07-27-11 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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NORTHWEST ASSOCIATED CONSULTANTS, INC. 4800 Olson Memorial Highway, Suite 202. Golden Valley. MN 55422 Telephone, 703.231 2555 Facsimile; 703.231 2501 planne @nacplannln9.com MEMORANDUM TO: Little Canada Planning Commission FROM: Stephen Grittman DATE: July 8, 2011 RE: Little Canada — Dock 86 PUD Amendment FILE NO: 758.09— 11.14 Background and Analysis The owners of the Dock 86 furniture store are seeking an amendment to their Planned Unit Development Permit to allow an expansion of the operating hours by increasing the open sale days to four days per week, from the current allowance of three days. The applicants wish to be open from Friday through Monday over the weekend, adding Monday to provide additional sales and service opportunities. When the PUD approval was originally granted, the City was interested in limiting the intensity of retail activity in this area due to concerns over traffic volumes along County Drive to the south (where intersection issues exist with Little Canada Road and the 1- 35E interchange), and to the north, where Country Drive passes major industrial installations toward its intersection with Rice Street. The City, working with the applicants, created two primary methods to limit traffic. First was to limit the potential list of retail types that could occupy the PUD, selecting those that were believed to be lower volume facilities that would not generate traffic to raise concerns for the area. The second method was to limit the days of operation to Friday through Sunday, with the expectation that these would result in fewer potential conflicts with existing non - retail uses. Expanding the sales dates to include Mondays would raise, in a limited way, the potential for this conflict. However, there does not appear to be a significant concern with traffic patterns at the present time, and the addition of Mondays would appear to be a minimal increase in overall traffic to the facility. Moreover, land uses to the north (at 4