PC Minutes 6-15-05
Planning Commission _ting - June 15,2004
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important for all the road alterations on 41 to follow the full standards of road
construction from MnDot and so forth with the turning lanes and everything. We looked
at safety and we had some concerns about crossing 41. We want to make sure there's
sufficient sidewalks on either side accessing the new parking lot area. I think that was
very well received with crosswalks across the islands and then walkway all the way to the
end of the parking lot. Additional landscape buffering towards Tanadoona to integrate it
more, and also a tree study was kind of absent from this in terms of what are we cutting
down. I would think that'd be an element that could be addressed to some extent when it
goes in front of council. I would encourage that. And I think that's about the comments.
Anything else?
Lillehaug: I had one rebuttal comment is, my opinion is that it will have a flavor of a
frontage road once this is connected with Crimson Bay.
Sacchet: Okay. If it gets connected. If.
Lillehaug: If, there we go. Yep.
Sacchet: Alright. And I think that's it for this one. Thank you very much. Wish you
luck with this project. Thanks for cooperating and everything.
PUBLIC HEARING:
REQUEST FOR SITE PLAN APPROVAL FOR A 13.000 SQUARE FOOT
COMMERCIAL BUILDING WITH REQUESTS FOR PARKING AND SIGN
VARIANCES ON 1.9 ACRES ZONED PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT
LOCATED AT THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 5 AND GALPIN
BOULEVARD. BEAR CREEK CAPITAL. LLC AND CHANHASSEN
DEVELOPMENT. LLC. CVSIPHARMACY. PLANNING CASE NO. 04-21.
Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item.
Sacchet: Thanks Bob. Questions from staff.
Tjomhom: My question is regarding, and I don't know if I missed it in my reading
because I could have missed it but the drive thru stipulation. Was there a whole part that
showed the hours and you know noise, speakers, lighting, that kind of thing or wasn't
there?
Generous: There wasn't as part of the staff report, no.
Tjomhom: Okay. And I mean, is that something we should talk about or is it okay?
Generous: Well if it's a concern of your's, we can definitely request the applicant clarify
what their hours of operation are.
Tjornhom: We don't have any rules though about hours or anything like that?
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Generous: No, not specifically. Only if they create excessive noise and it becomes a
nUIsance.
Tjomhom: And it's a pharmacy so I was just assuming since it is a pharmacy it might be
open a little later. Which isn't a big deal I'm sure but I'm just, and so then with lighting
for that too, there's no problem with it being lit?
Generous: Well it's all down lit as required by our ordinance so there's very little spill
over.
Tjomhom: Okay. That's all for now I think.
Sacchet: Thanks Bethany.
Keefe: I've got a couple questions. The amount of parking on the site, is that driven by
the need from the retail piece or is it more, what is driving the amount of parking I guess
is the question.
Generous: Well our ordinance requires specific amounts. Retail operations are 1 per 200
square feet of building area. They're exceeding that slightly. What our ordinance would
reqUIre.
Keefe: Okay. So is that ordinance also take into account the drive thru for this type of
use? I mean you know, the question I would have is there a reduction required for
parking in association with having a drive thru?
Generous: No.
Keefe: No? Okay. The drive thru itself, how you get to the drive thru. It looks like you
enter it from the northwest comer and you go through the parking lot and you wrap
around the building and come to the drive thru. Is there also a second entrance to the
northeast? And that's what it looks like? But it looks like out on the plan, at least I was
looking at it, there was a sign that says drive thru through the parking lot. I didn't know
what, sort of the natural flow for the drive thru is. Would it typically go through the
parking lot or would it typically go, come in to the second entrance?
Generous: The applicant may be able to discuss the operation.
Sacchet: It might be an applicant.
Generous: If there's no cars there coming from the northeast into that drop off, would be
a very natural movement.
Saam: I think the major access point though typically is from Galpin. At least that's
where we see most of the traffic currently. That accesses that Kwik Trip so if you're
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coming from there, chances are you're probably going to make the first right and make
the loop around versus going down.
Keefe: Yeah, I mean just during all operations, if you have cars backing in and out, I
mean it is a convenience store type of retail use where you're going to have cars backing
in and out and then you're going to have people going through the drive thru. It seems
like you would want to route them maybe separately if you have the option to do that, and
it looks like you have a second entrance a little further east. I'm just kind of curious what
your thoughts are on that. The berming and the landscaping along 5, what is the height of
the berm? The one thought I had is when I looked at this and I thought of the count for
the landscaping and shrubs and it says well we're going to over shrub. You know a lot of
low level. Well this is the type of low level, I'm not sure what type of cover you're going
to get.
Saam: Yeah, that's one of the, one of our conditions I believe in there. They're showing
existing, what looks like existing topography or contours on the Highway 5 side, but in
reality it's our belief, those contours are what this site was like prior to the development
coming in there. So I think that's one of our conditions in there that we've added is to
give us true existing topo and then show us the berming you know at that point because
they're not showing any proposed berming along 5 currently.
Keefe: Okay. It says berrning and landscape on.
Saam: On the site plan. If you look on the grading, none of the proposed contours are
being shown there. And it makes us think that there is this big existing berm there and
there's an existing berm right where the building is. If you go out to the site, it's been as
a separate, it says it's been rough graded. So we believe these contours were from prior
to the rough grading occurring, if you follow me.
Keefe: Yeah, okay. Question on the sign. Is the sign we're talking about the one on this
elevation? That they're proposing, or are we talking about the other one that's sort of out
next door to the, across the street with the Kwik Trip?
Generous: No, the one that's outside of the parking lot.
Keefe: Okay, so this one would remain.
Generous: Yes, and they comply with the ordinance.
Keefe: Okay, so this one complies but we're talking about a free standing sign that is the
one that is not recommended, is that correct?
Generous: That's correct.
Keefe: Okay.
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Generous: That's it? Steve, you want to jump in?
Lillehaug: Sure. Parking setbacks. Why in staff's opinion would we deviate from the
parking setbacks? I mean why do we typically maintain parking setbacks? And then
why would we deviate from them in this case?
Generous: Why we maintain them? You want to separate them from the highway. We
reduce the amount of parking in the front of this building. Those setbacks would work
perfectly if the building backed up to this Highway 5. And that's what our previous
design actually it was the side of the building that we were looking at with the original
project. And they only needed one row of parking there and then the drive aisle to get
around the building. Now, when they came in we said put your front up on Highway 5.
When you have a retail operation you put your parking in the front because people aren't
going to park in back and walk around the building so we're recommending approval so
that this operation will work for the developer. Can we get screening on the parking lot?
Definitely. There's sufficient land in there. Parking. Use of hedges works. We don't
have to accept these small, they're definitely, definitely they're picture wants to show
their building. That's why they provide that. But they will grow.
Lillehaug: So you're saying if you were to back of the building, I mean you kind of back
the building, I mean if there would have been a different arrangement where the building
was flipped around, you're saying we wouldn't have had a parking setback problem?
Generous: Highway 5, no. They would have met, we believe they would have been able
to meet that.
Lillehaug: Even with the drive thru having to circulate?
Generous: Because the drive thru could come up. Or the driveway can come up to this
line so they could bring the driveway around here. Put one row of parking on top of that.
Next to the end of the building and face all the fronts of the unit out to here. We're
actually looking at possibly a multi-tenant building. And so they'd have the frontage
onto Galpin. But with a single user we said put your frontage on Highway 5. By doing
that that leads to the rest of the site there.
Lillehaug: Okay. Let's see, what else here. The entrances. I posed these questions to
your earlier but I want to throw them out there. The northeast entrance is pretty close to
Galpin Boulevard and there could be operational problems.
Keefe: Northwest.
Lillehaug: Northwest, sorry. If 3 cars came in there trying to turn into the parking lot at
once and they started backing up onto Galpin Boulevard, do we have any concerns with
that or are we pretty, we think this is the best situation we've got here? And also both
driveways, is it possible to line them up with the Kwik Trip driveways?
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Saam: I believe yes, you could in both of them. However, especially this northwest one.
With the layout that they've shown, if you think about it. When you come in then and
make that right turn, it would almost be a 180 degree turn to get back into that main drive
aisle. I mean could it be done? Yeah. It could. I guess that's something you have to
weigh against that turning movement and. This one to us just seemed to layout a little
better, but I do agree with your comment with the access being close to Galpin. It's kind
of a two edge sword.
Lillehaug: Are they widening this shared road inbetween Kwik Trip? Is that being
widened? Am I seeing that right? Because I comment on that, why I ask is.
Saam: The private street?
Lillehaug: Yeah, inbetween there. Is it being widened at all? And it goes with access
because I drive in there and it is a little narrower when you're coming off Galpin, if we
have that entrance right off Galpin.
Saam: They're not proposing. We could check with the applicant but I don't think
they're proposing to widen it.
Lillehaug: No? Okay. Well, let me go on here and just, someone else can go here. I
think I've got everything.
Sacchet: Okay. Well we can get back to you Steve if you have some more thoughts. Go
ahead Rich.
Slagle: I've just got a basic question for staff on this, and the question would be, given
the size that this applicant is requesting for this building, do you believe it is too large for
this lot?
Generous: No.
Slagle: Okay. My next question with that answer, is this. Is this traffic flow that we're
talking about, which I think is a result of requesting two rows of parking on the front, and
I go back to staff's recommendation that the front be towards 5. Okay. I think that, my
question is do you feel that we are going to run into some real traffic issues in that
northwest entrance/the private road to Galpin? I'll give you an example. If the drive thru
was on the east side of the building, okay? They would drive through. You would have
one lane of parking on the front. They would pick up their thing on the east side and
drive north. And then they would go out that entrance either to the east to West 78th or
they'd take a left there and come back to Galpin versus, because really what we've
resulted is we have two sides of the store that have no parking. And I don't know if
that's a result of us requesting the front be towards 5 or if the sides of the building and
their desire not to have a drive thru on the east and I'm not an expert but I just think
we're going to have a really interesting entrance/exit right at Galpin and especially with
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the Kwik Trip traffic so, that's comments but my question is, do you think we are, do you
think this is the only alternative?
Saam: No, I don't. I mean you just threw one out. Commissioner Lillehaug threw it out
moving the entrances.
Slagle: Was it discussed with the applicant any other options?
Generous: Well only initially we did recommend that they flip the building and put it in
that comer. The northeast. We thought east/northeast and they went north/northeast.
For where the drive thru window is.
Slagle: Oh okay. That's all.
Sacchet: Steve, did you find any more? I have a few questions too. And my main
concern here is not so much the parking. I think that's a given that you want the parking
close to where the entrance is. And it makes sense to have your entrance in that corner to
the southwest. However with the drive thru, I mean I see people are not going to drive
around the building. People are going to drive into the easterly entrance and to make a U
turn to go up to the drive thru from there because that's the shorter way to do it.
Slagle: Or a hard right.
Sacchet: Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like a U turn almost. Like right.
Slagle: You're from Europe, so it would be a U turn.
Sacchet: For you it'd be a hard right, alright. Thanks for the language lesson. So with
that making a hard right, if there is nobody stacked up, then that should go pretty smooth.
Trouble is if there are cars stacked up, then it becomes an issue. It gets a little messy
because if somebody's been waiting in line there for a while wrapping around the
building and somebody comes and makes the hard right, but maybe that's something the
applicant can tell us. I don't know whether this type of thing, people stack up. Maybe
they stack up very little and it's not an issue. So that's not a staff question. You'll have
to help me with that one. We're clear on EFIS. We're clear on the windows. Are we
clear with the buffer yards? I mean we said buffer yard plantings are not where they need
to be and we asked them to fulfill the minimum requirement. There's no issue there?
There's plenty of room to put all that stuff? And one thing that kind of irked me from a
procedural thing, the staff report, the body of the staff report doesn't have findings and
there are two variances here. One is the variance of the parking setback and the other one
is the variance for the sign variance. There seems to be some sort of findings later on
here and then the findings of fact part following the staff report. I just want to be clear
whether they take the place of the findings that we usually see in the staff report.
Generous: Right. These are instead of duplicating them. We copy the findings that we
have in the staff report and put them in the findings.
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Sacchet: So moving forward we'll do it this way so we don't have to look at them twice
to see whether they were edited in the meantime in one place and not in the other.
Generous: Yes, exactly. If you change them up front, we want them to be consistent.
Sacchet: Okay. And so I'm clear on that one. Detail question. Norway Maple. We
seem to make a condition that we do not want different, Norway Maple. It seems very
specific thing and I was just curious. That's not a recommended tree in Chanhassen?
Generous: That was Jill's comment.
Sacchet: Alright. Well that's all my questions. Thank you. With that, I do believe we
have an applicant here. If you want to come forward and tell us more about your project.
If you have anything to add to what staff had and maybe we have some questions.
Maybe you see some of the questions that came up already and the questions of staff, if
you want to state your name and address for the record please.
Bill Tippmann: My name is Bill Tippmann. I'm Vice President of Bear Creek Capital.
We are a development real estate development company from Cincinnati, Ohio. We are
1 of 7 developers designated by CVS to develop and construct their stores in the United
States. We've been assigned, we've been a developer for CVS in the Cincinnati, Dayton
market for about 6 years. We've been working here in the Twin Cities area for about 2
years. We currently are in various stages of development on approximately 20 sites in,
we've been assigned this side of the river. There's another developer similar to us who's
doing the other side of the river. In fact today was a big day. We closed on our first site
after 2 years of hard work in the city of Plymouth.
Sacchet: Congratulations.
Bill Tippmann: Thank you. I also have Mark Jasper with Anderson Engineering with us
who can answer any technical questions. With respect to the drive thru, I know there was
a lot of discussion and circulation around the drive thru. The city, of the 20 sites that
we're doing, I believe there are 5 or 6 inside the city of Minneapolis. The transportation,
Director of Transportation in the City of Minneapolis had the very same question. We
commissioned a study to satisfy his concerns. We'll be more than happy to share with
staff but the short story on that study was that they observed, and I believe first of all
CVS functions very much like a Walgreen's in this market. They both have the double
drive thru pick-up window that I'll describe in a second. But they observed I believe 5
Walgreen's in the Minneapolis area and 4 or 5 CVS stores in the Chicago area and in
each case they logged the number of cars waiting at a pick up window at all the observed
stores. The most they saw waiting at anyone store at anyone time was 3 cars, so with
that the City of Minneapolis is requiring that we have, that we provide stacking of at least
3 cars back of here. So that being the case, I don't know, I personally don't believe
there's going to be much of a conflict between people entering the cue for that drive thru.
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Sacchet: Well that helps because one of your drawings shows 12 of them waiting.
Bill Tippmann: Why 12, whether somebody got happy with the mouse I don't know.
Sacchet: Somebody was definitely... cars.
Bill Tippmann: So again, if anyone's interested in that study, more than willing to share.
As to the function of the drive thru. The way they operate is exactly the same
Walgreen's, so you may be familiar within this market. They have an outside drop off
window where you actually it's a pneumatic tube where you drop off the paper
prescription. You come back around when the prescription is filled at the window. Is
that me?
Sacchet: That was me, sorry.
Bill Tippmann: And the point I'm stressing here is that of the merchandise that's in the
store, the only products he can pick up at the window are pharmaceuticals. You can't
buy a gallon of milk. You can't buy Pampers. You can only get pharmaceuticals there.
Slagle: If I may, just so I'm clear. Did you just state that they would drive through the
pattern that we see here on our plans and on some cylinder like a bank, they would drop
in a prescription.
Bill Tippmann: If you were to look at the elevations of the building there's a sign over.
Slagle: Can you show us? There we go.
Bill Tippmann: There's a sign over.
Slagle: And what I'm getting at is, are you suggesting that someone goes around twice?
Bill Tippmann: They could either call in their prescription and pick it up when it's ready,
or if they have a paper prescription they could drop it off on the outside. This lane being
the outside lane.
Slagle: And that's the east elevation?
Bill Tippmann: Yeah. And make it out.. . where it says drop off or prescription drop off
or something like that. And you drop it off in a pneumatic tube.
Slagle: And that's the one that's on the lane to the north of the lane that you pick up.
Bill Tippmann: Correct.
Slagle: Okay.
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Bill Tippmann: And to pick up your pharmaceuticals.
Slagle: You dtive again around and get closer to the building. Okay.
Bill Tippmann: Any more questions I can answer.
Slagle: Boy yeah. I mean you've even, with that desctiption of potentially, and I think
more than likely a double circle around the building, I'm even wondering more what your
thoughts are as to having your dtive thru on the east side of the building.
Bill Tippmann: I heard that discussion and I guess I didn't understand what the benefit
was.
Slagle: Sure. Let me try and give you at least one person's viewpoint. Two, and
interesting we both live north of this property as the crow flies less than a mile, so we use
that Kwik Ttip quite often. Galpin into that ptivate road is quite busy. I mean it's sort of
a non-stop flow of traffic. I shouldn't say non-stop but busy.
Bill Tippmann: I think I see where you're going. The people exiting the dtive thru
would exit this way.
Slagle: Correct. Correct, and what they would do is take a left as you just used your
hand to go northward after they picked up their presctiption from the east side of the
building. They go up to the ptivate road. Take a left. And sort of avoid what I'm going
to call the intersection to the northwest, other than they would be one of the cars trying to
get out to Galpin. And now when you just mentioned that they would go around twice,
you would actually add another person coming from the back side of the store, taking a
left and depending on how quick you can fill a presctiption, they either dtive around a
number of times or they go park somewhere. Or go into your store and buy something
and pick it up. You would know those details more than I but I'm just asking, was it a
consideration to put the dtive thru on the east.
Bill Tippmann: We have, of the 20 plus or minus stores that we're doing in the
Minneapolis/St. Paul. Actually Minneapolis/St. Paul's probably closer to 40 stores. We
have some with the dtive thru on the rear. The trade off that operationally and to some
extent from a traffic flow standpoint that we run into. The way the store functions, the
pharmacy is about this size on the inside of the store. And there's a, call it a stopper on
this comer with an entrance door here. The conflict you run into by sliding this around
this side is you start running into, it can be resolved and we've done it on some of the 20
stores, where we have the dtive thru here and the service elements here and there's a bit
of a conflict. It can be worked out. But personally, I mean sttictly from a functional
standpoint with respect to these two elements, it works cleaner this way. Can it be made
to work? Probably. As we're studying maybe between now and council, quite possibly
we'd be more than happy to explore those options with staff.
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Sacchet: On the other end of that coin, is that the reason why you have this at the very
comer because I wonder in terms of the stacking the cars, whether it'd be better to move
it up a little bit.
Bill Tippmann: That's the reason. As with most retailers, CVS buys their components
en masse and they, two reasons. One, they get economies of scale in buying all the
counters. All those white counters you see inside. They all come in one package. This
works with that element. The other is that of the elements in the store and, for lack of a
better term, profitability of the store, a pharmacy is a large component of that and they
have a very sophisticated method of how this whole thing functions that frankly I don't
understand. It's for that reason they like to keep this, these two elements together. So
that's why it's on the very comer of the store.
Slagle: If I can just throw out. Per your comment earlier, which I appreciated about the
stacking and the study, and if we can assume no more than 3 or 4 cars. It would
potentially work on the east side of the building. You've shared that there's some models
that you've done, and my guess is you have a number of layouts across the country that.
Bill Tippmann: Most definitely. CVS has something like 5,000 stores so.
Slagle: Yeah, so I'm sure they could figure out some way to make this work.
Bill Tippmann: Oh it absolutely works because I know we've solved several In
Minneapolis. Or the greater Minneapolis area.
Sacchet: Any other questions? Steve?
Lillehaug: With that, would you consider pushing, getting rid of that northerly road and
pushing the store to the north so you wouldn't have a road all the way around your
building and possibly signing that as a one way? Entrance and exit. And let me also add,
do you have, have you seen any problems with traffic coming into that northeast
intersection? You know you've got cars lined up on the left of there and then cars on the
tight and they're coming tight through the middle. It's not a typical situation. Have you
seen any problems with that?
Bill Tippmann: I personally have not. I know that the store is not a, it's not a Wal-Mart
scale traffic generator. I mean it's a convenience store. One, as we were, as the panel
was talking I was watching the plan and I wondered, and perhaps Mark you could venture
an opinion on this. Whether this drive can be tipped slightly that way to allow more
stacking and less conflict here. I think the trade off that we're going to run into though,
and I suspect it's the reason Mark drew it the way he did, is he's trying to create some
distance between these two. And you get to a point, and I know when these start getting
closer and closer together, if not exactly aligned, you run into conflict. I know I heard
traffic engineers say that in the past. It's possible that by skewing it slightly this way, we
could pick up. Right now it appears that there's probably spaces for 3 cars to stack to
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make this left before there's a conflict for somebody pulling in. Maybe we could pick up
another car that way.
Slagle: Would you, in could go on, would you be open to in essence a one way?
Sacchet: On the east entrance?
Slagle: Coming from the northwest it'd be one way going south and then to the east and
then to the north and out.
Bill Tippmann: Operationally I could see CVS resisting that.
Sacchet: How about one way on the eastern entrance? Not necessatily on both.
Bill Tippmann: One way on this one? I don't know that that would, I don't know what
that would accomplish. If nothing else to accommodate trucks I would think you'd want
to bting trucks.
Sacchet: Yeah, with the garbage truck it would be an issue. I was thinking in terms of
the drive thru, if it would be shifted around. That it'd just be a clear exit.
Bill Tippmann: Most patrons of the dtive thru are repeat customers, I know that.
Sacchet: So they know.
Bill Tippmann: Yeah, they'd begin to understand how it functions.
Sacchet: Steve, still your turn.
Lillehaug: What do you think about adding a few more trees on the west side. Increasing
the screening from Galpin, and also staff's comments earlier about building that berm on
the south side up to maybe reflect some of those existing contours that you're showing.
Bill Tippmann: That would, I believe, in fact I had not even noticed before in sitting in
the audience, I believe that you are correct. The topo shown on our otiginal plan was one
we received from the developer. It probably reflected a stock pile that sat there at one
time that's not there anymore. Yeah, we're perfectly willing to do what screening and
mounding we're required to do on this site. I guess our concern, as with any retailer, is
we have an attractive building. We have signage on the building. We just want to make
sure that that doesn't get screened.
Lillehaug: So if you go back to a 10 foot high berm that's kind of shown there, it'd cover
up that existing pylon sign out there, are you okay with that?
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Bill Tippmann: 10 foot would pretty well screen the building too. I mean setiously, at
eye level in a car, you're what? 3 or 4 feet high. You're not going to see the building.
But again, screening the parking along this area and along this area is not a problem.
Lillehaug: One other question. Roof equipment. Is there any roof equipment on this
building?
Bill Tippmann: It is but we have a high parapet wall on the front and on the two sides. I
want to say it's 4 foot tall.
Lillehaug: So you would say, if I'm standing on the property line all the way around
your property, that it'd fully be screened? Would you concur with that?
Bill Tippmann: Yeah. I know in our prototypical drawings, if I remember correctly, this
side is down. The roof slopes this way. But I know on these two sides it's at least 4 foot
tall so it would hide any roof.
Lillehaug: That's all I have, thanks.
Keefe: Just have a couple of questions. One, what are that typical operating hours for
something like this? Do you know?
Bill Tippmann: Of the stores that CVS will locate in the Twin Cities area, they will, and
I'm going to make up a number but it's close. It's probably 15 or 20 percent of the stores
will be 24 hour stores. The reason being they need, they strategically locate those stores,
and Walgreen's frankly does the same thing. They locate them in some proximity to the
population if you need a presctiption filled at 3:00 in the morning, you don't have to
dtive to St. Paul to get it filled. There is something reasonably close. Whether this store
becomes one of those 15 or 20 percent, given the fact that we're on the edge of the
market area, my believe is it's probably not going to be. So the typical operations hours
are 11 :00 to midnight, something like that.
Keefe: Just a question, in regards to the entrances is on the southwest comer of this
particular building. From a retail perspective, and from a building perspective, does it
matter whether you're facing the street or the highway or would you rather, and from a
retail perspective, enter, have the entrance where the entrance is. Or does it matter?
Bill Tippmann: CVS, as most retailers, always want the entrance at the most visible
location. In this case the comer.
Keefe: That's all I have.
Sacchet: I'm still struggling with this location of the dtive thru, if you don't mind. I
mean you're basically allocating two lanes of traffic on the north side of the building to
having that dri ve thru in the, on the north side. On the northeast comer. So there must be
significant benefit by doing that if you put that much allocation of space for that. When
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you could just have it on the east side, northeast comer and basically wouldn't need that
wide of road to the north. So I'm trying to understand why, what's, I mean, and I don't
know whether that's something that can easily be answered.
Bill Tippmann: I can't stand here and answer it because I'm not the final decision maker
on a lot of these things. I mean this is a sophisticated operation, one of these stores.
Sacchet: Because it appears to me if you're allocating that much space, that's going to be
the whole length of the building. Two lanes of width, to have it up there, must be very
significant.
Bill Tippmann: It is absolutely a dtive, not just a dtive thru but the double dtive thru.
Sacchet: And to have it on the eastern comer rather than a little further west, I'm kind of
perplexed. I mean common sense wise I would either shift it over to a little bit more west
so you use that space a little more. It seems like you're wasting this whole space.
Bill Tippmann: It's purely a function of how the pharmacy lays out inside the store itself.
That's what drives this location on the comer, and frankly that's why, I'm sure that's
what dtives the location on this particular site. Even though there is additional cost and
expense in constructing this dtive as opposed to doing it here, this is the business model
that they've created that they know works.
Slagle: Mr. Chair, if I may. The pharmacy is, safe to say, intentionally the further thing
from the door.
Bill Tippmann: Correct.
Slagle: Okay.
Sacchet: Because you have to go through the store and you see all the stuff you didn't
plan to get and you get it. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense from that angle. Okay. Let's
see. I don't think I have any other questions.
Slagle: Thank you very much.
Bill Tippmann: Thank you.
Sacchet: Now this is a public heating, and even though we don't have a crowd sitting
here, I still open the public heating and if anybody wants to stand up and talk, this is the
chance. And since there is nobody here, nobody can stand up to talk so I close the public
hearing. And bting it back to commissioners.
Lillehaug: Can I ask the staff one more question regarding the.
Sacchet: Absolutely.
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Lillehaug: Regarding the pylon and the monument sign. Is that allowable? I mean we
already have the pylon sign there so we allow him a monument sign also?
Generous: They get a monument sign. The pylon was supposed to be shared for the
Galpin Business Center, so.
Sacchet: Did you want to add something to that?
Bill Tippmann: Yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot to address...
Lillehaug: And I'm not opposed to it either. I'm just asking.
Bill Tippmann: I wanted to give Bob's clatification. The staff report said that we are too
close with this pylon.
Sacchet: With the monument.
Bill Tippmann: What is the required setback?
Generous: It's half the required setback so.
Bill Tippmann: So it's halfway to this? So it's somewhere back here?
Generous: Yeah, and I thought... to meet the setback.
Sacchet: So you're okay with that?
Bill Tippmann: Yes.
Sacchet: Okay, thank you. Glad you clarified that. Altight, questions, comments,
discussion.
Slagle: I can start. I think it would be a wonderful addition. I can share with the group
that I cannot support it as it's currently stated. And I'm referring to the site plan. If the
applicant would be willing to produce the dtive thru on the east side, possibly move the
building a little further north. And either minimize or delete that lane to the north, I
would be open to that. But I really believe that if we do not, if we don't encourage cars
to exit out the northeast comer of this parcel, we're going to have a mess on that
northwest comer. So, everything else I'm okay with, including the pylon sign.
Sacchet: The high one. Altight. There's a comment. Want to go this way?
Lillehaug: Can I ask a point of clarification on the pylon sign? Are we talking a different
pylon sign other than what's out there?
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Slagle: I'm okay with, staff is recommending denial but I'm suggesting I'm okay with
that.
Sacchet: So they would change the one that exists and make it higher?
Lillehaug: And what would happen with Kwik Ttip's then?
Sacchet: Kwik Trip has a 50 foot one.
Slagle: Correct. I'm suggesting that Kwik Ttip.
Sacchet: You're not suggesting two of them?
Slagle: Yes I am.
Sacchet: You are suggesting two?
Slagle: That's my.
Sacchet: He likes signs. Nothing we can do about that.
Slagle: Well I think we're asking the applicant to do some things, if my thoughts are
shared, in exchange for that maybe.
Sacchet: Altight, Steve...
Lillehaug: Now I'll make my comments. Altight. I'm pretty close with Commissioner
Slagle here, but this is a PUD. Higher standards than a typical development. So with that
said, I would like to see more screening on the south and on the west, ensuting that we
get an adequate berm there to screen the parking. Not 10 foot tall to screen a building but
at least the parking. Entrance, the northwest entrance. We need to push that, or I think
we should require pushing that back as far away from Galpin as possible. Yes, it's not
ideal to have those intersections with Kwik Ttip and that close or not perfectly lined up
but I'd rather have a problem there than out on Galpin. Get them off the regional road.
Have a more of a problem on the internal. I think that'd be safer than out on the regional
road. We didn't talk about this but if I'm coming from the north where I live, going to
Kwik Ttip or not, maybe we should also have a walk. There's a connector walk going
out to the sidewalk on the southwest comer. I'm thinking maybe one, or maybe I'm
going overboard here but on the northwest comer across and connect a walk there too.
Otherwise they're going to be walking through the parking lot. So if that's something
that could easily be added, I think you know it would add a little bit to it. Staff indicated
on page 8 that they're going to be communicating with Carver County about a, and this is
independent of this development but about a no U turn. I'm not fully bought off on that
and I don't think I would support that because vehicles are going to leave inbetween
Kwik Ttip and CVS, sorry, by mistake or whatever. And if they can't make a U turn
there, they're going to go further up and they're going to do something up in residential
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neighborhoods or something. They're going to be coming through my neighborhood and
I don't want that. No.
Slagle: But point of clatification. Why wouldn't you think they would take a left on
West 78th?
Lillehaug: Why wouldn't they? Because they want to, people do it now. They do it all
the time and that's probably why you have it in there. You're getting complaints about it.
People go up there and make a U turn. You've probably seen it.
Slagle: No, what I'm suggesting is, when they go north, like you're taking your...and it
says no U turn, if they're going to go east. They take a tight on West 78th. And as habits
will form...
Lillehaug: Ahight, I support you. Good deal. It's an enforcement issue.
Keefe: We need some internal signage on that ptivate road that are saying exit to the east
and then you could take a left on West 78th and then you could get out to 5 that way.
That might be helpful as well.
Saam: Yeah, that's something else we talked about. Help to just get these mototists to
quit taking that U turn because we're getting tons of complaints and frankly it can be
dangerous. People coming from the north going south on Galpin going 40 or whatever
they are going, and somebody's going to whip a U'y tight there.
Lillehaug: Okay, scratch that then. One other issue I do want to raise, and this isn't on
the CVS site but on Kwik Ttip site. Right on the east of that car wash, people are going
up that and then they get up there, they're not taking a tight. But they're taking a left and
they can't cross the median and they're dtiving out towards Galpin on the wrong side of
the road and I think I've seen it at least twice, maybe 3 times so there probably should be
a do not enter sign on that Kwik Ttip site. Sorry, about deviating from your application
here but. I bting that to your attention, thank you. And I support what Commissioner
Slagle is saying on, I'm not bought off on this site routing of the traffic in there and I
think a better scenatio would be as you indicated. I would support something different
but not this.
Sacchet: Dan.
Keefe: The applicant said that this operates a little bit like a Walgreen's and so I started
thinking about where I've seen a Walgreen's and I've actually been in one on 5 and Eden
Praitie Road. There happens to be one that sits up you know in approximately a similar
location as this one does here and the way that you dtive into that one is you take a tight
up north on Eden Praitie Road. Then you take a tight into a street and they actually route
you to what appears to be the northeast entrance. Then you come back in and their
entrance was actually on the northwest comer, not facing 5 but it's actually on the
northwest comer. Now I'm not aware whether they have a dtive thru and pick up
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pharmacy or not, but there are some similarities there. I see if the traffic to this site is
similar to what it is there, there's going to be a lot of traffic problems in this northwest
comer. And I think we should look at understanding that better, just in terms of, it's just
going to be so congested that we would have real difficulties. I would think that you
know either pushing it down and just making one entrance. I understand the need for the
dtive thru. I think Rich has a good idea about potentially moving it to the east side. I
understand the reason why I asked the applicant whether they would move the entrance to
the northwest. I don't know that that Walgreen's necessarily works the best either so, but
just from my own sort of dtive through on that property, it does seem to work altight.
And the congestion, although there is some congestion there as well, seems to work okay
but I just think that everybody's going to be coming in and off this thing from the south.
You're going to make that turn. People are going to be trying to get out from the dtive
thru, plus you've got traffic going out from the entrance going back up that corner.
You've got people coming out of Kwik Ttip and that comer's going to be a disaster I
think so I think we really need to take a harder look at it.
Sacchet: Bethany.
Tjomhom: I think it's fine. I think it's a good building. I think it's something that will
be an asset to the community as far as having a pharmacy with a dtive thru, but I have to
concur with the rest of my commissioners that some more study has to be done with the
flow of traffic and that comer.
Sacchet: Well, well, well, well. Here we are. So it looks like we want to see more on
this traffic, and it's hard to disagree from this from my vantage point. With all due
respect, and obviously it's been thought through from your angle quite a bit. On the other
hand you're putting this in many places. I mean the whole idea is that this is a cookie
cutter type of thing that applies. Let's approve a concept and then a lot of your thinking,
the design is based on what's proven in other places. I do have to agree that somehow
the site is a little different from a cookie cutter and what I hear is that we're leaning to
table this and ask you have a close look at it. I mean I'm not a traffic specialist. It's hard
for me to judge this and then make an objective statement about it. But I do share a
concern that it's, the flow of it. It seems like all the traffic's going to come in on that
northwesterly entrance, which is going to potentially create a congestion. I don't know
how big a congestion. I can't judge that but maybe it could be mitigated by having the
dtive thru on the back side, as it is a possibility as you affirmed. What's the time line?
Question from staff. What's the time line for this?
Generous: We're still within the 60 days.
Sacchet: Within the 60 days so if we would table this and ask the applicant to look at this
a little further. Work with staff to see that, would you want to address this btiefly?
Bill Tippmann: Given the fact that the time line that we're on, first of all we would like
nothing more than to break ground on this property in the next 30 days if at all possible.
If it's possible. Given the fact that we are approximately 4 weeks away from the council
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meeting, if we were to get a recommendation this evening, if it would be possible to get a
recommendation that we work with staff on these issues between now and council, and in
the event that we can satisfy staff, that the best solution has been found, that we then have
the opportunity to go to council.
Sacchet: Well the impression I get from the comments that I hear is that there is enough
concern that we would like to see it again. Now, how quickly is that possible, in terms of
time line?
Generous: Theoretically you could get it back on for July 6th, which was going to be a
work session.
Sacchet: We have a work session that we could possibly put it in there. And then it
could go to council when?
Generous: The 12th is we did.
Sacchet: The Ith.
Generous: That's the same time.
Sacchet: Which would be the same time it would have gone otherwise? So that way we
wouldn't additionally slow you down. That's what I'm trying to establish here. Because,
and I don't know whether I'm mis-reading the comments. It seems like comments were
pretty clear and I do share the concerns to some extent. Personally I probably could be
talked into what you're suggesting but I don't think what I hear that.
Bill Tippmann: I mean that would give us approximately 3 weeks to develop whatever
we all conclude is the best.
Sacchet: I mean it's a combination. Where I'm coming from is, I think what we're
asking you is just do another step in looking at this in the context of this site. It looks like
your main focus, which I understands, makes a lot of sense. I mean you have your
formula and it fits. The space is there so you plop it in. And what I hear we're asking
you is just go and look at it a little more from the context rather than from the operation.
Rather than look at the design from the inside out, look at it from the outside a little more,
and I'm sure you did that to some extent but we're asking you to do that a little further. I
don't know whether I'm doing justice to the comments.
Bill Tippmann: I think that's a very good solution. Appreciate the solution.
Slagle: And I would draw out the fact that you have some models as has been based
upon what we've just discussed would make this next 3 weeks easier. I would also ask, if
possible with staff, just go out to the site if you haven't already together, and just view
the traffic coming from Kwik Ttip on any given call it morning or evening, and you'll
quickly see I think that northwest corridor would be quite busy.
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Sacchet: What I hear is, I don't think we're asking for much of a redesign. I mean it
could possibly be a little bit of shifted north or something but we're not asking to rotate
or shift anything major. What we're asking is looking at this traffic thing in terms of the
two entrances. In terms of the location of the dtive thru because I mean the situation on
your back side where you guys have two stacking lanes and then one lane goes opposite
and then the other lane goes, I mean it's a little bit irky. And I don't know, maybe this is
the best solution. Maybe that's proven to work but it looks like that's something that
hasn't really been studied very much.
Bill Tippmann: I think we can all come out with a better project if we take our time.
Sacchet: Okay. So thank you for clarifying that. Appreciate that. I think with that we're
ready to make a motion.
Lillehaug: I'll make a motion to table this request.
Sacchet: We have a motion. Is there a second?
Slagle: Second.
Lillehaug moved, Slagle seconded that the Planning Commission table Site Plan
#04-21 for Bear Creek Capital LLC, and Chanhassen Development, LLC, CVS
Pharmacy. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5
to O.
Slagle: Staff is clear of what we're looking at?
Sacchet; Did we make it clear enough? Okay. Of what we're asking, okay. That's all.
Well thank you so much for, it's a great project and we definitely want to welcome you to
this town.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Slagle noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the
Planning Commission meeting dated June 1,2004 as presented.
Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 9:30 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
57