at it and be pragmatic. Mark Zaebst: Oh, and ! think it's a great question, yeah. And ! shouldn't say that never, ever, ever will there not be a jam up there. I'm sure that maybe once or twice a day you'll get enough people leaving corporate and enough people trying to leave the club at once where they're going to have to wait a few seconds for everybody to blend in but ! don't think it's going to be. Claybaugh: From your experience it's well within your comfort level? Mark Zaebst: Yeah, it won't be a traffic jam in there. Claybaugh: You indicated that the architect may be able to shed a little bit of light on the up, down lighting issue. Mark Zaebst: Yes. Claybaugh: With respect to the lighting levels that you're looking for the up lighting specifically, in terms of whether you'd use foot candles or some other form of measurement. In terms of the height that they're mounted at versus the top of the parapet from the point of origin of the light to the point where it reaches the top of the parapet, any idea what the drop off is in lighting level intensity? William Doerr: Almost nil by the top of the building. If you're looking to put, my name is William Doerr. I'm the Director of Architecture for Lifetime Fitness and ! live in Plymouth, Minnesota. The light really isn't shining up. It's shining at an angle. It's located about 3 to 4 feet from the building in a landscaped area. We don't want to see the source either and they're also located between the windows so in all cases they're on a pilaster. It's a very controlled beam of light and levels are directed at the building and they fade to almost nothing by the top. There is a light fixture at the top that then shines down on it so it's a combination of the two. From the sky looking down, you wouldn't, the light wouldn't be pointing, it's actually shadowed by the building so ! think a lot of times the dark sky ordinances are set up so that people aren't putting spot lights in the air, like a Mystic Lake Casino or something like that. Claybaugh: Specifically the intensity just wanes so it pretty much is diminished to nothing at the top of the parapet. William Doerr: Yes, and the reason it's not in the photometric plans and the other ones aren't as well, is that they have no effect on it. We've actually put those in there and they have little to no 31 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 effect because the intensity of a parking lot light would wash that out from a photometric calculation. Claybaugh: If staff could help me, was there an issue with the mounting height for the down lighting being? Aanenson: Yes. Claybaugh: Okay, and that was they were mounting those. Generous: ...40 foot. Claybaugh: Okay. Could you comment on that or address that? William Doerr: The actual, it was the parking lot poles that couldn't be 40 feet and we are changing that and we're going to submit new photometrics on that. The building itself is 38.8 overall and steps up from there and the down lights are below that portion and approximately 35 feet. Claybaugh: Okay. Thanks, that's all the questions that ! have. Very nice presentation. Sacchet: Thanks Craig. Dan. Keefe: I've got a couple. The water park, that's for the use of the members only. Mark Zaebst: Correct. Keefe: Okay. It's not open to public at all? Wouldn't be proposed to be? Mark Zaebst: Yep. Keefe: Alright. The second office building, is that for Lifetime use? Mark Zaebst: Correct. Keefe: To be built out for corporation offices only? Mark Zaebst: Yes. Keefe: Okay, so it's not anticipated to be a leased building? Mark Zaebst: Well, you know when we analyze it from a real estate standpoint, when we grow out of the 100,000 square foot building, we won't automatically have double the corporate set up so we would probably almost do something like we've done in our present corporate office where we would take what we need. We'd hold some out for future growth, but then we would probably try to place a couple of tenants in there to help with the cash flow stream, and as the 32 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 company grows, our anticipation would be we would do shorter term leases so that when those folks leases ran out, then we could then, as Lifetime Fitness continues to grow, grow into that building. Again with out having to build 100,000 square foot building and pay the nut on that every month and we're only using 20,000 square feet of it so. Keefe: Understand, but it's anticipated the first building would be, you would have enough for the corporate offices to fill that out for the start? Mark Zaebst: Correct. Keefe: Okay. Parking along 5. I'm not sure ifI heard the reason why you were requesting parking along 5. Mark Zaebst: Oh, just simply that, and I think somebody commented at Plymouth. Even though I know we have a ton of parking here, it's just, you know we're looking at that land mass. We seem to be a very good distance away from Highway 5, and it lends itself to have some additional parking, kind of away from the club that could be a little bit more dedicated to that office building, and that's what we were looking at there. Keefe: Alright. I got into it a little bit earlier but in terms of the number of people coming from the corporate offices over to the fitness center itself, it just seemed in terms of the, are you comfortable there's an adequate walkways for people to make it from the corporate offices with the traffic flow at peak and everybody getting off of work at 5:00 and people are going into the club at 5:00. Driving in and in terms of just the configuration of the parking lot in terms of people either walking over or, ! don't know how many. Mark Zaebst: I do and the reason that we kind of want to keep it down to just a couple of walkways from corporate over to the club is so that as you're coming in this main driveway here, you're not having to watch out for 8 different sidewalks of people cutting across. We're planning to get folks to come out of the office buildings and then come right down the main corridor, which actually if you remember there's only one ingress/egress point and that's at the front so rather than cutting an angle across, it's probably the most convenient way to come out of the corporate office and walk into the front door of the health club. Keefe: And your experience with the safety perspective, you haven't had any issues in terms of, you know ! mean, ! don't know how Lifetime works but if there's a mass exodus at 5:30 or 6:00, or whatever time and you get at whole bunch of people walking out there and you've got people coming in. Mark Zaebst: Yeah, ! wouldn't, no. Keefe: Okay, nothing to worry about. Alright. Are you open to, it wasn't clear to me how much berming was done along 5 on the plan. Mark Zaebst: And I apologize if it's not the right amount, we'll do whatever is required. We have more than dirt than we need on that site so we have plenty of dirt to build berms with, and 33 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 we actually, we like a nice undulating berm. Well planted, that type of thing so we're all for that. Sacchet: Another question Steve? Lillehaug: Yes I did. I kind of missed this one and it was brought up, and that would be the access to your underground parking on the north there. ! do see that as a potential problem, and it is right adjacent to and somewhat within city right-of-way. Mark Zaebst: ...right here? Lillehaug: Right. Mark Zaebst: We're exploring a couple of different accesses so we're looking... We have another way in where we could bring that access point under the building here, if that may be more comfortable. We were talking about this earlier and we don't really have a preference. If we think it works okay, from the architect, from the underground parking count standpoints, that it really won't affect us negatively by doing either. Lillehaug: Thank you for showing that too because that was my next question was, it really wasn't a round about because it's a cul-de-sac with three driveway accesses, but it acts as a round about. But since it really acts like a round about, you guys will be adding the diverters which is really necessary on round abouts. Mark Zaebst: Right, agreed. Lillehaug: And they'll be raised island diverters? Mark Zaebst: If we're allowed, is that correct? Yes. Because the last thing that we wanted was four driveways dumping into a cul-de-sac. We said oh my god, that will be pandemonium so, at least if we can get everybody going the right way, they'll get in. They'll get out. We think it will work, and plus we think it will be pretty. You know with a nice planting in the middle of it. Lillehaug: So we need to make a condition to add that exact drawing into the site plans, and you're acceptable to that? Mark Zaebst: Let me just ask our engineer real quick. See any problems? Aanenson: We think there might be other tweaking yet too so. Keefe: Work with staff on it. Mark Zaebst: ! think if we could say similar, just to make sure the engineers can make sure that it actually, that that works so that' s. Saam: So staff can review it. We just got it today and we're reviewing it. 34 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: And then one other quick one would be, the walk on the south. On the south of that cul-de-sac there, and you could look at the same one. It goes out and it stops and it doesn't connect to a walk on the south side of, is it Corporate Road or whatever it is. Mark Zaebst: Over here? Lillehaug: No, up on the south side of the cul-de-sac there. It comes out, and then it stops so they're going to have to cross the roadway. Right at the throat of the cul-de-sac. Mark Zaebst: Sorry, I'm not following you. Lillehaug: So there's a walk, right there. It stops fight there so they're going to have to cross if they're going to continue on that walk, or come in on, do you anticipate adding a crosswalk there or amendable pedestrian crossing at that point? Mark Zaebst: Sure. Lillehaug: Okay. Mark Zaebst: We don't want to run anybody over so that'd be fine. Sacchet: You okay? Tjornhom: Yes. Sacchet: ! have one main question. ! would expect you're aware that there is another possible project for a fitness center about a quarter mile further east from there. Mark Zaebst: Yes. Sacchet: What bearing does that have on you? Mark Zaebst: We, I don't know everything about that company so I don't know what their plans are. When their plans are to build. All ! know is that we have done a great deal of research into the trade area and also developing the product that we think will best serve this trade. We're extremely confident in what we do. It's all that we do. We are one of the best in the country, and not to down talk the other folks in any way, but we are extremely confident that we are on track to bring the best product to the community and we think it will definitely flourish here. Sacchet: So you're confident in your product. Do you think the market here could support two fitness centers so close together? Since you did some market research. Mark Zaebst: I, and again this is antidotal. I don't know if the other folks said this but we had heard that they were anticipating only about 3,000 memberships. 35 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Sacchet: The smaller type. Mark Zaebst: If that' s all the number of memberships that they're looking for, my answer would be yes. My other answer is that we're very confident that even if there were a competitor, a new competitor in the marketplace, that we would be able to gain the number of memberships that we need to be successful at our location. Sacchet: Well understood. Good answer, thank you. With that ! thank you very much for an excellent presentation. Mark Zaebst: Thank you. Sacchet: And answering our questions. Great proposal in front of us. Now this is a public hearing so I'd like to invite anybody that would like to address this item to come forward at this time and state your name and address for the record and let us hear if you have something to say. Are there any takers? ! don't see anybody standing up so if nobody wants to comment, ! will simply close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission for comments and discussion. Comments and discussion. Who wants to start? Claybaugh: I'll start. Excellent presentation. It looks like an excellent product. Prepared to support it. I'm not prepared to support item number 13 with respect to the parking along Highway 5 but ! am certainly open to considering approval for item number 5 with respect to the building up lighting under the condition that obviously the foot candles and intensity at the top of the parapet, the necessary information be submitted to the city for their review. But I'm glad to have you in the community and ! think you'll be very successful here. No more comments. Sacchet: Thank you Craig. Any comments? Okay. Kurt? Nothing. Bethany. Tjornhom: ! just want to thank you also for your presentation. ! thought it was very informational and ! like to see how willing you are to work with staff and the city ! think too. It makes getting the site changes that we have to... people willing to help and work with each other and ! think this is something that the city of Chanhassen should be proud of and ! also approve. Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. Steve, comments. Lillehaug: This is great. I fully support it. Obviously we'll have to revise a few conditions as the items that we discussed. And then there is one more that ! would like to just address that I'll be proposing a condition on and that would be the walk. The same walk ! was just talking about on the very southwest corner of that cul-de-sac. ! think it'd be a more, it'd be better with the boulevard rather than right up against the curb so ! think we should add a boulevard in there. Other than that, ! guess ! don't need to talk about the conditions yet. So it looks great. Sacchet: Dan, any comment? Discussion points. Keefe: No, ! support the project. ! think it would be terrific. The question ! do have is just in regards to the parking variance and ! guess just in sharing the discussion, ! don't know if! can 36 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 support putting parking there. It just sounds like if we've got plenty in the parking area, then I don't know what we really need it for. Then ! guess I'd like to see more additional berming and landscaping along 5. Sacchet: Thank you. You have another point? Claybaugh: Yeah Mr. Chair. ! guess when the, Mark was up earlier, the applicant, you discussed possibly adding a pedestrian walkway on the north side. You had pointed out across with three lanes, possibly adding some sidewalk in that area. You seemed fairly receptive to that... Mark Zaebst: Did you mean here? Claybaugh: On the west side, pardon me. Yes, that's correct. Mark Zaebst: Yeah, we would be willing to having a crosswalk. Let me ask the engineer first. Jeff, would we have a problem getting... Claybaugh: Either that or just a little bit to the north there at the corner. One of those, but some form of pedestrian egress across there. Jeff Sandberg: We'll just have, if it's possible to do. If we have the width in the medians to do that... ! don't see an issue with it so we'll try to address that. Claybaugh: You would be the first if you made a believer out of me so certainly if you're willing to do it, we'll take it. Aanenson: Can ! just say a clarification on that request? Claybaugh: Certainly. Aanenson: Is that they would remove landscaping in order to get that in, or make it wider because you need a minimum planting width of 10 feet so. Claybaugh: Well ! guess ! would look to city staff to tell me what all is involved in accommodating that so. Aanenson: Also make sure that the direction wasn't to eliminate the landscaping... That's what thought was their suggestion. We wouldn't want that. Claybaugh: Okay. At the behest of losing the landscaping, do we have the adequacy of losing a few parking stalls then across there from the parking stall count? One of the things that's really lacking in one of the developments that we've seen is the pedestrian friendliness, and we talk about it a lot but it always seems to come down when the rubber meets the road at this point, that there's always a good reason not to. And whatever it is that has to give, I'm asking city staff if 37 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 there's the latitude there to do it. And if there is, and the client's or the applicant's willing to do it, could we take advantage of it? Aanenson: We'll certainly work with them on that. Claybaugh: Okay. Alright, that concludes mine. Sacchet: Okay, a couple comments from my end. ! think pretty much everything has been said already. There are a couple of points that we are looking at where we want to land. ! think we're relatively clear about the extra parking there against Highway 5. ! think the additional berming to have more space to make berming, together with the city's overall guideline that we'd like to minimize the parking next to the Highway 5, ! think that's a pretty clear case. I'm not so clear about the up lighting. ! personally, having served on the Environmental Commission for the city for a long time, feel very strongly that we should stick to our city wide agreement of not allowing up lighting. It's, ! consider that one of the progressive features actually that we have in this city that we take this up lighting aspect serious and try to minimize the stray light going up into the sky that you can't see the stars anymore. Especially in the context that this is next to the Arboretum and also next to residential. It's a somewhat natural environment. Probably as pristine as it gets in an urban environment and ! think the up lighting is an direct contradiction to that. When we made an exception for the cinema, that's in the middle of downtown and that was a totally different environment to make an exception with that, so ! would disagree with you Craig to allow the up lighting. In terms of the traffic, ! do think asking for the applicant to work with staff with that round about with those dividing islands is a good thing. ! wouldn't think we have to make it a firm condition, but certainly put it in there. ! would like to very much encourage this, because and ! heard some trepidation on your end Craig in terms of the round about. Being from Europe, I'm an absolute fan of round abouts because you go. You never stop. You go. You just slow down so the other guy, ! mean it's going to take a little while for people to get the hang of that. I've seen round abouts of major city intersections. ! mean this just driveways and stuff. ! mean there' s, ! mean once people get the hang of it, there's absolutely no problem with that traffic situation and that round about thing. But we'll have to revise condition 25 to not state that we don't want circular islands so to be clear there. That's all my comments. ! think it's a great proposal. Claybaugh: Mr. Chair, could I respond? Sacchet: Yes, please do. Claybaugh: With respect to the up lighting, I'd like to put it in context. What they're talking about here is the equivalent, if you put it in the context of using a flashlight. The actual projection is 100 percent diffused at 20 feet, and that's what they're talking about doing. A lot of things that come in front of us for up lighting are something that are going to project, just like the cinema, in the sky. When you get to the top of the parapet, if they submit the data that I'm expecting on the fixtures that they're talking about using, you go up there with a light meter, you're going to read next to zero up there. At the top of the parapet. To me that's purely an architectural feature. 38 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Sacchet: Okay, so we could make it a work with staff type of thing. Claybaugh: Well like I said, if in fact that, if I'm understanding what the applicant is proposing correctly, and that's the condition, whatever your decision, ! just want it to be made in the proper context. Sacchet: Okay, understand. Yep, okay. Alright, any more questions? ! guess I'm willing to take your motion here. Lillehaug: I'll make a motion the Planning Commission recommends approval of the amendment to the Arboretum Business Park Development Design Standards, PUD #92-6, Permitted Uses to permit, and this will be revised right here. Health club on Lot 5, Block 5, Arboretum Business Park PUD Plan, Outlot A, Arboretum Business Park 4th Addition, to be platted as Lot 1, Block 1, Arboretum Business Park 7th Addition. Sacchet: Is there a second? Claybaugh: I'll second. Lillehaug moved, Claybaugh seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the amendment to the Arboretum Business Park Development Design Standards, PUD #92-6, Permitted Uses to permit a health club on Lot 5, Block 5, Arboretum Business Park PUD Plan (Outlot A, Arboretum Business Park 4th Addition, to be platted as Lot 1, Block 1, Arboretum Business Park 7th Addition). All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Sacchet: Next. Claybaugh: Mr. Chair, I'm sorry ! wanted to slip in a friendly amendment. Sacchet: Sure. Claybaugh: For item number 5. Sacchet: Let's make a motion first and then we do the friendly amendments. Somebody want to make the motion? Lillehaug: I'll make a motion the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan Planning Case #04-22 for a two-story, 1,000, how about as presented by staff. Sacchet: That's acceptable. Is there a second? Claybaugh: Second. Friendly amendment? Sacchet: Friendly amendment please. Claybaugh: Would you be acceptable to item number 5? 39 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: I like item number 5 as it stands. No lighting shall be directed skyward. I support it as it is. Claybaugh: Okay. Sacchet: Okay, any other friendly amendments? Lillehaug: ! have amendments. Sacchet: Alright, as long as you will accept them. Lillehaug: As I didn't put, with conditions 1 through 49 to include condition number 50, and I'd like that to state, revise cul-de-sac/round about as presented in alternate drawing and to work with staff on that to include raised diverter islands, typical round about signage, crosswalk at the east end of the throat of the round about and the necessary right-of-way to accommodate the round about. So that would be condition number 50. I'd like to keep condition number 5 in there. Condition number 7 ! would like revised to say, applicant shall install berms along the north and northwest property lines. Sacchet: Can we say undulating or that was? Lillehaug: With undulating in there. ! think the revised, ! think they were deficient on shrubs so ! think the revised landscape plan shall be, condition number 10 I'd like revised to include the required shrubbery per code. Condition 13. ! would like to stand and then at the end of it indicate, add berming in the location where the parking was deleted. Revise condition number 19 to say, complete utility plans will need to be submitted for review and approval by the engineering department and building staff prior to, is it issuance of, is it before City Council that staff would like to see or prior to what? Saam: Building permit. Generous: Building permit. Lillehaug: Prior to building permit. And then revise condition number 20 to say the plans were reviewed for general building code compliance and then detailed plans, detailed building plans need to be submitted for review and approval, likewise. Number 34. This is regarding the wall. ! would like that, a fence shall be added on top of the wall ! think as staff indicated in their discussion but it's not in the conditions so there needs to be a fence on top of the wall. Sacchet: For which height? For all of it or? Lillehaug: Well what would staff require for fence? Fences over 6 feet? Saam: Well 6 is fine but over the 4. 40 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: Okay, over 4 feet. I think that might be the standard. And then condition number 36, I would like to revise and then add on the end of it, and this is regarding sodding and seeding. At the completion of Phase I to include Eustachian turf on the sites of Phase II and III. And that is all I have, thank you. Claybaugh: Point of clarification. Item 5 the way it's written by staff, shall not be directed skyward. I don't feel what they're proposing is directing skyward because it's fully diffused by what they're describing so on item 5 are you against the up lighting? Lillehaug: I am opposed to up lighting. I don't, they're down lighting. The measure of that is on the ground. The up lighting isn't going to be measured on the ground. It's still going to be possibly projected upwards so I don't think their measurements that they're showing can really reflect the lighting that's directed... Claybaugh: But if they were able to have them state that there was basically 1 or 0 foot candles at the top of the parapet, would that be acceptable to you? If they could achieve that? So you demonstrate that the light is essentially fully diffused at the top of the building. Lillehaug: I support it as stands. I think, I mean they have down lighting on the sides of the building and I think that adequately lights the side of the building up in my opinion. Slagle: Mr. Chair, just a point of clarification. Sacchet: Go ahead Rich. Slagle: Again on point number 5. Commissioner Lillehaug, is there any input in the sense of where this is located and the fact that there's an absence of neighborhood and so forth? I mean it is out there. Lillehaug: Well there's a neighborhood right to the west. There's a neighborhood right to the north. There's neighborhoods out there. Slagle: Neighborhood to the west? Lillehaug: Across 41. Slagle: To the north. So you'd have Pulte. Lillehaug: Where am I at here? Sacchet: Pulte's to the north. Lillehaug: Jeepers, I just got, I was just on Galpin for a second there. Slagle: But if I'm not mistaken Pulte would be the only neighborhood that would be in any.., proximity. 41 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Lillehaug: Well there's no street lighting on 5. Slagle: Okay. Lillehaug: ! guess if they can demonstrate that it doesn't increase... Claybaugh: Trying to put it in the best context, to give you a comfort for what they're trying to achieve. ! think the best point is probably denying. Sacchet: Keep also in mind that this is going to go in front of City Council. This is not the final decision. Aanenson: ...we didn't get the photometrics on this but if we can just show this real quick. Lillehaug: Will the photometrics measure what's going up though? Aanenson: Correct. Lillehaug: ! don't think they will. Aanenson: Correct, and this goes back to the highest issue of poles because the poles that they submitted are at 30 feet. Bob? Generous: Well 30 for most of them. 40 in the center. Aanenson: Center, and they cannot be that high. This is the up lighting on the building, so we do not have photometrics on that. Typically we have a cut off on the top of a light so if for example the cut off is the top of this building, which we don't know yet, so ! think if you take it as it reads, which is what Steve was saying, it may meet that requirement so it's really performance driven. So they may be able to do it if we get the details on that. So as we work that out, and before it goes to council, we'll let you know how that. Claybaugh: I'll just make my comments at the end. Sacchet: Alright. Are we done talking about that one? Claybaugh: We are done beating that horse to death. Sacchet: Alright. ! have two more friendly amendments. On condition 11, did we say that, we still want that in there. But that would say, we need to say it's for the fitness building. Aanenson: ! would leave it in but when it goes to council we'll say it's been revised. 42 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Sacchet: Well but let's state specific that it's for the fitness building. It's not for the corporate building. So be specific. And then on condition 25. What do we do with that round about? We're replacing that with the two conditions that were presented by staff?. Lillehaug: 25 is the circular island within the parking lot. The circular island isn't a round about SO. Sacchet: So we want to be specific that's the one within the parking lot. Aanenson: Correct. Sacchet: We're not talking about the cul-de-sac one. Aanenson: Correct. Sacchet: I just want to be explicit about that. Okay. That's fine then. Saam: Mr. Chair? Sacchet: Go ahead please. Saam: You brought up a point. We could make sure we add, ! think Commissioner Lillehaug caught the first additional condition with the right-of-way alignment but the second one requiring the encroachment agreement for the island within the cul-de-sac, if you could make sure we attach that. Sacchet: Or maybe just modify condition 25 to say eliminate the circular island within the center of the parking. Then that would, right? Saam: Yeah. What ! want to point out is just to make sure we add condition number 2 on the additional memo that got handed out. Sacchet: And put that in explicitly so that we don't get confused about it. Good point. Saam: Yes, with the recommendation. Sacchet: Thank you Matt. Is that acceptable? Lillehaug: Yes. Sacchet: Alright. Mark Zaebst: Sir, may ! ask one point of clarification. On the, you had mentioned establish of turf on the undeveloped portions to the north. Lillehaug: As you suggested. 43 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Mark Zaebst: Right. ! just wondered, could you tell, could you tell me how that would be worded. ! just want to make sure, what ! was supposing it would be put down, some black dirt and seeded. ! just want to make sure. Sacchet: Perfectly acceptable. So we maybe want to explicitly state that it's going to be, there's going to be grass. By turf, we might expect something a little more specific and ! think that's what alarmed you a little bit here. Okay. Is that acceptable? Lillehaug: Yep. Sacchet: So we call it, what do we call it? Lillehaug: Seeded. Seeded or sodded. Sacchet: Seeded or sodded. Alright, we have a motion. We have a second. We have a whole collection of amendments. Lillehaug moved, Claybaugh seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan Planning Case #04-22 for a two story, 109,000 square foot health club with a pool and two three story, 100,000 square foot office buildings, and the temporary use of a sales/membership trailer, plans prepared by Alliant Engineering, Inc., dated 6/18/04, based on the findings of fact attached to this report and subject to the following conditions: The developer shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the security required by it. The developer shall final plat Outlot A, Arboretum Business Park 4th Addition, prior to issuance of any building permits. The temporary sales trailer may be located in the southeast corner of the site. The temporary sales trailer shall comply with the standards used for sales trailers for residential developments. The temporary sales trailer shall be removed within 10 business days of the issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy for the fitness center. Maximum height of area lighting shall be 30 feet. The developer shall replace the 40 foot poles with 30 foot light poles. Wall mounted light fixtures shall be shielded with a total cutoff angle equal to or less than 90 degrees. Lighting shall not be directed skyward. 6. All signs shall require a separate sign permit. The applicant shall install undulating berms along the north and northwest property line. 44 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 8. All landscape islands shall be a minimum inside width of 10 feet. All species and quantities depicted on the landscape plan shall correspond correctly with the plant schedule. 10. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted before final approval to include the required shrubbery per city code. 11 The developer shall continue the use of the ledgestone to create columns between the windows on the western building elevation of the fitness center. Additional ledgestone columns should be added every 40 feet on the south building elevation for a total of four additional columns. 12. The chain link fence on the trash enclosure shall be replaced with wood. 13. The parking directly adjacent to Highway 5 must be deleted and additional berming in the location where the parking was deleted. 14. A sidewalk connection shall be provided from the east-west sidewalk system to the north- south sidewalk system within the parking lot. Pedestrian ramps shall be provided at all curbs within the parking lot and on Corporate Place. 15. The developer shall install site furnishings including benches, bicycle racks, and tables. 16. The buildings must be protected with automatic fire sprinkler systems. 17. The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. 18. If the property will be replatted into separate lots, consideration must be given to the location of the property lines in relation to the proposed buildings. 19. Complete utility plans need to be submitted for review and approval by the engineering and building inspection staff prior to issuance of the building permit. 20. The plans were reviewed for general building code compliance. Detailed building plans need to be submitted for review and approval by city staff. 21 A 10 foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e. street lamps, shrubs, trees, etc. to ensure that fire hydrants can be located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to Chanhassen City Ordinance #0-1. 22. "No Parking Fire Lane" signs and yellow painted curbing will be required. Please contact Chanhassen Fire Inspector for exact sign locations and for exact curbing to be painted. 45 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. Four additional fire hydrants are required to effectively cover premises and one fire hydrant presently indicated on the plans can be eliminated. Contact Chanhassen Fire Inspector for exact location of these fire hydrants. Post Indicator Valves (PIV's) are required for all three buildings. Please indicate locations on resubmitted plans. Eliminate circular islands within the center of the parking area. This is to keep an open means of entry for all fire apparatus. Items such as turning radius, possibility of vehicles blocking or snow conditions could greatly hamper or prevent fire apparatus approach. Submit storm sewer design calculations for a 10 year, 24 hour storm event and drainage map for staff review at time of building permit application. The applicant is responsible to obtain and comply with all regulatory agency permits including but not limited to MnDot, Watershed District, MPCA, etc. A professional civil engineer registered in the State of Minnesota must sign all plans. Add the latest City Detail Plate Numbers 1002, 1004, 1005, 1006, 2001, 2101, 2109, 2110, 2201, 2204, 3101, 3102, 5201, 5203, 5205, 5214, 5215, 5300, 5301, 5302, and 5302A. Add a note "Any connection to existing manholes shall be core drilled". Show the sanitary sewer pipe class, slope and the manhole invert and rim elevations. Call out all watermain fittings and show the pipe class. Installation of the private utilities for the site will require permits and inspections through the City's Building Department. The applicant should be aware that any retaining wall height more than four feet in height must be designed by a structural engineer registered in the State of Minnesota. Also, it will require a building permit through the City's Building Department. A fence shall be added on top of the retaining wall. If importing or exporting material for development of the site is necessary, the applicant will be required to supply the City with a detailed haul route and traffic control plan. All disturbed areas must be sodded and/or seeded and mulched within two weeks of grading completion. At the completion of Phase I, seeding or sod shall be placed on the sites of Phase II and IlL Sanitary sewer and water hookup charges will be applicable for the new lot. The 2004 trunk hookup charge is $1,458 per unit for sanitary sewer, $2,814 per unit for watermain 46 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 38. 39. 40. 41 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. and the SAC fee is $1,425 per unit. All of these charges are based on the number of SAC units assigned by the Metropolitan Council. Sanitary sewer and watermain hookup fees may be specifically assessed against the parcel at the time of building permit issuance. Dedicate and show on the plans Drainage & Utility Easements (10 foot) along the highway and (5 foot) along the adjacent lots. On the grading plan: a. Show a minimum 75 foot rock construction entrance. b. Extend silt fence around the northeast and southeast corners of the site. Show the storm sewer pipe size, type, slope and manhole invert elevations. Relocate the proposed 8 inch watermain gate valve, off of the existing watermain stub to the cul-de-sac right-of-way line. Show the existing invert elevations of the sanitary and storm sewer stubs on the plans. Grading in the southeast corner of the site must be revised to prevent stormwater from draining onto the neighboring property to the east. Type 2 silt fence, which is a heavy duty fence, must be used in the northwest corner of the site adjacent to the existing wetland. The existing catch basin on the east side of the site in the cul-de-sac must be protected from construction related sediment through the use of filter barriers (see City Detail Plate No. 5302A). Erosion control blankets must be used on the steep slopes of the site in the southeast and southwest corners. The applicant should be aware that any off site grading will require an easement from the appropriate property owner. The underlying property has been previously assessed for sewer, water and street improvements. The remaining assessment due payable to the City is $308,807.60. This assessment is due at the time of final plat recording. The applicant is required to upgrade the cul-de-sac to current city standards with a 60 foot right-of-way radius, a 48 foot pavement radius, and B-618 concrete curb and gutter. Because of the substandard street section, the existing cul-de-sac pavement will have to be removed and the street will need to be repaved per City Detail Plate No. 5201. Revise the proposed cul-de-sac right-of-way alignment to comply with City Detail Plat No. 5205. 47 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 51. The cul-de-sac center island in Corporate Place will be allowed but an encroachment agreement will be required for the placement of the island within the right-of-way and for maintenance of the island. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Sacchet: In terms of, now there's one more, right? Yes. Aanenson: Yes. Sacchet: Let's go through the last one here. C. Lillehaug: So moved. Sacchet: So moved, alright. Do we have a second? Claybaugh: Second. Lillehaug: This would be in regard to the parking variance to permit two rows. Sacchet: And ! heard a second over there. Claybaugh: Second, yes. Lillehaug moved, Claybaugh seconded that the Planning Commission recommends denial of the parking variance to permit two rows of parking between Office Building 1 and Highway 5 based on the findings of fact attached to this report. All voted in favor, except Slagle who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 6 to 1. Sacchet: In terms of summary for council, ! think the Planning Commission unanimously welcomes very warmly this proposal. We're all very impressed. It's a great addition to our city. We want to wish you luck with this. We had some minor concerns, a lot of them that were very well put to rest like this traffic with the access. With the parking situation. The two points that the applicant requested additional discussion about is the parking next, the two rows of parking north of their first office building where city regulations state only one row is acceptable. We feel clearly on the Planning Commission that we'd rather have a little more berming. Little more undulation in berming there and stick with the city regulations. Not so unanimous was our sentiment about the up lighting where we had kind of a range of sentiments and ultimately ! think the gist of what we're saying is work with staff and see how it fits in. We do, at least some of us like myself, feel very strongly that no up lighting ordinance is an asset to the city that we want to uphold. ! think that's the highlights here. Did ! miss something? Yes, go ahead Rich. Slagle: IfI can ask just for your consideration, and I don't remember exact verbiage but something to the effect of the traffic concerns were handled quite well or. ! still. Sacchet: Not totally. 48 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Slagle: Especially with the intersection of Corporation Place and Century. ! just think as time goes on that's going to have to, and ! trust staff will be flexible to make the changes necessary once traffic gets to where it's going to get. Lillehaug: Put another round about there. Sacchet: Now Rich since you're at it, you voted against denial of the variance. Do you want to state something about that? Slagle: Sure. ! think with this being the corporate gateway to the west, if you will, it's going to be just an absolutely beautiful development and the fact of having two sets of parking rows. Sacchet: Insignificant? Slagle: Yeah. Sacchet: Okay. Alright. Any other additions to summary for council? Well thank you very much. We wish you all the best with this one. Your proposal. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Papke noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated July 6, 2004 as presented. DIRECTOR'S REPORT: DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS. Aanenson: This is really just for your edification. There' s a summary. ! hope you got a chance to look through it, based on the slides that we took, and what I'm going to take from this, based on the comments, is we have design standards but they don't include multi family housing. So I'm going to take this, and so it wouldn't apply to what we're calling now the lower Bluff Creek watershed we're calling it, instead of the 2005. We're going to make it city wide based on some other projects that are coming in. So they'll be designed. These will be incorporated with some other design standards we've been collecting for multi-family projects. So it's my intention to bring that back to you in a work session, which would be August 17th SO kind of again, similar to what we have for the industrial commercial. With pictures. What our expectations. Taking this language and descriptive, and adding some other things too. Looking at the Maple Grove' s planting criteria that they're using, some other standards so we'll have that in place as some of these projects are advancing forward. Papke: How are those design utilized? How binding are they? Aanenson: If they're adopted by city code they become ordinance city wide so that will now be, so right now. Papke: It becomes part of city code. 49 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Aanenson: Right, because right now the way our ordinance reads, if you were to go with the straight zoning application, there really isn't any standards so like a single family house, if they come in. They build it. Put as many windows, architectural elements as they want. Typically what we do now when we do, when we have leverage is when we do a PUD. Then we build design standards for a multi-family projects, and even if you do a single family one, we do it that way. So the goal with this is, whether we do a PUD or straight multi-family project, your expectations, we're getting some of the better features. So we'll be taking those.., so after you give us some comments, what I'm trying to do is stay ahead of the curve here because we're anticipating some of these bigger projects coming in yet this fall. Is to hold a public hearing then. Subsequently, shortly as ! can thereafter, having a public hearing on those. Sacchet: Are there any feedback? Any comments to the list that Kate submitted from anybody? Aanenson: If we missed something. My scribe did a good job that night. Sacchet: I have two questions. Aanenson: Sure. Sacchet: We say we like bump out for streets. What is that? Aanenson: ! think Craig took that...picture. Claybaugh: Right. It allowed for 3 or 4 cars to park and then there was objection at the curb out enough to plant a canopy tree... Sacchet: Okay, got it. Aanenson: Yeah, ! love that. Sacchet: ! didn't remember the image. Aanenson: What I did is take some of your pictures and actually... Claybaugh: I'll let you use that for the up lighting. I'll swap you. I'd really like to see the up lighting put into two contexts. The Family of Christ, what they were proposing was certainly one thing. ! really thing if they could demonstrate what they're proposing, and ! know if they want their electrical engineer and their lighting supplier, that they could demonstrate it very effectively. Aanenson: Well we'll meet with you before it goes back to City Council so we'll give you an update. Claybaugh: And ! do think under the right application, it is a very nice architectural feature. Sacchet: If it's done right. 50 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Claybaugh: And given where that building is, the significance of that corner, I think it'd be an important feature. Aanenson: ! think it's hard to see the impact of lighting the way we saw it, without going out and getting more information and that was our concern. Sacchet: One more question to the list. The dislikes. Asymmetry. Which image was that? Where did we not like asymmetry? Generous: Well some of those buildings, they didn't have windows that were proportionate and they were off center. And dormers. Sacchet: ! wouldn't call it asymmetry. ! mean asymmetry by itself is not. Claybaugh: That's a pretty broad statement. Sacchet: Maybe narrow that down a little bit, if you could, ! think that'd be a little dangerous. Aanenson: Again yeah, this was kind of our interpretation of what you guys were saying but again we'll take these plus some of the other contextual things and do pictures and ! think that will really help us as we move to some of these bigger projects. Claybaugh: Have you, ! had cause to be up in Lino Lakes last week and stopped up at that development up there where they put in, ! think, ! believe the anchor tenant is Target up there. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. The degree that they dedicated to plantings up there is just staggering. Didn't know if you've had an opportunity to be up there, if you've seen that one. Aanenson: I've seen that one. We had a recommendation for a walkway through the middle of Target when it came in here too. It got removed through the process. Claybaugh: Pardon? Aanenson: It got removed through the process but there was a dedicated sidewalk between Target, going over to the restaurants. But it got removed through the process. Claybaugh: ! think that would have been a very nice feature. Sacchet: Is that it for this one tonight? Aanenson: That's it. Sacchet: ! guess with that the meeting is adjourned. Chairman Sacchet adjourned the meeting at 9:15 p.m. 51 Planning Commission Meeting - July 20, 2004 Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 52