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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-20-2016 Minutes of the Economic Development Commission City of Mounds View Ramsey County, Minnesota Regular Meeting May 20, 2016 City of Mounds View, Council Chambers 2401 County Road 10, Mounds View, MN 55112 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Jason Helgemoe called the meeting to order at approximately 7:30 a.m. 2. ROLL CALL Members Present: Chair, Jason Helgemoe, Vice Chair, Jim Freichels, Commissioners, Royal Dahlstrom & Laurie Shoop Members Absent: Dan Larson, Jessica Rieland, Gary Stevenson Staff Present: Business Development Coordinator, Brian Beeman Meeting Attendees: Jon Sevald, City Planner 3. APPROVAL OF MAY 20, 2016, AGENDA Motion/Second: Commissioner Freichels moved and Commissioner Shoop seconded the approval of the May 20, 2016 EDC agenda. Motion Carried: 4 Ayes, 0 Nays 4. APPROVAL OF FEBRUARY 19, 2016, EDC MINUTES Motion/Second: Commissioner Shoop moved and Commissioner Freichels seconded the approval of the February 19, 2016 EDC minutes, as presented. Motion Carried: 4 Ayes, 0 Nays 5. EDC BUSINESS Introduce New City Planner Jon Sevald, the new City Planner introduced himself and informed the Commission of his background. Sevald stated that the comprehensive plan is due at the end of 2018. One of the sections in the Comprehensive Plan is economic development. Sevald asked the Commission what types of projects they were interested in as priorities. Chair Helgemoe said the renaming of County Road 10 should be a priority as well as connecting the corridor to Mounds View. Helgemoe also mentioned getting Crossroad Pointe redeveloped and monitoring the Rice Creek Commons redevelopment. EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 2 of 10 6. REPORTS OF STAFF Crossroad Point Redevelopment Prosect Business Development Coordinator, Brian Beeman provided the Commission with an update on the Crossroad Pointe redevelopment site. Beeman stated that The Beard Group and City of Mounds View had signed a preliminary development agreement to allow the developer time to do their due diligence. The Beard Group conducted a market demand study and the demand for rental housing came back much stronger than originally anticipated. Because of the strong demand, The Beard Group is planning to increase the number of units from 119 to 205 with 251 bedrooms. They will need the entire 4.25 acres as originally planned. City staff has learned that The Beard Group received an $85,000 subsidy from Ramsey County for this project. The developer is also considering Tax Credits and a Housing TIF. Staff is still waiting to hear back from The Beard Group. They are meeting with architects & consultants and working through design, costs, and parking ratios. They plan to construct the building in phases. Meaning, the outside of the building will look completed while the inside may only have one or two floors finished with the plan to lease those units right way while finishing the other floors. Once the developer is ready, they will contact the city and a meeting date and time will be set to further discuss the project. The developer plans to break ground sometime in August or September 2016 with the idea of opening the leasing office in 2017. Commissioner Helgemoe asked if there were plans for any retail in the project. Beeman said as of the latest plans, the entire project is slated to be all apartment units with no mixed-use. Mixed-use facilities have struggled in the past few years therefore, the developers have been hesitant in adding retail to their buildings. Commissioner Dahlstrom asked if the apartments will be Section 8. Beeman said 20% of the units will be required to be affordable as part of the minimum requirements for both Tax Credits and a Housing TIF. Beeman explained that if a financing gap exists caused by the primary lender not lending the entire project cost amount, then this creates a gap in the financing. In order to fill the gap, Tax Credits as well as a Housing TIF, and a possible land write down, in addition to the $85,000 Ramsey County already awarded, may be required for the project to be successful. Commissioner Dahlstrom asked if this was the best solution for Mounds View. Beeman Said this is a policy decision and one reason to have the preliminary development in place is for both sides to do their due diligence. When the time comes, both the developer and City Council will discuss if the project should go forward or if any alterations need to be made to the project in order for it to go forward. This is the reason for a preliminary development agreement. Both sides must be in agreement before moving forward. Beeman noted that if the EDC has any suggestions or comments, he can bring those forward to the City Council for consideration. EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 3 of 10 Commissioner Dahlstrom asked if someone wanted to sit in on a City Council meeting who was opposed to this development based on the Section 8 housing, what day is that meeting so that citizens can get out and meet. When would that be and how could they do that. Beeman informed the Commission that a date has not been established yet because the developer has not contacted city staff with their formal plans since they decided to expand the project. However, once the city has had a chance to meet with the developer, then the next step would be to form a development agreement. The city would meet with the developer one last time before making the final decision to go forward or not. Once the developer has met with the city, then at some point we'll set up a meeting to discuss the project, however that hasn't happened yet and therefore, no date has been established. Commissioner Dahlstrom asked where the information will be posted so that if people want to know the date of the meeting, how does the city put that information out. Beeman said all City Council meetings are public meetings. Anyone is welcome to attend. You don't necessarily have to be a resident of Mounds View but that is preferred. All meetings are posted on the bulletin board in front and also on the city's website. Residents are also welcome to come into City Hall and ask the front desk for more information. Once the agenda packets are ready, they are also welcome to pick up a copy of the packet. There are a variety of ways the public can be made aware of the meetings. Beeman said if residents are interested in this particular project, then they should be paying attention to these notifications and be listening to the Council's meetings to see if the date has been established yet so that they can be at the meeting if they so desire, to provide any input. Dahlstrom asked if there is a reason why the City Council doesn't post their meetings on Facebook. Dahlstrom doesn't ever see when the meetings will occur, dates, times, etc. Beeman said, traditionally cities haven't posted to Facebook. Instead, they have posted to the city's website and the bulletin board. By state statute, cities are required to post in at least two places. Dahlstrom said, the reason he thinks they post to the bulletin board is because they don't want anyone here. No one stops by, gets out of their car and looks at the public notices once per week just to see what is going to happen. If there was a social medial outlet then more people could come to those meetings and be part of the development in Mounds View. Beeman reiterated that this is why cities are required by statute to post in two different avenues. This is why the city posts on the bulletin board, newspaper, and city's website. Not a lot of cities have posted their meetings on Facebook but it is something that we could look into. If the trend is that more people are using Facebook then maybe we should look at posting this way. Dahlstrom said, it is 2016 and many people don't get the newspaper anymore. More people are getting their information through alerts, online, mobile devices, (Pads, etc. Commissioner Helgemoe asked when the developers would like to break ground. Beeman informed the Commission that the plan is still to start sometime in August or September. It all depends on how much time it takes for the developer to get through EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 4 of 10 discussions with their architect, complete site plans, estimate costs of materials, consider parking requirements, and if they can get the tax credits or not. However, they still plan on a fall start date. Helgemoe asked if the plan was for them to get in before the development at TCAAP. Beeman responded that this has been the plan and to his knowledge that strategy hasn't changed. The developer plans to open a leasing office in the spring with construction still going on. The developer at the TCAAP site will be constructing 200 homes in phase I. Commissioner Dahlstrom asked if the homes are zoned for Sunnyside or Pinewood. Beeman said he has never run across a discussion on the topic of school boundaries and doesn't anticipate those districts changing unless a question is raised with the School Board. Dahlstrom said maybe the City Council should think about how many families would be moving in and how that would affect the schools because Pinewood is already at capacity. Business Retention & Expansion Visit (BR&E) Updates Coordinator Beeman informed the Commission that a majority of the Mounds View businesses have been visited. Some have not responded, while others have stated they wish not to participate. Dunkin Doughnuts was looking at the endcap at Edgewood Plaza; however Subway felt that they would compete with them since they sell breakfast sandwiches. Therefore, staff has been trying to find them another location. At one time the owner of Americlnn wanted to put a coffee shop or similar business on the corner of County Road 10 & H in the Americlnn parking lot. The square footage would need to be determined as well as negotiating with Metro Transit to find them a new location for their Park N Ride. The lot may not be large enough if only placed on the Americlnn lot. Therefore, the Mermaid may also need to be approached. However, at this time, Dunkin Doughnuts has not responded to let staff know if they are even interested. Last week, staff received a phone call from a developer wanting to redevelop the five residential lots at the corner of Woodale Drive and County Road 10. However, there are three single family homes in the middle of the development and the developer is trying to negotiate with them to sell. The developer would like the area to be a retail development. Staff also received a call for a request to put in a flea market. They are from Blaine and looking for a new location. They liked the Crossroad Pointe site, but the land is under contract and the developers felt that it wasn't a good idea as they will need to start soil borings and other development activities. City staff offered them some other alternatives but they informed staff that they will keep looking for space in surrounding cities. Next Beeman informed the Commission that a bio tech company was looking for 3-6 acres in Mounds View which would bring around 50 employees and they would need a clean room. Beeman provided the company the available options and they were going to look at the vacant lot north or Biolife. They seemed interested in the Edina area as well. EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 5 of 10 Magazine Distributors is out of business, as their business model caters to newspapers, direct advertisements, and other media that is becoming less relevant. Many users today are going to the internet to find their news which has become the preferred method of advertising. This opens up another vacancy with a couple of drive-in doors. The building next to Snap Market is for sale. They had about six businesses in the building and since office space is a soft market right now, the building is slow to sell. Both this building and Snap Market experienced vandalism. Snap Market has had to paint over the spray painting twice in the last month. There have been two parties interested in that space and both of them wanted a liquor license. One of them is looking into the possibility of selling hot food as well as tobacco. The City Council will be considering approval of the first interested party's liquor license in an upcoming Council meeting. Dynex and Dymax have moved out of Mounds View. They were located in the FedTech building; however FedTech needs the space to continue to grow their operations. Bio Clean is still looking for a second building to construct their franchise trucks. Originally, they had wanted the Skyline Motel site, however the owners of the Skyline Motel wouldn't negotiate and therefore the price was simply too high. As a result, Bio Clean is actively seeking a location within five miles of Mounds View. Central Transport found a new site in Blaine which will nearly double their capacity and will be moving this fall. Saia, the new owner of the Mounds View site, will be cleaning up the site and conducting building renovations this fall with the goal to move in the spring of 2017. Commissioner Freichels informed the Commission that the Dell-Comm cell tower is up and they are negotiating a lease with Verizon and looking at AT&T. They are hoping to have Verizon up and running in November. Commissioner Helgemoe asked where the nearest Verizon cell tower was currently located. Freichels said it is located on 1-35W just past Hwy 96. Helgemoe said there was a dead spot in Mounds View. Freichels said there has been a dead spot near Irondale and Edgewood and this is why Verizon is interested in their new tower. The new tower will also cover the TCAAP site. Commissioner Freichels asked if Bio Clean could go into the Central Transport site. Beeman said the site was recently purchased by Saia who will be taking over this fall when Central Transport moves out. Saia is allowing Central Transport to stay at the Mounds View site until they can make their move to Blaine. Beeman mentioned that another possibility for Bio Clean is the building across the street. Once their lease is over they will be moving to Texas. Beeman believes there is about three years left on the lease. Beeman informed the Commission that staff has been waiting for MFI to let them know if they will be doing their 3,000 SF build out this year or not. MFI is still reviewing what they would like to do with the site. EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 6 of 10 Mounds View Chiropractic has recently signed a new five year lease and they are still interested in owning their own building. Staff will continue to communicate with them to find them a new building when that time comes. Alberts's Organics is gone and this leaves approximately a 46,000 SF vacancy with a commercial kitchen. Commissioner Helgemoe mentioned that staff should approach Sysco to see if they might be interested. They have a food testing area and they may need additional space. Commissioner Dahlstrom suggested a food truck hub. They could co-lease the kitchen giving them space to produce their product and distribute them down town. The location is good being located next to I-35W. Beeman informed the Commission that Mounds View Square still has six vacancies. Pastor has approached the city regarding putting in a tap room however, this would require an ordinance. The City Planner is currently working on this ordinance. Silver View Plaza has one vacancy. They are working on patching their parking lot this spring and they are also looking at their sign options next to County Road 10. They have budgetary constraints that have prevented the installation of a new sign. Apple Tree Dental will be moving approximately 13 employees from Coon Rapids to Mounds View this fall. The employees will be going to the second floor where most of the administration portion of the business will be located. City staff has been working with them to find a parking solution. Coordinator Beeman talked to the movie theater manager and they have approved the Apple Tree Dental employees to park on the north side of the building between the movie theater and Tom's Collectibles or they may park near the walking path along County Road 10. Dr. Helgeson expressed his gratefulness to staff or coming up with a viable solution to their parking limitations. Employees also have the option to park along Mounds View Drive. Beeman also informed the Commission that new lighting will be installed along the walking trail this summer which is just in time for their employees who may be using the trail this fall. Commissioner Helgemoe asked to go back to the Mounds View Square issue. He said the tables have seemed to turn where Mounds View Square completed renovations a few years back and now they are experiencing vacancies, while Silver View Plaza is now nearly full. Beeman said there is a leasing price difference between the two facilities. Where Mounds View Square's leases are more than what they are charging across the street. This is one of the reasons why EI Loro is leaving and why other businesses have left in the past year or so. It is more about the price rather than the aesthetics. The new property manager for Silver View Plaza is also more responsive and seems willing to work with the city. Commissioner Freichels stated another reason Silver View Plaza is nearly full is in part because of the school district occupying about one third of the building. Beeman informed the Commission that Empire House would have had much of their new building completed by now, but for the fact that they couldn't find the true owner of the vacant lot north of Biolife and ended up backing out of the deal. They had tried negotiating with a company claiming to own the property, but later realized that they EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 7 of 10 didn't own it. As a result, Beeman contacted Biolife and received a direct contact to the land owners which he forwarded to Empire House. Empire House will be following up with the contact, but it is not certain if they will proceed with the new building or not. Beeman met with the manager of EI Loro and they have indicated that they will be leaving in about three months unless there is a way they can drastically reduce their lease rate and/or increase the number of customers. They mentioned a construction project on County Road 10 near 1-35W that occurred a few years ago, stating that because of the construction project, it decreased the number of customers coming through the door and they were never able to regain that customer base. They would need to drastically reduce their lease in order to stay. Beeman described the new restaurant Arepa Bite, which is a Latin American establishment originating from Venezuela. The owner is from Mounds View and wanted to start a business that was in close proximity to where she lived. This will allow her to spend more time with her family and eliminate long commutes for work. The restaurant was originally supposed to be a sit down restaurant similar to a Chipotle setting however, the building was set up for fast food. As a result, they have had to compromise to a quick serve approach. Commissioner Freichels asked where it was located. Commissioner Helgemoe said it was where Louisiana Po Boy used to be. Commissioner Dahlstrom encouraged anyone to go there, stating the good quality of food served. He described that it is food stuffed into a thicker tortilla with a variety of ingredients. Beeman said they hand roll the tortillas each day and like to keep all their food fresh with about 11 different traditional versions and anyone can also request custom varieties. In addition, they serve sugarcane drinks and have a machine that slices and squeezes oranges for freshly squeezed orange juice. Dahlstrom asked if they have plans to use their drive thru. Beeman said, he hadn't heard, but perhaps they are trying to see if they can smooth out their operations first. Dahlstrom noticed that they didn't have their hours posted anywhere. Beeman said he would notify them and also mentioned that they were going to try it out for about three months then evaluate their operations and customer base. Freichels thought maybe they hadn't figured out their hours yet because they are still trying to figure everything out. Beeman said they do serve breakfast so they are open earlier. Beeman will notify them to post their hours. Coordinator Beeman informed the Commission of the trends he is seeing with phone calls and requests. He said he is seeing a higher volume of calls for industrial, warehouse distribution and some medical space with companies wanting to build and own their own buildings. They all like the Mounds View location next to I-35W. If we had more industrial land we could probably fill it fairly quickly. Tires N More was listed for sale and the owner had two good offers which he declined. He took the building off of the listing and is now using it as a warehouse. Beeman said, the challenge is finding these companies land. We are at the point where Mounds View may need to start building vertically to meet the parking ratios and conserve space. Mounds View is out of this type of space and the only possibility is to focus on redevelopment projects. However, the City Council had not passed an EDA levy when they discussed it about a year ago, and therefore, no funds are available to purchase and demo sites in order to repackage them for development. One option is to EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 8 of 10 use any remaining funds from the sale of Crossroad Pointe towards the purchase of other properties. The Council has been hesitant to pass any EDA levy until they can better understand how this would be impacted by the State Statues and City Charter which address levy limitations. They are also trying to clear up who has the authority since the original EDA documents don't address the authority. Some interpretations of State Statues address HRA's as having the authority. Until the issues can be sorted out, the city will not have a means to purchase and redevelop properties as they come available. A business in Mounds View recently requested funds to improve the facade of their building. Mounds View has a loan program for this type of use, however the program currently is not funded and therefore, we couldn't offer the business financial assistance. The city still hasn't been contacted on the new proposal for Crossroad Pointe since they decided to double the number of units. However assuming the financing gap is large, even with the Housing TIF, Tax Credits, and Ramsey County's $85,000 financing, a land write down of $1 still may not be enough. We won't know for certain until they are ready with their new plans and they contact the city with their proposal. Rice Creek Commons (TCAAP) Development Update Next, Coordinator Beeman provided an update on the Rice Creek Commons Development improvements which also affect Mounds View. Many of Mounds View's businesses in the construction area have complained that the County failed to place large enough signs along the construction route for vehicles to see them and some of the signs should be moved so that vehicles have time to turn. Some vehicles were not seeing the signs then realized they couldn't make a U-turn. Instead of coming back, they kept on going and the local businesses lost customers. The County was informed and larger signs have been installed in strategic locations. Beeman believes this will be a major improvement to that intersection once completed this fall. However, until then, businesses and residents will have to put up with the inconvenience. Commissioner Helgemoe asked if the construction is still on-time to be completed this fall. Beeman confirmed, stating so far, the construction is on schedule and the plan is to have substantial completion this fall with the remainder touch ups to be completed in the spring of 2017. They are trying the best they can to keep at least one lane open at all times. There may be rare instances where they would need to close all lanes, but if this happens it will only be temporary. The County will notify the City if they plan on closing all lanes. Beeman mentioned that the Rice Creek Commons development committee selected Alatus as the master developer who beat out Opus and Ryan Companies. The first phase of development will be to construct 200 homes and find an anchor grocery store like Cub Foods. They are also looking for a medical anchor. Once these have been established, they will begin phase two. They are setting aside 40 acres for light industrial which could help out some of the expanding businesses in Mounds View. This will at least keep them in the region instead of them going to another state. EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 9 of 10 Mounds View Project Updates Coordinator Beeman informed the Commission that the City Council is looking to update the city's website. Currently, the website if very manually intensive and it doesn't allow some of the features other more modern websites offer. A website in the IT world needs to be updated about every three years and Mounds View's website is approximately six years old. At their last workshop meeting the Council decided to wait until after the League of Minnesota Cities Conference to come back with information on the website vendors they talked to. At that time, the Council will decide if they should form a committee and who would be on the committee, and the budget for this type of project. The idea would be to have a resident, business person, a Council Member, and one person from each department to serve on the committee. The committee would hear proposals from the different website venders and they would bring a recommendation to the City Council for further consideration. The plan is to have the project completed by year end 2017. The Silver Lake Park trail reconstruction project that was supposed to be completed last year will instead be completed this summer. The city had been waiting for the Housing Association to make a decision and get back them with signed agreements before they could finish the project. The last two trail extensions will be completed this summer. The first segment will be from Edgewood Plaza to the corner of County Road 10 and H2 near Moe's restaurant. The next segment will continue from the Crossroad Pointe corner to the intersection of County Road 10 and Woodale Drive. The city is working on a new sign to be installed at the Community Center. It will look similar to the existing sign at City Hall and may be located on the other side of the Community Center driveway. Currently, there are too many signs in one location and people driving by can't see all of the signs in one passing. In addition, the current sign is away from the roadway and it does not fit the city's newest branding design. The new sign will not have the dynamic display like the City Hall sign, but it will have a similar look with the stone. It will be a static monument sign. The sign is expected to be completed and installed this year. The Public Works Department will be taking over the project. The Snyder building has not seen much activity in the past few months. The high price continues to be an issue as well as the city's parking ratio requirements. Currently, the city's regulations on parking do not allow for a restaurant type use for this site because of the lack of parking stalls. Bel Rae is up to 70% capacity now and they continue to get more and more applications in all the time. Concerning changing the name of County Road 10, staff and a Council Member met with Ramsey County officials to discuss the renaming of County Road 10. The County agreed to allow the City to change the name as long as County Road 10 remains as the designation. There is a possibility that the County can get some funds for signage from the Rice Creek Commons improvements. Some of this money could potentially be used to install new signs with the new name. EDC Minutes May 20, 2016 Page 10 of 10 Coordinator Beeman contacted around 90 businesses asking them their opinion on changing the name to Mounds View Boulevard and how this would affect their business. Overwhelmingly, the businesses were in support of the name change. As a result, the City Council has decided to change the name to Mounds View Boulevard. Beeman also contacted the U.S. Post Office and they confirmed that mail under all of the alternate addresses will continue to be delivered. The City will need to notify them when the change occurs and they will put it into their database. Once the database with the new name change and alternate addresses has been updated, the New Brighton post office will automatically get the update and mail should not be disrupted. The name change will take effect sometime in June of this year. Commissioner Freichels asked if the amount of money required to pay for the new signs has remained the same. Beeman thought that the amount would remain the same. Mounds View Business Council Meeting Beeman informed the Commission that the next Mounds View Business Council meeting will be held at the Community Center June 8. The speaker will be Ron Wencl, Director from U.S. Geological Survey. Other Upcoming Events/Reports Movies in the Park will begin June 16 at dusk following the Music in the Park. Other dates will be July 21 and August 18. All events will be held at Silver View Park. National Night Out will be held August 2 and the 2016 Festival in the Park will be held August 20. 7. REPORTS OF COMMISSIONERS Chair Helgemoe asked for reports from Commissioners. The Commissioners had no reports. 8. NEXT REGULAR EDC MEETING Chair Helgemoe stated that the next EDC meeting will be held June 17 at 7:30 a.m. if needed. Helgemoe asked if anyone knew for a fact that they will not be there. All Commissioners present felt that they would be around for the next meeting. Helgemoe said that it appears activity in the area is heating up however; we will wait to see if there are items that need to be discussed. 9. ADJOURN There being no further business, Chair Helgemoe adjourned the May 20, 2016, meeting at 8:32 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Brian Beeman Business Development Coordinator