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PC Minutes 5-2-06Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 PUBLIC HEARING: ARBORETUM BUSINESS CENTER: REQUEST FOR SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 25,300 SQUARE FOOT OFFICE-SHOWROOM-WAREHOUSE BUILDING ON 2.69 ACRES OF LAND ZONED PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT LOCATED ON LOT 1, TH BLOCK 1, ARBORETUM BUSINESS PARK 5 ADDITION, 2970 WATER TOWER PLACE, APPLICANT STEINER DEVELOPMENT, PLANNING CASE 06-16. Public Present: Name Address Joe Smith 3610 County Road 101 South, Wayzata Jeff Conkling 3610 County Road 101 South, Wayzata Todd Mohagen Mohagen Hansen Architectural Group Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. McDonald: Commissioners, I’ll bring it back. Kurt, want to start? Papke: Just one or two here. You mentioned, staff is proposing that parapets above the entrances be raised to help define the entrances. Could you sketch on there what you’re proposing? I’m not quite sure I understand what that is. Generous: We were looking originally at raising this whole area up, but they’ve come back with another, this alternative that they projected it out and then they revised the color so all we wanted was to enhance those entrances on the building and so they really stand out and we think their architect came back with a good plan. Additionally, above each of these doorways there are canopies so you’ll really be able to notice it. This could be a multi-tenant building. It could be a condo. It could be one user that takes it all. But right now this provides the most flexibility. They can create each, two units at each door. Papke: So that proposal for a parapet is a moot point? That’s been removed to construct, okay. The only other question I had about signage. When we see a sign over the window per unit like this, sometimes the developer comes back and says, we need another sign somewhere else because we don’t have enough visibility. You know we just saw that down here by the theater and with the bank and so on. Any discussions or issues with the signage here? Generous: Not that I’m aware of. The applicant hasn’t specified anything. He’s pretty confident, the west elevation is the primary visibility. Papke: From 41? Generous: They are permitted to have two monument signs on the property. One on 41 and one on the Water Tower Place. Again, right now… Papke: They’re not going to ask for a sign on the water tower or anything? 28 Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 Dillon: I don’t have any questions. Keefe: Just two quick questions. One, just following on the signage. Is it proposed to be consistent signage package all the way across or do they vary from day to day, from. Do you know what I mean? Do we take control of that? I mean I think it looks nicer if they’re kind of consistent and so. Generous: It’s more a management. We have our standard ordinance they have individual dimensional letters on there but you know, that can be varied by tenant. It’s usually the management company that has the most control… Keefe: Alright. Where does the sidewalk go? I mean it comes down to the street and then? Generous: Yes, and then on the south side of Water Tower Place there is a sidewalk that goes to Century Boulevard and that connects into our trail. Keefe: Alright, so that whole sidewalk is on the south side. Generous: Yes, it will go down to Century right now. Keefe: Okay, that’s it. McDonald: Debbie. Larson: Only one. Looking at page 6 where it talks about parking. For the park, it requires 76 and they’ve got 119. Is that normal? Okay? What? Generous: They’re over parking the site but their assumption was. Larson: Is that better I guess? Generous: Well as long as they convert it all to office space, there’s more requirement for parking for office in there. Right now they have certain assumptions that they’ve built in to come up with that 70. We did come up with 76. I think they’re hoping some of their people they talked to, that it may be more office. And if it is, they have to be able to meet those standards. Larson: Gotch ya. Generous: And what they don’t, they can lease them or sell it. Larson: Okay, that’s all I had. McDonald: Mark. I have no questions for staff at this time either so, is the applicant here? 29 Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 Joe Smith: Hi, good evening. I’m Joe Smith. I’m with Steiner Development. We’re the developer of the property. Just to address the couple questions that I heard. Signage. We built several other buildings in the park and our signage has been consistent. It has been the block letters. We don’t want different colored letters. Different fonts. Those type of things. We just think it looks a lot better. It’s more consistent signage so that’s our plan. Occasionally we’ll fight with tenants on that but typically we’ll adhere to those standards that we’ve got in our other buildings. To the parking issue, it’s flexibility. We’ve over parked it just for the fact that we don’t know who’s going to come in the door. It may be an all office user so we want to make sure that we’ve got the adequate parking so we don’t have parking issues. Anybody have any, I guess one other question. I saw in the notes about roof top screening, as far as screening roof top, HVAC units. I know that in the past we have not had to do that. We’ve either painted the cabinets or we’ve ordered the cabinets with kind of a camouflaged, so they blend in. And the screening gets to be a maintenance issue. It’s very expensive to do on the front end. We would prefer to either use low profile roof top units or go with a painted cabinet so they blend into the roof of the building so we don’t have to go through the maintenance and the additional expense of using screening materials. This is Todd Mohagen. He’s our architect. Todd Mohagen: If I might interject a little bit. Todd Mohagen, 1415 East Wayzata Boulevard. What we’re finding as a trend, the roof screening is becoming more and more unpopular just because of the maintenance that’s involved with roof screening. They do tend to get damaged by the wind. At times they do damage the roof. What you will find in a lot of city ordinances now, that they are accepting painted roof top screening on the equipment itself. For me personally I think it’s a cleaner look than having the screening that’s around there. Typically kind of that charcoal gray is a nice color. It blends in nicely with the roof, especially when you have the road that’s higher than the site itself right now. And then also from the ground, when you see the charcoal, it disappears. It tends to just go away. You’d think blue would be the color but it really is the charcoal color that works the best, so we’d like you to consider that. Joe Smith: Any other questions? McDonald: Any other questions from the commissioners? Mr. Papke? Dillon: Who are the perspective tenants? I mean what type of customer would you have? Joe Smith: Office warehouse users. Smaller office users. We are actually talking to a couple of all office users for the entire building. Just a, they could be manufacturer’s rep type companies. They could be small assembly type companies. It could be an all office type of a use. Dillon: That’s the only question I have. Keefe: Just getting back to your mechanical that goes on the roof, or at grade. So are you, in talking about grade, both on the roof and on grade or just on the roof or? Joe Smith: Our rooftop, our air conditioning and heat units are located on the roof. Keefe: You wouldn’t have any mechanical units on grade level or? 30 Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 Joe Smith: No, typically not. Keefe: …on roof top. And then do have parapets on this building or not. I mean are there any? Joe Smith: Yeah, it’s 9 inches probably. Keefe: Alright. And so, it won’t, I guess one of the concerns is, you know as you’re kind of walking up to it, I think one thing because you’re up so high, you know 41 is up so high, looking down. I don’t know, typically how would you screen it anyway? Would it be fully boxed or? Todd Mohagen’s comments from the audience were not picked up on tape. Keefe: Right, yeah. Okay. Papke: How much higher is 41 than the grade here? Generous: Well it varies. It’s about 20 feet. Papke: So you’re practically at the roof top there. Joe Smith: But it won’t be 20 feet above the top of the building. Generous: Right, no. From grade. Papke: From grade. Joe Smith: It’s 20 feet above grade. Keefe: Right. I guess I could see you know screening from sort of grade as you come in to have it being set back far enough where you wouldn’t really get a view of them. I mean I don’t know. Joe Smith: From the grade you won’t see the units at all. From the road you will. But they will never be fully boxed because there’s ventilation that has to happen, so they’d never screen the very top. It’s just around the sides. Papke: What’s that on the All About Lights building? What do we have there? Generous: I think they have a higher parapet. Keefe: So the point is, you can’t see it from grade. So I mean I think we get. Joe Smith: The other 3 buildings that we built there and then the Vanger building, those units are not screened. McDonald: Okay. 31 Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 Keefe: But you’re open to that, painting? Joe Smith: Generous: Mr. Chairman, if I may. The design standards do specify either screening or camouflaged… McDonald: Okay. Undestad: I think even metal flashing around there, you can get your units in that beige color too can’t you? The low profile on each rooftop units and put them back far enough so that nobody sees them anymore. Todd Mohagen: Yeah, I mean I just found if you use the charcoal gray it really disappears. Especially if we have a roadway that’s up higher. Typically the rock that’s used on the roof is kind of a grayish tone so it works great. Keefe: Okay. McDonald: I think all of my questions were answered so I have no questions for you. Joe Smith: Thank you. McDonald: At this point I will open up the public meeting portion of this and anyone wishing to make comment, please come forward to the podium. State your name and address and address your comments to the commissioners. Seeing no one come forward, we’ll close the public meeting and I will bring this case back before the commissioners for discussion, review and a vote. Who would like to start? Kurt? Kevin? Dan no? Debbie? Larson: It looks fine to me. McDonald: No? And I have no comments either, so I think we’re ready. At this point I would accept a motion. Larson: Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the site plan adopted by Chanhassen, oh that’s all. Is that it? No? I’m reading the wrong thing. McDonald: Page 8. Larson: Page 8? What am I? McDonald: Well you must be on findings of facts. Larson: Okay, what am I reading? Oh thank you. The Planning Commission recommends approval of Planning Case Site Plan #06-16 for a 25,300 square foot, one story office showroom, 32 Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 warehouse building. Plans prepared by Mohagen Hansen Architectural Group dated March 30, 2006, subject to the following conditions 1 through 18. McDonald: Do I have a second? Undestad: Second. Keefe: In regards to the mechanical equipment it says city ordinance requires it. Bob, kind of looking at you on this. Can we put in a statement around that and the condition and say oh something along the lines, we agree that camouflaging it with paint. That’s what I’m wondering, do we add that or do we? Papke: The report says… Keefe: It’s just in the report? Okay. That’s what I was wondering. Generous: …the design standards was that yes, that’s appropriate. You can add a condition that it be charcoal gray and they use low profile…be specific. Keefe: Right, okay. McDonald: We don’t have to do anything. Keefe: Yeah. Larson moved, Undestad seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Planning Case #06-16 Site Plan for a 25,300 square-foot, one-story office-showroom- warehouse building, plans prepared by Mohagen Hansen Architectural Group, dated March 30, 2006, subject to the following conditions: 1.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the necessary security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping. 2.A separate sign permit will be necessary for each sign. 3.The building is required to have an automatic fire extinguishing system. 4.The plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. 5.Air-test required on that portion of storm sewer within ten feet of building or water service. Permits and inspections required through Chanhassen Building Inspections Division. 6.Detailed occupancy related requirements will be addressed when complete plans are submitted. 33 Planning Commission Meeting – May 2, 2006 7.The owner and or their representative shall meet with the Inspections Division as soon as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. 8.The applicant shall obtain permission from the property owner to the north prior to silt fence installation. If permission is not obtained, the plans shall be revised to accommodate all sediment control measures on-site. 9.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as-needed. 10.The owner/operator of the proposed development shall apply for and receive an NPDES Phase II Construction permit prior to beginning construction activities. 11.The applicant shall apply for and obtain a permit from the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District and comply with their conditions of approval. 12.The Black Hills spruce near the building shall be moved east to serve as screening for the truck area. A narrower species of evergreen shall be considered for planting in this area. 13.A revised landscape plan shall be submitted before building permit approval. 14.All lighting fixtures must be shielded with a total cutoff angle equal to or less than 90 degrees. 15.A professional civil engineer registered in the State of Minnesota must sign all plans. 16.The applicant will be required to submit storm sewer sizing design data for a 10-year, 24- hour storm event with a full size drainage area map prior to building permit issuance. 17.The applicant must verify with the City Building Department if the site connecting to the existing 8-inch watermain on the east side is adequately sized to handle the two lots’ consumption. 18.As the eastern access will service the two lots, cross-access easements will need to be obtained and recorded against the lots. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. McDonald: Okay, this motion passes 6-0. So the motion is carried and will go forward with the recommendation to City Council. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Commissioner Papke noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated April 18, 2006 as presented. Chairman McDonald adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 8:50 p.m. 34