MEMBERS PRESENT: Mark Undestad, John Tietz, Maryam Yusuf, Nancy Madsen, Steve Weick, and Mark Randall

Transcription

1 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 1, 2016 Vice Chairman Weick called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Mark Undestad, John Tietz, Maryam Yusuf, Nancy Madsen, Steve Weick, and Mark Randall MEMBERS ABSENT: Andrew Aller STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; MacKenzie Walters, Planner; and Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT: Daniel Fuchs 1862 Colonial Lane, #5 Corey & Lori Hothan 1941 Commonwealth Boulevard, #5 Jeff Franz 8950 Sunset Drive Jon Gilbert 1641 Jeurissen Lane Zhexin Zhang 1455 Bethesda Circle Nicholas Perlman 1812 Commonwealth Boulevard PUBLIC HEARING: AVIENDA-CONCEPT PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT FOR A REGIONAL DESTINATION, LIFESTYLE AND MIXED USE CENTER ON FIVE PARCELS LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF LYMAN AND POWERS BOULEVARDS. THE CONCEPT PLAN INCLUDES RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL, HOTEL AND OFFICE USES. Aanenson: Thank you Chair, members of the Planning Commission. This is a concept PUD so for that reason it s a little different than, as far as we ll be gathering input. You ll be sending a motion up to the council but it s really what you re giving is some considerations and issues that you want them to look at when they review it and I ll go through a little bit more detail in how the concept works but as you stated this item will go to the City Council on November 28 th. This item did appear before the Planning Commission and the City Council last year and the reason, at that time it only had 70 acres in it. Now we ve got 120 acres. All the parcels shown in red are included in this application. There s actually 5 parcels so a little bit different than what you saw last time and I think that was one of the issues of concern that everybody looked at is there s kind of a missing hole and how would those 2 projects be integrated if they went forward. So Level 7 Development, LLC is still the developer. Some of the parties in the LLC have changed hands but that s the applicant. So the request for the PUD right now is we re considering the concept PUD so again this is a fact finding. The purpose of the PUD is to flush out, be

2 transparent what issues that the City may have. Some concerns or the direction the developer wants to go and before they go and spend additional dollars that we kind of have alignment of goals so part of this will also require an AUAR which is, I m looking for the transportation. All the environmental features update so the biggest component of that will be the environmental so it s Alternative Urban Areawide Review but really what it does is economic impact and looking at the environmental traffic sort of things so when we get that back then we ll come back for another public hearing before the Planning Commission for the development stage with the preliminary plat and with the development stage there ll be a lot more details and the hard engineering. Quantities of grading. Some of those things are not identified now. Right now it s a concept. We re looking at framework issues so with that with the preliminary plat when it goes to City Council there would be a final stage or final plat. Then in addition to that any development that would go onto any of those parcels would come back to the Planning Commission for a public hearing on the specific designs so any of those uses that were to come in, for example if there was a senior housing project or apartment project or a restaurant that would come in, that would still come back through this group for a public hearing for the approval of that. That it meets the PUD standards. That s what we d be putting together here is the PUD standard. It d be that ordinance and then we ll review each of those projects up against that ordinance. So whatever standards we put in there, whether it s parking, landscaping, lighting, architectural design, those will all be measured against that so there ll be a lot of review over the next years if this project was to proceed. So what s required with a PUD? Again it s approximate building locations. Pedestrian roadways. Height and bulk of buildings and we ll go through a little bit more detail in there but I know this is hard to read but this is really anybody that wants to find more information on this can look at the staff report that s available on the City s website. That we have all the properties within the PUD. That was one of the concerns we had before so everybody in that area is part of this PUD and that the concept is to just gather information. Again the public hearing is making recommendations to the City Council so this is an opportunity to get input from the neighborhood too to see what their concerns are and issues that they may have so again concept, very early stages. Again I want to address how we got to this point. When we updated the Comprehensive Plan in 2008 there was a question asked whether or not a lifestyle center was something that was of interest to the community and we asked it in a survey question and there was overwhelming support to look at this area for the potential of a lifestyle center. As a matter of fact the property was given dual guiding and so the property shown here on the map, in this area here is the subject site. So that area was given dual guiding. It was actually given regional commercial or an office park so if looking at this the City Council could look at how that would lay out and then in addition currently zoned agricultural so when you develop a piece of property it has to be consistent with the land use so this is guided regional commercial, which is the application they re going for and within that they have to meet all the standards that are in the regional commercial zoning district and so this is what we put together. When we re-guided the property for that we put together in the Comprehensive Plan what we felt should be the vision for that and that it s a mixed use commercial district with retail, entertainment uses of scale and function that serves a regional market and the applicant will be showing you what they believe is their market. Where they re drawing from. The physical environment emphasizes attractive, comfortable walking experience for the shoppers and visitors 2

3 and to serve trails and mass transit as well as automobile traffic. So what we stated too is that we believe that this center would have 2 types of major retail anchors and we ll share a little bit more on, they did do a market study. Mr. McCombs, Jim McCombs did and that was completed in 2014 and that was the genesis for a lot of the uses that they were looking at and what they felt could be in there so if you look at entertainment, that could be anywhere from movie theaters. Other activities like that. Department stores. Comparison shopping. Restaurants. Specialty retail. Hotels and residential. So that s what we saw as the mix of uses that would go in there. And also we put in the zoning ordinance, so in the Comprehensive Plan we identified what we saw as the vision for this area so what you re doing now with the neighborhood is refining that vision. Giving us more direction of what that would be through that intent and then with the PUD we put in also how that project would go forward. So this is the proposal that the applicant has brought forward as their concept so again this is different than the first iteration which was the 70 acres so this is now the entire 120 acres. There is one parcel over here that is part of the project but has no density allocated to it yet. As you re aware one of the things that is required under the AUAR is completion of Bluff Creek Boulevard which is this segment right here. That was a requirement when we did the original environmental documents that said that has to be connected to that off ramp coming onto 212 so that s a requirement. I ll let them go through a little bit more detail of the uses. Of the layout itself but suffice to say that we did put in the, in our staff report some recommendations. Kind of beginning dialogue of some of the uses. They ve identified some on here. Again they re for illustrative purposes. Some of the uses that they see on there certainly up in this area would be more of the office space. Restaurants. Retail. Retail in the center and then some transitional housing which we ve always said that we wanted which would be the transition between the single family lots and then into the commercial and then some senior type housing. Apartments and the like. I received a number of letters from the people in the Pioneer Pass regarding the connection on this street. The fire department that is a priority for the City, that connection. It s a safety issue and I know the residents don t want it. Are concerned about the connection and as they are this connection here. We ve been working with the applicant and that s one of the things we ll look at when we do the AUAR to look at traffic calming techniques. They re also bringing on a team that that s their specialty is looking at those sort of situations. Whether it s an additional roundabout or some of those things through design to traffic calming. I would say this situation also came up when we had the off ramp on 212. The people up in Lake Susan were very concerned that people were going to cut through. We didn t have that as an outcome of that so we believe that we can work to make that happen but we feel strongly as did the public safety that that connection needs to be made. So to get an idea of what square footage, the retail study talked about how much square footage could be in the area itself and not to jump around but I m going to here quickly just jump up. This is what the McCombs study stated. How much could be in there for leasable space so that s a pretty high, 825,000 square feet would be the low up to over a million square feet. This proposal is less than that. I ve got it broken down into square footage but it s probably closer to 50 acres of retail so the square footage is significantly less, probably closer to 400,000 so if you were to compare that to what the McCombs study said in the low end, it s still below that threshold so not maximizing what they believe the market can be on that site. Again a lot of this is going to be determined when we get the traffic study back to make sure that that site can 3

4 accommodate that, the peak hours and the turning movements and those sort of things so we ll have more information on that as we move through the process. So again we took what they had as far as development data and tried to put it in in a way that was probably a little bit more for us to understand when they were using beds and totals. Beds in apartments are different than number of dwelling units. How we would calculate them so you can see that. Again hotels is one of the things that we had recommended go into the mixed use and the developer also wants, I know that was a concern for some of the comments we ve already received. The last thing I want to talk about is water resources. The wetlands in the area. There is a process that needs to be done to go through this project to talk about how the wetlands will be impacted. How they ll be replaced and that process we re working on right now to make sure that that aligns with going through all the other environmental documents because it s integral to how this project gets laid out and works. At this time I ll see if the Assistant City Engineer has any comments she d like to make before I make some closing comments. Fauske: Thank you Kate. Kate really covered a lot of the issues that engineering will be looking through first and foremost just going back to the site plan here. This connection of Bluff Creek Boulevard from the existing terminus to Powers Boulevard. We ve been having discussions with the applicant as far as the design requirements for that route as well as internal site circulation that the AUAR will take a look at in developing the counts and again just to reiterate the, some of the important connections that take place, not only Bluff Creek Boulevard to Powers Boulevard but providing a connection to the Preserve development here to the west. We currently have 145 single family homes that have one access point to Bluff Creek Boulevard so from a public safety standpoint, as Kate mentioned, we want to see that street connection to occur up here at Mills and then we re also looking at some potential ways to, through the AUAR process in this location to create a sense of space that folks traveling Bluff Creek Boulevard at this point would see that this is a different area. That they re transitioning into a residential to keep the regional center traffic within this area versus continuing to the west. We ll continue to work with the applicant with that. As well we also are requiring an emergency connection to the Camden Ridge development to the south being an emergency access here to, through the wooded area there again as an emergency access route for an existing residential neighborhood. As far as jurisdictional review goes and with regards to the streets we have Lyman Boulevard here to the north which is a county road so we ll have Carver County involved in the process here as well with Powers Boulevard so they ll be involved with the AUAR process in providing their feedback. Particularly when this area went through the AUAR process in 2005 the intersections at Lyman Boulevard were examined at that time where there would be full access points and this one they re showing as a potential signalized intersection was identified as a full intersection versus to the west Carver County had indicated that there would be no other access, full access points until we get over to Audubon so that s kind of how the layout of the street system went, dates back to well previous to 2005 when the original AUAR was compiled. Aanenson: So there s a lot more detail in the staff report and I d be happy to answer questions but I m going to turn it over to the applicant after I d just state that again your goal when you get done here and you open the public hearing is just to listen to comments and we ll add those 4

5 comments, well we ll categorize those when we get the Minutes to put them in by topic and so the City Council can see not only your comments, which I m hoping you articulate and that the neighbors can also articulate but we just recommend that you give that observation so at this time if it s okay Chair I d just have the applicant come up before you open the public hearing. Just give me a second to switch up here. Darren Lazan: Sure Mr. Chair and members of the commission, my name is Darren Lazan. I m with Landform Professional Services and I represent Level 7 Development. The developer and applicant on the item before you tonight. Appreciate the time. It s good to be back here again as some of you were here a year or so ago when we were here the last time. There s been a handful of changes since then. Kate hit on those. I thought I d go over those very briefly but I do want to add that it s again a pleasure to work in Chanhassen. You have a tremendous staff to work with. We ve had a number of meetings over the even the refresh of this project over the last couple months and it s always a pleasure to work. They do a great job. So Avienda. New name for the project. Pronounced Avienda. There have been some questions on the Facebook page about that. The translation or the definition is a name meaning beautiful and full of energy. Avienda having high energy levels and possessing a high sense of awareness in addition to discerning and inspiring qualities so that s where that name comes from. It was actually developed by the owner. One of the owner Bahram Akradi you may know is the owner of Lifetime Fitness is the ownership representation for this project so there s a number of folks including the folks that owned the 40 acre parcel previously. They re now in the new ownership group. That s what gives us the ability to bring this entire project into one application but Bahram will act as the owner s rep throughout this process and be that central component for us. Real estate is done, is handled by Colliers International. Tom Palmquist is the broker so he provides our insight on real estate. And again with a market driven solution it s great to have Tom on the team to help us work through the best users and the best mix of users. That s his specialty. Does it all over the place so we re happy to have him on the team. Jeff Hysjulien is with RSP Architects. He s here tonight. I m going to ask him to come up in a bit to walk through some of the design components. RSP extensive experience in these types of projects. I ve worked with him for over 10 years I believe on very similar projects so long history with them. They do great work. And Landform will provide the engineering, planning, some landscape architecture and the development management or the entitlement management working through the approval process so you ll see a lot of me through here so that s kind of the core team. We have certainly folks behind that as well that contribute a ton to this project. Won t spend a lot of time on this but this is essentially the location of the project and some of the surrounding major components. We have relationship to the north with downtown Chanhassen. Pretty close adjacency to the two high schools. The Arboretum. Some undeveloped parcels immediately around us which are growing communities with need of services. And I recently added Paisley Park actually as an attraction on there. I thought that was kind of fun to add a bullet since the last time we were here but obviously you know where these positions are but this is something we use in the marketplace to kind of explain where we re situated and what the big components around us are. I really just have 3 slides on the market study. I don t want to bore you to death with that. I d be glad to answer questions but I think it s important to note that the 5

6 market study was done, as Kate mentioned McCombs did it originally for the City I believe. Did an update for the City. Did an update for Level 7 so they ve really been along for the ride the entire way on this parcel. The primary component to share with you tonight is this market area, trade area that they ve defined which really reinforces the fact that this is a regional play or regional project. Situated in that southwest corner of the metro we certainly will draw from not only Chan but the surrounding communities but you can see the market or the trade area that s looking to be served by this property extends considerably west down to 212 and 19 corridors there. Tremendous regional component for the project and we understand that through our marketing. Very brief breakdown of that trade area defines some market opportunity. What can the market support? Nobody wants to go in and over build and have empty buildings so we look very hard at what can be built and the McCombs study breaks that down in dollars and millions of dollars a year in trade area. Opportunity. Those are dollars that are leaving the Chanhassen area as well as not being captured by surrounding communities. 430 million in shopping. You can see the breakdown in convenience. Other retail is all the rest and then other services. There s a retail opportunity of about $700 million dollars or a very rough translation and you saw it in more detail of a little over a million square feet of retail. Avienda is looking to propose, and I ve combined these kind of a worst case scenario there. Roughly 600,000 square feet so even if you took all of our commercial, called it retail at fully built out as retail we re really only looking at about a 60 percent buildout of what the market studies have shown. I think that s important because (a), the size of the project helps define and shape the size of the project but (b), helps us understand that we're not over building in the market. That we can have a very vibrant center that s successful. Has foot traffic. Has car traffic. Has trips in and out and has shopping going on that helps keep that viable and vibrant so we are looking at proposing roughly 60 percent. A little less than 60 percent of what the market could otherwise support. Kate walked through most of this. We are dual guided commercial and office so we are proposing under that regional commercial avenue and then we are currently zoned agricultural as Kate walked through that as kind of a holding district until it develops so we d be looking to change that zoning through our approval process. Some goods and services examples from the 2030 comp plan calls on this site for entertainment, department store, comparison shopping, specialty retail, boutique restaurant, hotels and some residential. This was focused on the goods and services but it has those components. So we looked at the land area for the project and discovered early on that it was part of an original AUAR or the environmental review for this area and you can see in the upper left hand corner there was some thought going in before any of this area developed. The white border is the overall AUAR border. The red our project border. You can see there s a fair amount of thought that actually had some commercial office components in the southwest area of the study that we now know is all developed as residential so really it makes sense to look, as they did in years after this original study, to move that regional commercial piece up on the highway exit. Up on Lyman and Powers where it likely belongs so there were some studies along the way. These were done by the City in preparation for a potential AUAR update. Now this update did not occur so these are not adopted or completely approved concepts but it was done as part of that study in looking at this corner and the only thing really I bring this up today is to kind of share the mix of uses that were contemplated. You can see the east/west connector and to a certain extent a north/south connector up to Lyman but it contemplated a mix of that 6

7 regional commercial office, high density residential. Medium density residential. Conservation. A lot of those same components as in our proposal so these are 3 different scenarios looked at ahead of that potential 2012 update but we used it to inform our work, and this was our plan with those same uses and colors overlaid. So we used it to inform our work on this piece as to where these uses could fall. What uses would be comprised in a regional center and we have, is there a laser pointer on this one? Oh yes. It doesn t work on a TV. Oh it does work on a TV. How about that. So as Kate, well that was the end of that battery. Alright. So there s, as pointed out earlier by staff there s an east/west connection of Bluff Creek Boulevard to the existing stubbed road on the far west side. We did a, we went with a loop road to better serve our internal users. That s Avienda Parkway as it s currently proposed around the outside of the center, and we made another north/south connection back up to Lyman on that side as contemplated in the designated location for the full intersection. In this plan the retail and commercial uses are focused predominantly in the center. This would be the lifestyle component. We ll talk about that in a little bit some more and in the southeast most adjacent to the exit ramp, the highest volume anticipated, traffic coming in from that point so we located a lot of the retail, heavy retail uses along there. The north side along Lyman is predominantly office or medical office. We transition between those commercial uses with some residential uses so on the far west side we have some medium density residential against the single family and between the commercial and the protected area we have some high density product, either market rate apartment or senior related product on that south side. These again it s important to note, I think it was mentioned earlier, this is purely illustrative. These are schematic layouts. We really have no committed specific users. We re really trying to balance these uses to give you and the community a world class project so these are the components that we think feed on each other and create that vibrancy. Create that sustainability. Having medical office or office in the project brings daytime trips which helps shops and restaurants survive. Having residential in the project brings the night time trips. Helps those same folks survive and also makes a place for the employment base, housing stock for the employment base so we believe pretty strongly, just like the previous studies did that this is an ideal mix and we look forward to working to refine that. Dial those in and bring those forward for you in the next stages. So I think at this point we ll ask Jeff to come up and walk through some of the design aspects and then we ll have some close on the planning components and go from there. Jeff Hysjulien: Thank you for having us this evening. My name is Jeff Hysjulien with RSP Architects and very excited to be a part of this project. As Darren had mentioned early on Avienda has been kind of termed as the branded name and destination for this development and as it ties into both life and beauty we ve tied that into our philosophy of how we approach the architectural and site planning design for this project. Another key statement that we have is we consider this to be a healthy way of life village that s going to really try and tie in both the mix of architectural elements, site planning elements, even into how we approach it from a tenant and leasing perspective is how can we really make this to be a very complimentary and pedestrian friendly development that will enhance what Chanhassen is and what it will become in the future. And again as we talk about architectural characteristics we have some illustrations on the board that really are intended to show what the character of the buildings could be. This is 7

8 showing some of the retail and pedestrian scale shopping experience that may take place in this development. A conscious effort will be paid to both the size and scale and quality of the materials done on the landscaping as well as lighting and as we are starting to experience some of the longer evenings it s such a key part to our climate so we want to make sure that it s very inviting year round for this facility. Let s see if this works. This starts to kind of show us some of what the potential that could happen for some of the elements as Darren will talk a little more about storm water and ponding and how do we create a real world class, quality destination that utilizes all the site amenities that this has potential to bring about both when it comes into potentially restaurants but exposure along Powers and what is that first impression that it says to people come into the community. We know that there s a diverse mix of user types. This could be some examples of what the office component could be. If you take a look at this it will get down to the quality of materials. Natural stone. Glazing. Metal accents but are very complimentary but yet profound architectural experience. This will also carry through when we start to determine what the housing components will be both multi-family or high density. We ll pay special attention to the quality of the materials. The proportions of the buildings. Very conscious of the height and sight lines both from the units but also back onto the facilities. And really the spaces inbetween is going to be a very key piece. We ve talked about landscaping elements including benches, lighting. We know that there may be a roundabout that s a part of this so how are we going to treat that in a very architectural and landscape pleasing design façade but how can we tie that into the branding as well. Again these are images only meant to illustrate the character of what could be this gateway entrance as you re coming off of Powers and 212 but really conscious effort to the ground plane as we experience it both walking, biking, and also by vehicle but you can see it will be a complimentary mix of natural stone, planting material, paving patterns and using all of the site elements in a very aesthetically pleasing fashion. And again this kind of comes back to the concept plan. I think as your packet illustrates there s been many studies of different ways to connect both Bluff Creek to the neighborhood and from Powers and in the center portion of the site this is just one of the ideas that s out there. It s really being tested with both the market reality of the interest level but also making sure that we have a pedestrian friendly connection that ties within the development but also extending throughout the neighborhoods and always keeping in mind that this has to be a world class facility. There will be both an internal architectural review team that I ll be a part of along with Bahram and the leadership group and as well as this as the planning process so there ll be many, many layers of involvement and discussion and dialogue about what these elements will be as we move along this path. That s it, thank you. Or is there one more? Oh and these were the sketches we were talking about. Really taking a look, the perimeter has kind of identified itself based off of some of the site logistics. The transitions from the single family housing as you work your way east back to Powers and again what happens in the center is still a real key element that s going to be driven by both the marketplace and interest but also making sure that we ve got those gathering places. That there are plaza components. That there are green spaces. There are those comfortable walking connections that tie everything together and these are a part of many other options that we ve taken a look at and will continue to study as they move forward. 8

9 Darren Lazan: Thanks Jeff. So I just wanted to back up to, probably go back all the way to this slide here and just touch briefly on some of the engineering components that were discussed. Again this is very early on. This is what we call our development concepts. This lets us quantify the square footages of different uses. The parking required for those to start to bring those into balance. We think we re close to a balance right now on building size and parking so now we start layering in storm water treatment components and work through that process. Right now on, from the engineering perspective on the storm water side we are looking at preserving a component in the northwest corner. Currently there s a wetland there. Whether it s preserved and enhanced with some treatment prior to the wetland discharge or not we re not 100 percent certain but we re going to look at some treatment up in that corner. A lot of the treatment for this site, as we look to mimic the existing drainage patters, predominantly the northeast quadrant of the project, the heart of the project goes to the east and is treated underneath, goes under Powers and is treated on that MnDOT piece of right-of-way currently and we ve walked this with agencies and our staff, there s a question as to how that gets treated there. It s by design supposed to move through some swales to a pond that s just off the screen here but there s concern that it isn t. It s short circuiting that pond and going into the wetland so we re looking to do some repair work and some new design work there to help treat that. As we contribute more water to it we want to make sure that functions well. We re looking at a fair amount of underground storm water that will be treated with this project just by sheer demand of the space but we re also looking at a pretty significant water re-use system so we ll be looking at distributed water re-use for all the users for irrigation so it s not individual site by site but rather we ll collect that on the project as a whole to distributed much like a water main or utility main or purple line system that will distribute re-use water for the entire project so that s a pretty innovative component that we look to add. And then as Kate had mentioned earlier we are working with team members at bringing some truly strong traffic components that help ease the speed through there. Deal with pedestrian crossings. Help work through our plazas and open spaces and make sure those are all well integrated and function as designed so we re excited to have this team working on the project and look forward to getting to that next development stage. So very brief schedule laid out there. Again this is, as always at this point in the project a very aggressive schedule but we are looking to get through the process on PUD and the AUAR over the winter with an eye on getting permitted and breaking ground, doing a lot of the grading as soon as we can in the spring. The initial phase will certainly be the mass grading and the infrastructure which at least will be the east/west connection of Bluff Creek Boulevard. Could be all of the infrastructure depending on the rest of the timing with the possibility of going vertical with building construction in the fall or the following spring. So with that I ll certainly stand for any questions you may have. I will, because this is an informational meeting I will take notes, both with your comments and resident comments and would welcome the opportunity to come back up at the end as well to answer any resident questions that come up. So with that I ll stand for questions. Weick: We can open it up to the commission, questions for the applicant and developer at this time. And then after that I think, if we want to go back and clarify any. 9

10 Aanenson: Yeah I just wanted again review the process. I think we ve kind of put a lot in front of you right now. It seems like how can we get our arms around this big project and I just wanted to give you a similar project which it took a long time to build out but Villages on the Pond came in as we were the first ones to do kind of a vertical horizontal mix. St. Hubert s was looking for a new site and they wanted to find a way to do shared parking so that required an environmental document on that and within that then we put together a PUD and in that PUD there s architectural standards. There s landscaping standards. There s things in the environmental document that drives what uses can be in there and that s based on trip generation so all those things will also be included in this. So while they talked about architectural standards we ll also put those into the PUD so when they come back in that s what they ll be measured against. So right now we re just trying to get the outside threshold of what, you know what s the square footage of the different type of mixes that could go in there and certainly as long as you stay within certain thresholds things may move around a little bit. As we know there two things are flexible and it still requires hearings and anything that would come forward but that s the direction we re moving right now is to put together as we move forward not only the environmental documents but then when they come back through a PUD which you would have comment. A public hearing on and then how that s set up. The uses. The standards. All the like so that s the direction we re moving so their goal is to try to be working on that over the winter into the spring so it s going to take some time. There might be some, come and check in and meet some other neighborhood meetings to make sure we re all moving in the same direction because they don t want to go too far and find out that things aren t aligned so that will be a process. Darren Lazan: That s a great point too. We certainly plan on being back here I think 3 or 4 more times before we re fully approved. We have had one new neighborhood meeting and we ll plan on another as the details start to come together when we have more to share so that s certainly a process. We look at a journey that we look at making with you, not for you so. Tietz: Mr. Chairman? Yeah Darren you have come before us before. Last year with a pre-use and I m just curious what has changed? You seem, Landform seemed to respect as you know wetlands and stormwater management is pretty critical in this community as well as trees and buffers and neighborhoods. But in the concepts that you presented to us last year you seemed to respect the primary wetlands and this time the major wetland in the center of the property is totally asphalted over. What s changed? Darren Lazan: Sure. That s a great question. So one of the reasons that there was the preservation of wetland one last year, it was not on this property. If you recall that fell on the 40 acre adjacent property so one was on that property. One straddled the property or that complex straddled so then when you re holding that edge you really don t have much choice. I can t grade my neighbor s property so it changes what can be done with the project. With the project coming in as a whole we re able to look at the whole project and decide how best to lay that out. How to work with that. Wetlands are a great question and an ongoing challenge for us to make work. One of the challenges is that existing wetland complex is significantly lower than the 10

11 surrounding roadways so when you look at preserving that wetland in the center you have significant walls or significant slopes that contribute down to those. They become kind of collection points for everything that blows in the wind and a little tougher to maintain so that s a challenge. Doesn t mean they can t be protected. It just becomes a challenge. We ve had a lot of discussion in our office and with agencies over the last couple months, the storm water requirements now have gotten considerably tougher. Even tougher than last year. Specifically the extraction requirements. The infiltration which we can t do here so we re going to be treating otherwise with re-use but when you have that higher level of storm water treatment you re taking every one of those small rainfalls. You really take away those wetlands hydrology. Maybe get none of the small storms. They get some of the large storms but that s typically not what helps them survive and we re seeing a lot of secondary impacts in our wetlands. Maybe not initial impacts because we can avoid them but we see a lot of secondary impacts when we steal all that hydrology. Send it you know into a storm water system or into a filtration system and then off the site so that is another challenge to preserving those. It changes how we approach the wetland piece. And then finally we have, we look through the quality of those. A number of those, not the 2 in the center but a number of those around the perimeter are very low quality. They re farmed wetlands. They re very small. They re degraded. Some have been filled. The County had a roadway project and filled the one on the far northwest corner to the point where it really doesn t have the size it had once before so we look at kind of the degradation that s gone on over the years as well. Those all resulted in our current concept plan. I do want to be clear that we have a wetland permitting process and I know you re aware of that process but this entire approval set is an iterative process. We need to set the bar for the AUAR so we can analyze trips and environmental impacts and the traffic impacts on the surrounding roadways. Sewer, water, utilities, all those components that make up the AUAR we have to assess those so we start on the high side. We evaluate that. We measure that against what the surrounding roadways and infrastructure can support while we parallel that effort on our permitting and we will go through a what s called a sequencing analysis. The avoidance minimization and mitigation but it s no secret. The concept plan is on the screen before you. Our desire is to fill and create quality wetland spaces elsewhere. We think the property to the south that s a MnDOT mitigation area has been tremendously successful. We re told that it s been requested that it be upgraded to exceptional quality. We d like to do something similar on the east side of the project as was done on the south and create that sort of exceptional wetland where we can feed it the hydrology where it can be protected where it s not 30 feet below or 25 feet below adjacent development. We think that s a better use of the land and a better management of the resource but you re right on. Those wetland 1 and 2, the ones in the center of the site are the biggest challenge and we look to continue working on those through this process. Madsen: There was public input regarding walkability of this project. Bike ability and perhaps having mass transit in there. Could you highlight where you ve included those items and perhaps how they ve been interconnected with existing trail systems? Darren Lazan: Sure. I actually don t necessarily have a good exhibit for where we re at conceptually with that across the board. I think one of our partners on the engineering side that 11

12 we met earlier with staff this week on is engineering firm Toole Engineering. They have a nationwide presence in multimodal pedestrian kind of innovative highway and treatment and speed reduction. Traffic calming that s their specialty and we met with staff to talk about bringing them on the team. I think they were fairly well received or they re certainly doing their due diligence on our team this week and next I assume but that s the strength we ve brought to the team to address those very items. Now I m not sure where the mass transit component comes in. That s a new one. Be glad to address that going forward. It s a great time to bring that in now so we can include that in but each of the center court yard components will include some form of that pedestrian experience, and Jeff talked a little bit about it. They range from small amphitheaters to green spaces to just the walkable components along the shops and that small scale pedestrian experience. That s absolutely part of that center component and then we d look to try to tie those to that outside ring where possible, specifically out to the office users so they can get into the center at lunchtime and the restaurants can come back and forth between shopping and dining. We are looking at a strong pedestrian connection to the west to that neighborhood. That was contemplated through the townhome area and in some of the previous exhibits. I think it s on this one. Yep through there. Now we re going to discuss with staff making that a vehicular connection and we can certainly continue to work not even with a vehicular connection we d have a strong pedestrian connection and try to separate those. And then we have a connection to the south that s an emergency connection that s likely to be a, basically a wide paved trail and we re looking to integrate that into the trails. If you recall last time last year, and this is the exhibit I m missing. We re looking at developing a set of trails through the Bluff Creek area to help folks move in and out of that area into the neighborhoods, into the center and kind of enjoy that bluff as well so we re looking at external connections into the center. Internal connections that make it walkable and more pedestrian friendly. We re looking at a high trip capture percentage. Trying to get folks to come for one purpose. Stay for two or three so to do that we need to facilitate that pedestrian movement and that s our plan today as the concept plan sits. Madsen: Okay, thank you. Darren Lazan: Yep. Tietz: Steve one more? Weick: Yeah please. Tietz: The McCombs study focused on retail and commercial. Darren Lazan: Correct. Tietz: Yet you have 170 some thousand square feet of office. What s driving that and who, what s the demand for office space in this quadrant? 12

13 Darren Lazan: We ve had, we did not have a market study in office but we ve had extremely strong interest by pretty high end users that would like to be part of the project as it s currently imagined so we re judging that one on a purely market driven solution. Major components that want to take pretty large spaces and be part of the project so right now that s what s driving our use. That use. Other than that we relied a little bit on the comp plan that designated this as an office campus potential so we assume that the market study was done with the original 2008 survey but again nothing s better than having a market driven solution so when we have major folks in that medical office community coming to us and saying we want to be part of the project, that s a pretty strong indication for us that we re on the right track. Tietz: And if you could kind of help me visualize the heights of those buildings. You know it s just flat, there s footprints. There s square footage. Are they 2 story? 5 story? Where are the highest buildings proposed? Are they along Powers and Lyman or are they interior to the site? Darren Lazan: So with the exception of the apartment projects on the south, which we understand will have some screening challenges that we ll work through and we will have at the next stage for your review some pretty strong sight line studies to go along with those. With the exception of those uses everything else is really imagined to be one and two story you know products so the townhomes are going to be two story I m sure and the retail is 20 foot to single story. The bigger components may be a little bit taller but will generally be single story. The hotels could be, and they re closer to Powers. They could be up to 3 stories and then some of the architecture that Jeff had put together on this one contemplates 3 stories potentially for and maybe Kate could color that with the underlying zoning height restrictions but I think the PUD would allow you to review under this setting what heights are appropriate and that s what we ll be likely relying on. Tietz: So those would typically be on the Powers and the Lyman side. The edges. Darren Lazan: Correct yeah. Tietz: East and north edges. Darren Lazan: Correct. Tietz: Thank you. Weick: Just I guess probably to Kate because it s within the report itself. Can I maybe bounce back and forth or? There s a lot of mention within the report about complimenting the existing downtown Chanhassen area. Which I mean there s pluses and minuses to that. As we re trying to create a lifestyle center and you hear the uses and the people like hotels, apartments you d want to create an environment there that afforded those residents, I would think all of the things that they would need within walking distance right? You wouldn t want them to travel 5 minutes to the downtown so I was concerned when I read under the recommendations that there s 13

14 actually a list of prohibited uses within the site which is a pretty strong word. Is that, are the prohibited uses negotiable? Aanenson: Yes. Those are all recommendations correct. Weick: Okay. Okay. And I get that it s under the recommended side but I mean obviously the use is prohibited for like a grocery store or a liquor store or. Aanenson: Yeah so we did say up to 25,000 square feet for grocery. We know that they re looking at something larger so that was just a point of discussion. So right now we re just giving you recommendations. I think if there s certain uses that you know you would want to let the council know you have concerns with then I think now is the appropriate time to state those but I think that s something we ll definitely be working on as we go through this process. Kind of landing on those appropriate mix. If you recall when we put this district together we said that the downtown meets your daily needs. You know you can run to the library. You can go to the post office. Run to a grocery store. A convenience store to pick up something but we saw this as comparison shopping and certainly it s because it has residential component which we want as some of those transitional areas, similarly the office on the north side again providing a nice transition. Nice edge. Little bit higher level of architecture. That there would be some other support uses there. Similarly we did a PUD where actually the Lifetime sits so we put some support uses there too. There is convenience gas there. There is dry cleaners, those kind of things that would support if you re there you know on you lunch hour you can take care of some of that business. Banks. That sort of thing so similar we put those, some of those things in here too. Weick: Okay because I would, yeah I just envisioned people you know going for dinner and walking to a movie and so having things like a theater. Aanenson: Yes we would agree on that too yeah, and maybe it didn t come out clear on the original one but yes, something like that would. Weick: Okay. Other comments? Looks like you re itching to say something down there. Tietz: I ll have another one. Just go through my list. I ve looked at the aerial photos and looked at topo maps and walked extensively over the whole 110 acres. You re going to have to pancake the site to do what you re doing and I find that really disrespective of, you know disrespecting the site. Not only the wetlands are being eliminated. The current wetlands. Whether there s alternative method to improve I don t know and we ll have to wait to see but this site could be in Rochester or Omaha. You know there s a lot of terrain change on that site and the concept to do what you ve proposed here you re going to pancake it. You re going to move tens of thousands of yards of soil and you re probably going to have to export soil and I don t know what your preliminary engineering studies indicate but this is really dramatic and I m surprised that a concept would ignore the terrain. 14

15 Darren Lazan: So I m assuming you re looking for a response. There wasn t really a question there. Tietz: Well. Darren Lazan: No you re absolutely right. There s a tremendous amount of grade challenges on this site. I would disagree somewhat that we will pancake the site. I think we ve worked considerably through our concept grading to preserve existing drainage patterns. To make successful transitions but there s a lot of challenges in there. I mean you could take the townhome site on the far west side of our project. There s 15 feet of grade difference between the loop road and the existing neighborhood. We originally proposed breaking that roadway connection to try to allow that terracing. To let those existing grade differences exist but then we have to make that connection understandably so, we have to make that connection. Now all of a sudden it changes how much we can leave high and we have to tear into that side of the site. We have to make a east/west connection that traverses right past the wetlands that drops down almost 25 feet and then back up again so you know we have to get a road meeting MSA standards in and out of there and there s slope requirements and stormwater treatment that has to go with that. So those are all a lot of challenges for us. There is a tremendous amount of relief. We are doing a tremendous amount of grading. Right now the site is a virtual balance but that s totally dependent on the soils we encounter. If we get into our tougher soils we will be exporting and changing grades or importing other material but understand your comments completely. Ideally we wouldn t need to do that but there s a lot of constraints on the site Tietz: Well is it being driven by total square footage and marketing study or is it being driven by the site and what s appropriate for the community? Darren Lazan: Sure. So the community s established regional commercial or lifestyle center as a desire and need. It ranked high in the surveys. As far as lifestyle centers go this is considerably smaller than most and you get to a certain point where you have to have compatible uses and the synergy of those uses to be successful. I think in your own zoning study it shows that ideally a lifestyle center should have 2 anchors. In our lifestyle component we really have room for one so it gets to a certain point where it gets down to a critical mass where you can t get the support of those other uses. You don t have the synergy of the office getting into the retail and making those remain vibrant. You don t get the residential in there that add to the vibrancy and the sustainability of that retail so we really believe we have looked at this as a regional center. We re on the very small side of what makes up regional centers. We have the pieces that will support each other and make it a successful center but if you look at the kind of reduction that would be necessary to preserve the wetlands 1 and 2, to preserve the existing terrain you d have disconnected commercial uses. You wouldn t have a lifestyle center and maybe that s the best use for the site but right now the community has designated and guided this a regional center. The current owner has a desire to fill that desire and this we believe is the approach to making that successful in the long term. 15