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Item No. Staff Report No.?l)/O6) GC S • Meeting Date: 5/19/97 Type of Business:Work Session WIC:Work Session;PH:Public Hearing; CA:Consent Agenda;CB:Council Business City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Mayor and City Council From: Pamela Sheldon,Community Development Director Item Title/Subject: University of Minnesota-Mounds View Planning Study • Date of Report: May 15, 1997 Summary: On March 3, 1997,the City Council indicated its consensus that the City of Mounds participate in a design course offered by the University of Minnesota. The City received an invitation to be one of four cities working together with the University's Design Center for the American Urban Landscape to address issues affecting first ring suburbs. The focus for Mounds View is the Highway 10 corridor. So far, six classes have been held. The seventh and final class will be held on Tuesday,May 20. Discussion: During the course of our discussions, several key ideas have emerged. These have included: At the present time,Highway 10 is designed as a 70-mile per hour road with a 200 foot right-of-way, open visibility,and sweeping turns. It is no wonder that motorists drive 55- 60 miles per hour on this road. • It is possible to tame Highway 10 and move it to the background by"narrowing"the feel of the right-of-way through landscaping, lighting, and fencing, and by bringing uses up to the highway edge. • It is possible to tame Highway 10 by creating a local system of circulation that links together activities without having to rely on Highway 10. These activities would form the Village Center or"heart of Mounds View". • Rather than focusing on Highway 10 (i.e. the roadway)as the issue, we need to focus on what type of place we want to create in the heart of Mounds View. • Based on the concepts expressed in past planning efforts in Mounds View,the participants saw that the Village Center is a place where the natural environment(wetlands and woodlands) come together with civic and commercial activities. Bill Moorish,Director of the Design Center,prepared a number of sketches for the community team to review. These sketches lead up to the idea of a creating a ring road or local road system on the north and south side of Highway 10 (see attached diagram). The ring road would use the existing Mounds View Drive and extend across Long Lake Road through the O'Neil Property to an intersection with Highway 10. This intersection would connect to Edgewood Drive which would be re-aligned. The ring road along the north side of Highway 10 would connect City Hall,the • Community Center, City Hall Park and Mounds View Square Shopping Center. The sketch prepared by Bill Moorish is a concept, and not a finished idea. It presents a way of organizing and