for there goes summer uh 7:34 p.m. or a.m. excuse me 7:34 a.m. and this is the d Housing Redevelopment Authority meeting at the city hall council chambers and I think you've been instructed that uh there is a chance to participate in community comment this morning you can call in the number I think that'll come up on the screen momentarily uh and we get to that part of the agenda fairly quickly so people should be writing these numbers down so they can call in if they have a concern they want to discuss with the HRA that's not on the agenda this morning or otherwise scheduled for a future public hearing before the HRA so having provided that information I'll call the meeting to order and ask our administrative planning specialist Liz Olsson to call the role commissioner Risser here commissioner Jackson here commissioner Pierce here commissioner U here chair huband here uh next is a pledge of allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and we have a form of meeting agenda is there anyone that wishes to modify the agenda in any former fashion not I'll entertain a motion to adopt the meeting agenda is show so moved commissioner Jackson moves second commissioner U seconds the adoption of the meeting agenda any further discussion all those in favor of adopting the meeting agenda is published say I I I opposed carried the meeting agenda is adopted uh and next Community comment we are back up at the time for Community comment and do we have anyone in the audience that wishes to address the h and a matter of concern to them that's not on the agenda or otherwise scheduled for a future public hearing hearing nothing and seeing no one coming forward do we have anybody online I do not have anyone online but because there is a slight delay in the broadcast I would recommend we wait a minute or so before moving on my clock shows that it's 7:34 so I will come back to you at 7:35 or when I have a call or whichever is first thank you what is assuredly one of the longest minutes of your day has now passed and you may move on with the agenda all right very good thank you um our practice is to have the executive dor director respond to community comments that were made at the pr meeting our executive director also our city manager uh the same position different hats anything to comment on there there's nothing to comment on uh there's only one item on the consent agenda and that's the draft minutes of the regular meeting of June 13 2024 is there a motion to adopt the uh draft minutes of the regular meeting of June 13 2024 for the h so moved commission Jackson moves commissioner Pier seconds the adoption of the draft minutes or the minutes of the regular meeting of June 13 2024 any further discussion those in favor of adopting the minutes of the regular meeting on June 13 20124 say I I I opposed carried those minutes are adopted and then we'll move on to reports and recommendations we got some interesting things to discuss this morning and the first one up is the um continuing work that started a couple years ago and we had the opportunity to look at two pieces of property across the street from each other on France Avenue uh kind of co-developing and so it gave us a chance to think about how to get people safely across France Avenue and uh Bill narf our economic development director and others have been working on this concept since then and visiting with the county since it's a County Road and we're uh interested in this concept update so Mr nondorf welcome this morning yes good morning uh as you mention here this morning with an update uh for the last several months uh the city's been working with the engineers and planners at lhb um to bring this concept to Greater Clarity uh still a long way to go as we as we refine this but we've met numerous times times with uh Transportation officials at hanbin County um there's been a lot of engineering work and a lot of collaboration between the uh property owners and developers on both sides of the street as well as their engineering teams and their design teams um so we wanted to give you a brief update this morning um we've scheduled about 20 minutes this morning I know there's a this is a big picture it's a big concept um so we've also schedu scheduled a work session in two weeks to have a further discussion just because we had limited time today but I'd like to introduce Mike fiser with lhb and Brad rste also with lhb they've been the two uh key principles working on the effort they'll provide an update this morning and be available for any questions all right very good thanks Mr nondorf fer how good to see you again we saw each other last night good to see you uh Commissioners uh chair staff thank you for the opportunity to be here uh we're going to keep this very brief but the last time I believe Michael Schroeder and I were here talking about this concept and um so uh Brad rste and I are here Brad is the engineer on our team who is leading actually coordinating with our Bridge engineers and our transportation Engineers um to to find out is this feasible so we drew some pretty pictures and get people excited about what's possible but Is it feasible um so we're in that process and we just want to share where we're at with it uh if you recall one of the diagrams you saw last time we met was you know we talked about well could we come through the middle of this development uh and drop down and get under the street and in the conversations with the developer they preferred to keep their Central Plaza at grade level and asked if we could get creative and make the parkway uh and at that and that concept showed you know coming creating Bridges and coming down at a at a below grade through both developments uh in working with the developer last time we were here we talked about this new South Parkway South prominade idea where where they could keep their Central Plaza at grade and we drop down around the South and that's where you directed us to go off and determine is this feasible is this idea doable um so I'm happy to report that today it feels pretty doable U so the one thing we talked about at that last meeting also was using the model of the York Avenue Bridges uh where you're really creating a series of two Bridges with space in between making it feel not so much like a tunnel um these are the most current drawings depicting both developments each side of the street um and here in the middle is just a very uh light drawing of where we're at right now with what we'll call the France Avenue Crossing we're still below the street not above we're not looking at a bridge well we're looking at two bridges on France Avenue but that you would walk under them um and I'm going to ask Brad to talk a little bit about the engineering and and one thing I want to say is you probably look at these drawings and think Mike what have you done what have you spent your time on there's very few you know did you draw much and the reality is every line here represents multiple meetings and you know meeting with the developers and their design teams and the county multiple times and talking about every little Nuance every inch we can get uh because the goal is what we're trying to do is create as much space between the bridges as we can get essentially so Brad why don't you cover a little bit of the engineering thank you thank Mike um so so this this first drawing uh depicts the construction limits that would have to occur on France Avenue to build the um underpass uh the areas in yellow are the roadway uh reconstruction areas and the the areas that are highlighted in red are either medians or curban gutter so as you can see from this drawing here the start of reconstruction is just south of the intersection of Gallagher and then just north of 72nd Street so um I should mention mention too that the southbound Lanes on France Avenue uh would not change geometrically uh the lane widths and the turn lane uh from France Avenue onto gallager would not change uh the slight changes to Geometry would happen on the North side um those changes would happen at the center median we've uh been able to identify a taper that's striped today with uh just pavement markings and we're taking that area and building it into a permanent uh concrete median and then we're shortening the right turn lane that goes into um the the old Macy site and berle's there so um horizontally there's not too many changes again this is primarily driven by uh the vertical changes in France Avenue so this next drawing uh is the depiction below is the vertical profile that will be changing again the the dash line that's faint there is the existing great of France Avenue uh the existing low Point um is just uh north of the new underpass um what we're proposing to do is again go over the underpass raise the road about 7 ft and what that causes is a couple uh new low points one just north of the intersection of Gallagher and one just north of the intersection of 72nd Avenue uh the next slide is just the typical section at the new underpass again France Avenue southbound lane configurations have not changed horizontally uh we've been able to gain a little um space again at the median uh currently it's about 4 and 1/2 ft so we've been able to gain approximately 5 feet there and then again we're reducing the the right turn lane into buyer leav and so uh you do not see the right turn lane on this depiction of the typical section I just want to point out you know the two red verticals in the middle you know it's the two Bridges that's the Gap in between that Brad's talking about and I want you to just focus on that for a minute because later I'm going to come back and talk about that space and then the next slide excuse me is the profile um for the underpass uh beginning on the left- hand side at uh the new development of 7250 we've been able to try to match uh the grades that they are proposing pretty closely uh the profile would uh go downhill down to a low point just uh short of France Avenue collect the storm water for the underpass and then go back up um to the other side to 7235 so uh again this is a The Underpass is approximately 12T uh with a 12T opening and so we were able to try to uh match as Clos as closely as we could to the uh the developers PL so um with that said I'll turn it back over to Mike great thank you Brad so I wanted you to make sure you knew that there were actual Engineers looking at this not just Michael and I Dreaming okay there's some credibility um so one thing um so I'm going to talk about remember I just pointed out that median space What do you do between these two Bridges if you think about the Lowry Avenue Bridges it's like 30 ft of open air and benches and you know that's the way that feels one thing we've learned in working with the county we tried every which way to to widen that space as much as we could here and they're really not interested in shortening you know and one of them would have required us shortening the left turn lane as you go south into the Pinstripes development and they really don't want that shortened so we you know we're working with every parameter and Brad's been you know every inch of elevation has Ripple effects whether you're raising the road widening any of that so we feel like you know we've got the amount of space we're going to get in that median so what do we do with it so I started working on a little bit of a lighting study what are the precedents out there for you know do you just let it be open space You know open to the sky or do you actually do something really interesting in how you bring light down in there between the bridges but more importantly maybe at night when it's lit up from underneath what you create on the street what kind of iconic element could you you create that tells people there's something special going on here um so we've been looking at some studies and I'm not going to get into a lot of it today but just know that was as you walk under these Bridges it's not just gray concrete that you're feeling it's it could be interesting light and it could be um lit well and it could be you know painted bright colors um so it it feels better I'm just going to share a couple diagrams um and these are diagrams there's not this isn't design of Pathways but one of the things the county said is they'd like to see in the future bike Lanes uh we of course suggested that would be great to do on France Avenue where you have way too many car Lanes but um right now they just want us to allow where bike Lanes would happen so on the upper part of this image that gray could be a future bike lane the pink is more of a sidewalk for pedestrians on the south side or the bottom of this this image which is the east side of the street the blue we're showing shared pedestrian and bike ways and so that's a pretty wide again it's it's you know the actual design might be different paths it's just that's the zone that you would do it in so what we're showing with all those spot elevations is we can make this work you can get down uh when Brad lifts the street up we can get under the street in a reasonable elevations and then the pink again is um more of the traditional sidewalk uh when we met with the developers landscape architect team on Friday it was a great brainstorming session and a lot so this diagram was in place until Friday of last week and then we made some revisions they shared more information about the development the design of the development on the east side and said you can bring that sidewalk up it would be really appropriate to kind of make it easier and and less grade cuz before we were going down a little to up a little so here and where future restaurants could be located and everything so it's kind of exciting so what we're trying to do is get the sidewalk as you're walking up France Avenue Rises up at the same level as their Plaza which is wonderful like you just kind of could flow in or keep going by and meanwhile the parkway could be dropping down on from both North and South with a wonderful set of stairs that's really about people Gathering and it's it's walking up and down the stairs but it's also stairs as a place of of interest and on the West Side same kind of concept where we could we we we want to separate the sidewalk from the bridge so it's not extending how much time you're under there um and creating an interesting element but the developers uh were talking about they want to have activities on the first floor of their buildings that you might be sitting outside and so you can see we sort of wrapped that first floor space around so you would have multiple layers of activity again these are still diagram stage um just a few Bird's eyee views um and and I ask you to think of this as a really rough diagram because things wouldn't be this rigid right in this model it's like using a an axe uh in instead of a scalpel here um so what you would see this is if you're flying above the east side of France Avenue looking North we just want to show how this can drop down yet the sidewalk can stay at that level how the stairs can drop down and then sort of an iconic feature in the center of France Avenue this isn't what it'll look like necessarily just illustrating what could happen and if you look at the West Side um you can see again where we've separated that sidewalk and it's actually showing how the bike lane and the sidewalk can join together to cross the bridge and move on this is just sort of hovering over the West Side just to give you a slightly different perspective again all of the grades will work um and again uh when you look at the building masses um just for the developers sake we are not trying it's just a chunk of uh space we're not trying to represent any Heights or anything they're doing there uh and then this is just a view standing on the West Side looking East under the bridges and one of the ideas of the and by the way the from an engineering perspective we're able to do this at a dimension where it's like a 30 foot Bridge um it's about as basic as you can get so we can keep the cost of that pretty reasonable but we can still create a curving element on the North side so the actual curvature follows how you want to move through this and it and uh so you can create this flowing kind of feel here you can see you're already looking through you can see the stairs going up the other side so it's not this long dark tunnel necessarily and we're just illustrating opportunities you can have we can the walls of this could have inlaid artwork um we're playing with ceiling plane again this is a very crude model but the idea um when we start playing with light the natural light coming through can be pretty interesting but also the artificial light in there without looking at light fixtures I think we can have it's just very very artistic and very um uh flowing kind of space so all of that would be designed in the future but as we sit here today uh we haven't found any fatal flaws in this working elevations work utilities work uh everything seems to work fine so that's our our check-in um and we're here for any questions you might have questions for Mike Fisher yes commissioner yes thank you Mr chair so this is a really deep detailed question but I always worry about graffiti in spaces like this and so as you design this I hope that you think about how it can be easily cleaned how it can deter graffiti and stuff because I would hate to have something beautiful put in and then just be uh be grimy within a year or two so just long-term preventing Grime because you've got soot from the cars going by and oil and and stuff and then also graffiti and and so I want to make sure that this space feels clean and welcome um into the future uh thanks Mr chair so I first off I really appreciate the thoroughness um even though you said it's an abbreviated presentation I think you guys get a a very thorough job of expressing your thoughts and um how you kind of see this coming together so I definitely appreciate that I think it has a it does have a chance to um be very iconic in that space um and so I definitely like that um I know we talked about is there a way you can have more of these Gathering types of spaces and I I think in what you're sharing um you definitely are are accomplishing that I had two questions one um on this view um you talked about the um bringing the pedestrian traffic together on the sidewalk I think it was the one before that you kind of had two sidewalks um yeah um can you describe so that I have a a better understanding of how if I am on if I'm a cyclist I would I would get under the bridge cuz on the other View and I I get that this is just a visual you've got people on both sides so how would the the bike traffic go from one side to the other so um that's a great question and I'm glad you asked it because what we're what we're showing here is a response that we had to the county who said yeah what you're doing is great but in the future we might want bike Lanes up and down France Avenue so we're showing how that can happen in the future that's really a future bike lane the the but when you're coming from the West um you know what I wish I would have I should have show maybe a bigger view but when you're coming from on the Regional Trail from the West along Gallagher the the wer for the developer Street on the west side of their development yeah you'll come right down there and right underneath and then up the other side or if you want to be on the west side on France Avenue both or if you're coming down 72nd MH same thing you can walk down and through or you can stay at the upper level just by staying on the sidewalks that come around the front Okay so so you have both all opportunities that way got it okay um thanks for that uh the second question um can you talk a little bit about how you're thinking of ADA as you're designing sometimes we kind of have a habit of we do a design and then almost kind of closer to after the fact we go all right yep for Ada we need to convert these steps to uh switch back and then it works and so um can you describe how you're thinking about ADA in the base of the design work you're doing absolutely so actually the diagram that's up right now is a good example you see all the little Point elevations those are there for exactly that reason we want to make sure that at every point we have to stay under certain percent grades so you don't need a railing or anything you know this is our our ideal is to stay under 5% grade so so everyone can move about we I will tell you that on the so originally I didn't think we were going to be able to pull off the ability to get from the upper level down below coming from the north I thought you would have to take the sidewalk then Loop all the way back down but Michael's been working really hard on from that North the the blue line from the north of making that um work through with ad as well so it'd be a real bonus to come from both sides uh and so we're you know that's very much what we're doing in fact it's interesting when I talk about Ripple effects so right now we're debating you know could we make those paths even better if we lift the grade of the of the as you're going under the bridges up by one foot so then we go to Brad and like okay one more foot Brad and then if he lifts that how does that impact the the first floor of the developer projects because we have to balance with those too right uh we already have an approved project on the west side with a certain floor level and right now that's all working really well we want to match what Patrick's group's doing on their Plaza through the center so all of it's just it's like threading a needle is what it's like but and making sure we're covering the utilities appropriately that are running under France Avenue so right now we have a little bit of room and and we're feeling like confident that if we went into design it would it would work fine that's great um thanks for that and then this last question could be more for Mr new andorf not quite sure um so I do have a funding question um I I know these are kind of rough sketches um so I say it this way can you give us a rough idea of um what we're talking about here from a funding perspective um and really interested in maybe not so much just the the cost but the how we would fund it you want me to give the the cost range and that's a very important question so um thank you so this is very high level and so the numbers are high level but right now we're estimating a very roughly a cost of 15 to 20 million that's a big that's a big number now that includes the roadway improvements The Underpass improvements also includes all the approaches um to get down which are on the developers nickel so to speak so there's that's I think Allin total cost um probably utilities as well the retaining walls Hardscape all those types of things are all bundled in there as we move further down that number will get more precise um so that's the cost and then now assigning the revenue where's the money come from well several million several million I'm talking in big gross um generalizations here um would come from each developer right they're responsible for building the approaches on their on their respective sides of the street so on the 7200 side that denella Plaza um that's a developer cost on the east side of the street or the enclave and lifestyle proposal is that initial work is the developer cost but when it comes to actually building the underpass and changing uh France Avenue the atal roadway that would be a city-led project that would be a city incurred cost very similar to what we've done here um around Eden Wilson and the Meson green where the developer built the building built his own sidewalks put in the grass put in the curb and then the city took over and did everything else the roadway the sidewalks all the work on 50th so we'd be looking at a at a similar Arrangement um we would right now the way we've structured both of the financing for the private projects both the 7250 site as well as the uh Enclave lifestyle proposal you'll hear about it shortly um the majority of funding will come from tax increment financing that's generated from these new projects um we want to be safe I think there's other Federal programs that are out there I think there's some County programs there's probably some State programs so we'll look at all sources and Mike I wonder if you want to talk to some of those yeah opportunities we can get into more detail next time we meet but there are there are opportunities out there um whether it's safe routes to schools or other trans transportation funding opportunities I think we could take advantage of here so that with Tiff could get us a long way I would have said 14 to 19 cuz that just sounds better but I'll go with your 15 to 20 it's it's but there's a big gap because there's many unknowns um but the actual the bridges themselves are kind of the easy part from the money perspective we've made them very straightforward but all that other stuff to make this iconic and special and feel like um you want to be under there and you don't want to Graffiti it that that's where we're like keeping some flexibility and I wanted to just say one more thing and it's an apology actually to commissioner Risser last time we met you asked a very specific question about is this the right spot to CR to cross France Avenue you asked us to look at that and we did immediately when we left here and now it's been so much time I forgot to bring that diagram and I will next time we meet but I will tell you um this is a very key place to cross and and we did a what's called a pedestrian Watershed study where are pedestrians coming from and I'll bring that next time so you can see it thank you y I'm gon to have commissioner U go first and then you can go thank you uh and thank you so much for bringing this and for all of the work that you've put into it I was of the overpass Camp uh and my concerns were how can we make this inviting and how can we not make this feel like you're walking under cement Bridges um and I know that this is just really rough initial sketches but because of what I'm seeing coming from the developments on both sides the green space that invitation to connect I think we're on the path to solving that so thank you for that the only question that I have is because of that because of how essential the collaboration across numerous parties is for this type of project are you seeing the Buy in and the excitement from everyone that needs to come to the table and if not do you see any concerns progressing with this multiple stakeholder ambitious initiative yeah I I think the developers on both sides have been really wonderful in terms of being open to this but understand they also have to make sure you know there's a lot of you know frightening elements of this if you're a developer because when are we going to do this you know they they they are on development schedule we're on a public schedule and we're working with the county and so how do we make this all work this is what I think about from a feasibility perspective bill is right that the developers need to spend the money in front of their developments but you can't ask them to do it multip times right so how do we how do we manage that and I think that is part of the discussion depending on when this happens how much are they investing in their landscape there you know do we do we kind of temper that if we know a year later we're going to be doing this th those are the details but but they've been very cooperative and when we had the brainstorming session on Friday it was so fun right to have the Terry and Jake from who are doing the landscape design on both sides of the street um to have them in and just brainstorm what could happen and I think they started really seeing what Michael and I and Brad have been talking about uh and then they got excited and said oh you know we could do this and that's that's where this will really get special when we start tying those designs together well you teed up the question for me uh timing um do we know how close and know we threading the needle on this as well how close we can get it to the developments we haven't really had that discussion with the county or or anything like that no thank you we're just trying to make sure that it will work you know because it we're just realistic enough to know we're not it probably isn't going to be precise with multiple buildings and when are they going and all of that um but just trying to manage those kind of elements and make sure it can work thank you um commissioner rer um thank you and I appreciate um knowing that that information will be coming the next time we meet the other information I would like is and this is the perfect image to be looking at but I would like to see what um an overhead view of Centennial Lakes is between those bridges because that was supposed to be the model and kind of make it feel Airy and open and I don't really have an accurate understanding you know when I see that Gap um how that compares percentage wise in terms of open space and if we could go to the image that shows the projection above top with the sort of imp pyramid like forms um I do have some concerns and I know you you said this might not be the final element oh it definitely will not okay because the idea of putting you know I think about how people have photographed his pyramids in front of the Lu and sometimes they look very substantial and sometimes very ethereal just sort of vaporized in space and to have something like that on France Avenue seems a little odd so that I am concerned about that but um I think it'll be really helpful to see how this lines up with Centennial AES I am concerned about it feeling continuing to feel like a space that may be daunting to people and they might not want to enter into it uh my other concern in this is that I I've had for a while and this has to do with is this the right site which you're going to provide more information about but um I want to see a larger image of the site because I want to know how people are going to access it you know off of the bike trail so I want to have an image that shows that I want to have an image that shows how people coming from the north are going to be able to take advantage of it and I think this is something we tend to just focus in on the single plot or the single site and that is so counterproductive for understanding especially when we're talking about a project that is you know arguably something that is there for the community as a whole um finally I remember and this you know thank you taxpayer abina for sending me to the league of Minnesota City's meeting where I sat and listened to all of the grant applications and the sources that went into getting a bridge to its final stage and I think the session I was in we learned that it took 7 years to launch it and I I really want to underscore that it is so important to look at all of this you know pots of money that are out there so that this is not a you know Tiff shouldered expense and so there's there's that um in terms of process I don't know you know when we signed on for the $80,000 um for the initial study you know this is going to end up being a multi-million dollar project and so I don't know if there's ever a point where it it goes I mean your firm has done a lot of work but you know how does that play in so that's a a question that I've got um and I need to go back and look at that meeting where we approved the initial study so anyway those are the things that I'm thinking about right now and in part I'm thinking about the pedestrian bridge across 62 where we we had three different developers who came forward with a plan and then we were able to look and select and I think this has a lot of Merit um but financing is something that I'm concerned about a higher view is something that I'd like to see and then maybe from staff more information about other sources of funding and the process that we're going to use if we are moving forward and so I think that's all I have thank you okay thank you for me personally this is really a wonderful update um the I think it's slide five which is the the um open air concept you know i' I've loved those uh yeah Slide Five the way those bridges uh and the space interact over on York Avenue with each other I think remember rer just made that point and so to uh to understand that uh and we had that goal in mind when we started talking about getting across France Avenue uh between the two new uh developments uh but to understand what the County's concerns are and the limitations we have then inherently in being able to do this how could we do something that uh is both uh capturing the notion of getting people safely across France Avenue uh and also make sure that it's something that people want to use as Point has been made uh and something that's really quite appealing to people and I think that slide 19 really captures some nice uh elements of it as you as you look from I think it's from west to east um or yeah looking west to east uh what I would what I would sense is that it's basically a mirror image of what you'd see looking east to west and you get that feeling of openness and spaciousness you can see what's what's on the other side you can see how things open up you can see the staircases you can see people moving uh you've got an elegant sort of spacer moving through uh that yet to be designed you've got light coming in from above that could probably serve a dual function of natur capturing natural light during the day but also being some kind of a lighting feature in the evening whatever the whatever the design is above France Avenue I think one of the most significant things you've done though is to get the county to cooperate at some level here uh and that's that's pretty remarkable because over the years that I've been on the council have the sense that henan County engineering department is mostly interested in throughput and and we're interested in that too but we're you know but if we're slowing people down with fewer Lanes uh and making it a more pleasant experience to go down that street uh that's an important consideration too I think from a city standpoint it's all part of the the building a better aesthetic for your town uh through its landscape design uh and its functionality so you're you're doing a good job so far I think of capturing both Form and Function so thanks so one thing you caused me to think about is if in this diagram on the right side um that that right Northbound right turn lane into the right now into the ble development um we are proposing of shortening that right turn lane because that gets us you know 12 14 ft more Park and less pavement and and at 14 less feet you have to walk under this right so that's a big deal and that one they're being they're not saying no they're not saying yes but I feel like they're leaning toward this could work so those are just the a lot of details going on still so Brad thanks for your work too I think uh it's nice to have the engineering aspect of it on that particular turn in B Lees I think those of us that regularly TR uh travel France Avenue realize that there's there aren't that many people turning in there and people that are turning in there can get in there quick and so shortening it up shouldn't be I think significant concession on the part of the county but that's that's me uh commissioner and I'm going to go back to one other topic oh go ahead go ahead I was just going to finish up on the financing side so we're going to have a discussion here uh in a few minutes about actually it's always the beginning of a of a process do we want to look at at Tiff on a particular project uh do we want to make that inquiry that exploration that sort of front-end view uh of something and I feel the same way here about about this conversation around what are the potential sources of funding and I know that from working on Transportation matters federally there's some significant amounts of uh there's a lot of different pots of funding out there and in fact I I sent a letter around that talks about all those different pots of funding uh but I wouldn't rule out a particular source of funding just because uh it you know we haven't analyzed and we haven't analyzed it yet until we analyze it carefully and that would include the Tiff it would be related potentially to this project on the east side uh but we're a long way from anywhere on making any kind of a decision on that uh but I just want to keep all doors open as we be begin this conversation about a how if it's feasible and B how do we Finance it if it is feasible so commissioner um I so just to piggyback on that they're reason I ask a question is sometimes I think we kind of get out of sequence and this is kind of what it feels like and I'll probably make this comment again in a few minutes you um give us this Grand idea this looks fabulous right and then we go through and we refine developments we all add things to it and then you come in and you say well we can't build that though unless unless we have whatever $20 million in Tiff and then we have that conversation and so I appreciate you being open and willing to be able to say yeah this thing right now is probably going to be somewhere between 15 and20 million because I think that kind of sets a frame for us to be thinking about all right if that's the ballpark we're in maybe some of the things we might be asking for we should because we can't afford it and so at least it puts a little bit of a constraint on the way that we are thinking about and adding to the design process so I definitely appreciate that um and then I do think uh to mayor's point being open to other ways of funding which is not the designer or the engineers issue um is definitely um uh something that I would like to see us lean into and so all of that being said actually like something big and iconic in the middle of France like those pyramids um because I think it would be um I think in and of itself whatever is there could also be a draw whether it's a PID or something else um could be a draw um for people in the con compounds of well can we afford something like that so thank you all right thank you for being here this morning gentlemen Mr chair yes can I ask what how are we doing on time do we have any do we have a hard stop at 9 o'clock I've got a I've got a a virtual meeting at 9:30 so I I just need 15 minutes to get where I need to be so maybe a hard stop at 9:15 for me I don't know everybody else's schedule okay all right thanks okay and I know we're just at the beginning of these conversations and they're going to be continued in the middle of August so we got a little bit of latitude here going to bring Mr nindorf back up now he's going to move on to another topic yes moving on to the main topic for this morning uh like to give a an overview of the staff evaluation and recommendation uh on the use of tax increment financing to help redevelop the site at 7235 France Avenue uh currently the Macy's furniture gallery location but I'll run through this at a high level the packet includes um nearly 40 slides of renderings and background information I'm not going to go through all that but they're there for questions just so you know that it's available I have a question right now was this go ahead was this in our packet yes I don't remember seeing it uh it was uploaded to the packet yep yep uh so the site uh 7235 shown in Black here um obviously in a Dina the red line shows the School District boundary that's that's often times a question with uh with Tiff so the property is in the Richfield School District the din school district is right across the Street in this case current conditions 8 Acre Site uh originally the gravel and sand mining operation um that that existed there for several decades until 1977 when the existing building was constructed we haven't spent we haven't inspected the building it has been deemed to be qualified per state statute as a substandard building which starts the whole conversation of of Tiff before you can even start looking into it you have to make sure that you qualify per state statute and we have done that uh Enclave development has a site under contract uh to purchase they've had a purchase contract with Macy's real estate for more than a year and a half now as they've been working on this proposal and they've partnered with the folks at lifestyle communities to help develop one of the parcels that Southwest parcel um so I might use our names interchangeably but we've been working quite a bit and have had many conversations with both Patrick Brahma and Ben louser at those respective companies they've been very um uh open to sharing their information to our prodding and pushing and asking how the financials work and and how the overall structure is set up uh they of course are here with us this morning and available for any questions after my presentation so the preliminary site plan should should look very familiar to you uh this was the most recently approved site plan um and as I mentioned the developer first came to us back in early 2023 back in March um uh with a sketch plan submitt and at that time they did make us aware that due to the lack of infrastructure on the site due to some of those old soil conditions um that the the use of Tiff is probably going to be necessary just to get the conversation going so that that was known as staff and I think as the proposal worked its way through the Planning Commission and Council that was also mentioned um so the most recently the Planning Commission did recommend that the site plan be approved back in May as a city council uh you granted a uh preliminary resoning with a couple questions to be cleaned up in final and for the last several months um since late March we've been working in Earnest with the developers to help understand their financial their financials to help and better understand uh what the what the financial gap is what their sources are why is a gap created is there a way to to do it any any differently um and we we've had a lot of those conversations that I'll summarize here today got renderings in the buildings um I wanted to put this slide up It's always important to remember that when a developer comes in uh to the city council and the HRA um they need um they need a more than a single approval so for this particular site the the first thing they need is property ownership that's frankly the toughest thing to do in a Dina is find a piece of property that's available for sale so they they've got that um box checked the second is zoning entitlement um as we know a lot of our properties are are Zone um the zoning designations go back Generations um so that process is in play they've got their preliminary as I mentioned and they're working their way towards final and then comes a financing um they need to get their equity on board they need to get their construction debt on board uh and they've been doing that um to our satisfaction we've had several conversations about their Equity investors the the depth of of their Equity um the ability to actually Finance this we've seen some projects that are not able to get financing so that's been a topic of bunch conversation amongst the group um of course they don't have anything solid in place today until they actually get their final resoning they won't even have a chance to get solid financing but staff is certainly satisfied that those pieces will come together um as this proposal Works its way through the system um one thing we have confirmed as well well is the offers um from Equity investors and from lenders is contingent upon the project uh providing market-based returns and right now it does not due to all of the public infrastructure the lack of roadways the lack of in of utilities the fact they they'll have to excavate pretty much the entire site there is a gap and that's why we're here today to talk with with the with you as the HRA board about the use of Tiff to help fill that Gap and that that to me is one thing that we've as a community have have done as our policy for several generations to use Tiff to leverage that private investment in this case um the developers are are preparing to invest nearly $300 million into our community to build what's been um uh discussed and and and granted approval so far and to deliver not just that investment but the public benefits that spill off from that and for this project there's a a lot of benefits that that have been evolving over the time um uh the current site plan is different than the initial site plan it's and it it changes based on on comments and suggestions for improvement um but a lot of the space will be available to the public both sidewalks driveways roadways uh bike trails uh landscape areas seating areas public a lot of different uh public benefits that would be achieved in fact uh close to 50% of the site around 45 46% of the site would be covered by a public easement that would Grant the the general public permanent access to that facility to use those areas and enjoy those areas while the developer would be responsible to finance them to build them to operate them to maintain them in perpetuity so that uh is a pretty significant benefit the the other one uh tying off of what the folks from lhb just presented it also creates this opportunity to do this underpass to extend this prominade feel and and a more comfortable pedestrian experience from the existing prominade Park Westerly to the Cornelia neighborhood not only does a site plan accommodate this it actually welcomes it um and from a financial perspectiv here is the HRA we like to talk about the financial matters um we've set aside 25% of any future increment from this property to help fund public improvements so if if there is a decision in the future to go ahead with the underpass and the separated Crossing there uh we have revenue from this site as well as revenue from the site to the west to help in that effort um that's pretty sign significant for a project of this scale to set aside 25% of the future Revenue um uh that's that's quite a boost of course affordable housing uh there there're very uh happy to meet our policy when it comes to affordable housing units that would be delivered as a as a combination of rental units and ownership units um if this gets approved it would be the first time that that that that happens in one proposal to have ownership and Rental uh shared parking is also something that they're happy to provide the the street level parking spaces in each of the four buildings would be designated uh as public parking so that um you don't have to hunt and find the the you know the right spot for you if you're on the first floor in any of those buildings that's the right spot um and that's something also that is recommended in our um design guidelines and our self-d experience the developers are also uh willing and and eager to meet our sustainability policies um certify the buildings per lead or the national Green Building standards um uh there's been a lot of conversation about that in the Planning Commission and we Al added a provision in our Tiff policy um that addresses who else benefits more directly from this project so both developers are willing uh to satisfy that goal in in our Tiff policy and identify targets for the the the number of people that can work on the job site uh to make sure that the there's employment opportunities uh for people that are typically under underrepresented in in the in the construction Fields women and people of color primarily they've we've also agreeable to set targets um to set aside certain amount of the subcontracted work to go to smaller businesses that are identified as either MBE or wbe firms um now while these are targets they're not quotas um um so there's a lot of State a lot of nuances in the state law that of course will will always navigate but we've done this on our last last couple Tiff projects and these developers are also willing to do it but let's let's get to the financing that's why we're really here this morning um so staff evaluates the financing um with the assistance of ERS Associates so a lot of the numbers here are generated from Nick an Hut at Ellers Nick of course is available here with us this morning um so my summary is kind of the shortened con uh concise version of of all of Nick's generation but projects like this are truly transformational to the community the current site uh is valued at about $12 million to the tax assessor it pays a tax bill every year of nearly $350,000 that's a lot of money with this type of transformational change those numbers will increase exponentially um where the future taxes to be paid increase by a factor of 10 to $3.6 million um so a lot different than just rehabbing the building or building a couple uh tearing the building down and doing something smaller scale couple retail stores or something like like that truly a transformational project the Tiff District would would last for 25 years so when you look at at that increment about $3 million a year over 25 years you're looking at about $68 million in total taxes collected now um that's the cumulative amount when it comes to the financing we always look at at the present value of that and the present value of that cash flow is about $30 million so when I mention that we' set aside about 25% of all the tax increment to help fund public improvements it's 25% of $30 million so I mean it's a big it's a big dollar amount to help finance things that the city might like I added this slide to to look a little bit more in depth about the tax dollars and where they go today where they would go when the Tiff district is created and then where the tax dollars go when the Tiff District expires um and in in Redevelopment Finance it's the long game right I'm not so I'm not so focused on what happens tomorrow I'm more concerned about what happens 10 years down the road 20 years down the road because that's the permanent change for the community so I'll I'll focus on this just for a little bit um I appreciate your patience on this um as well so today the $350,000 uh tax bill um some goes to the city the school the county of course but on Commercial sites such as this about 50% of those taxes go outside of AD they go into the fiscal disparities pool and they go to the state of Minnesota that's tax policy in Minnesota we're not going to change it it's not right or wrong it's good or bad it's not good or bad but that's how it is half of the taxes paid on the site never even touch a Dina when we create a tiff District uh and the developer builds a project obviously they their tax bill goes up dramatically and with Tiff remember there's the base amount that's frozen and then there's the increment so a couple examples of of of how that actually plays out so if you look at the city and the county on the top 45,0 57,000 that's the base amount it it stays about flat they're still paying their share but it's uh it's not uh it's not adjusted the school district is adjusted so even with the Tiff District in place the amount of tax dollars that would be redistributed to the schools increased from 62,000 to over 400,000 um the state of Minnesota goes up a little bit the fiscal disparities pool goes up a little bit but the biggest chunk of dollars during the active years of the Tiff District 2.7 million that's the increment that stays within to help reimburse the developer for all the public benefits we ask them to build for us as well as any public improvements like an underpass or anything else that's that's relevant um that the city would choose to build so for for the active years that's about 25 years not a short period of time but uh during that time uh you know most of the taxing entities are either neutral or increase the tax collection um but the the biggest amount does stay within the site and then let's let's look at post hiff it's the long game it's why we look at some of these big transformational projects in in Dina year 26 the the Tiff district is finished all the tax base is still there you still have buildings they're they're 20 some years old but they're still solid buildings that um are going to be on the tax rols for a while this is where it gets really interesting so the tax collection by the city increases from 45,000 to almost 900,000 the county similar similar scale the school district more than doubles the state the uh disparities the smaller taxing agencies they all go up because the money doesn't need to go into the Tiff District any longer so this is a very simplistic um comparison um we did not adjust for inflation we made a lot of assumptions like every taxing agency just does the same thing and they don't jockey their numbers and we all know that nothing's static right there's always changed there's always going to be inflation but I wanted to provide a quick overview um of of how Tiff Works before or during and after um because I think it's essential to have that Long Long View when we look at these proposals so we did confirm um in the first step of our evaluation that there is revenue generated and enough to actually make a difference we then um start looking at the developers numbers at their at their uh construction numbers and their performers um not going to go through this in detail but um in each of the parcels the the Northwest parcel uh is about 56 million the east Parcels that those are the two buildings right on the prominade that's just shy of $150 million investment and then the condominium building on the southwest corner about $95 million as as I mentioned we have confirmed that there are a combination of uh internal and external Equity investors that are ready to to invest in this project as if the Pieces come together and also we've received letters from Bank banking institutions and mortgage lenders that are interested in the project assuming the Pieces come together when it looked when we look at at Tiff for any specific project we also look to confirm um The Gap and to make sure that there's enough public benefit to justify Tiff and so that's what this chart shows now there's always a big difference state law would recognize over a hundred million as Tiff qualified a dino policy is a lot different um we look at a much smaller subset than the state state law would would allow so in this case we recognize about $26.8 million uh as direct costs that provide a public benefit to the community um that would be delivered by this project now we're not recommending that we pledge $26 million I'm just saying that that's the public benefit that we've uh calculated we actually size the Tiff recommendation based on their need we want to fill the Gap to make the project doable and finance fin anible so there's an there's a a sheet like this for each of the three phases I'll just go through one as the example and again this is a very simplification uh of the numbers um if you want to get in more detail Nick would be happy to to to bend your ear and answer questions about that but when you look at the operational expenses to see does this project make sense financially you're looking at the at the revenue stream the the gross income from rent um fees and commercial rent you're looking at the annual operating costs management paying their taxes paying their light bill everything else you um you you then look at you compare those two or subtract the expenses from the revenue to get your net operating cost and you find that the return based uh based on just expenses and revenue is about 5.51% below market so um that's not an acceptable return you can go down to US bank today and get 5% so um Real Estate Investors with risk will will not settle for a 5% return so that's where we've confirmed that a tiff supplement a tiff reimbursement of part of the expenses would be necessary to actually secure those equity and debt uh investors into this project so the conclusion is the same for each of the three Parcels without Tiff support we don't think any of those three elements would be Financial viable um we have looked at them individually um uh we wanted to be precise just in case um you know maybe one of them was a grand slam maybe the East Parcels they were make you know their Pro their returns were outrageous we so we analyzed each of the three separately and confirmed the same thing that based on the projections that that are available today in this Marketplace without Tiff none of these buildings would be financially feasible and that's how we get to our recommendation so there's a term sheet in your packet that was prepared by by dorsy and Whitney they provide our legal guidance on this um Jay lingren um helped prepare the term sheet and uh of course Jay is here to answer any questions as well um so I'm not going to go through the whole term sheet there's 40 some pages that's in your packet um but I will cover the high points and the biggest point I want to make is that um in these Tiff recommendations we we make sure that the developer Bears the Financial Risk so it's it's their risk to get the property under contract to line up the equity to line up the debt to get all the entitlements and all that work that costs million Millions we're also recommending that the the developer pursue grants to see if there's other ways to offset some of the costs on this project we think there's grants from deed met Council in henin county that might be applicable they're competitive they no guarantee we're going to get them but we'd like the Developers to pursue them we're also presuming that that the developer finances each of these three lots the Northwest the East and the Southwest independently so that means that the equity investors and the mortgage lender might be different on all three projects we want to make sure they've got the maximum flexibility to get the to get the best terms out there in the marketplace uh We've also made sure that the developer um would be mandated to issue public easements upon complete um it's nice to have green green space but if there's not a legally binding contract it's just pretty green space we want to make sure that it's public Green Space um from the city perspective the obligations we would be expecting are recommending is that we give consideration to establish a new 25-year Redevelopment Tiff district and that upon completion we would we would uh plan to pledge Tiff notes pay youo Tiff notes one for each of the three projects so when they finish the project we would issue we would confirm the Gap confirm the financing and then issue a note um that note would be payable from property taxes collected from that one parcel so if they uh if they pay the the property taxes that we project their note gets paid off uh if if they pay less taxes go down in the future that's their risk they don't get paid off if they pay more taxes than we're projecting they get paid off early and we're finished um so that's the typical Arrangement and that's a real simplification of it um but we've set up a structure for for separate notes for each Parcels again wanted to reiterate that we've sized each of these notes in the whole Tiff District Tiff District to ensure that there's about 205 or at least 25% of the tax increment would be available to the city to fund public infrastructure like an underpass or other related improvements and the whole term sheet again is based on the premise that the Financial Risk is born by the developer not by the city not by the HRA we also have um General Provisions in the term sheet to look at look backs and clawbacks um we still need to negotiate these based on on on on Final construction numbers that we don't have yet but just I wanted to provide assurance that per our Tiff policy um we will We the city will have the ability to peek at the developers numbers at specific points in time in the future to make sure that they really do need the money um and if we find that for example um let's say they sell the property at an outrageous project a profit it's the best sale and generations well then they didn't need Tiff and we'd have the ability to either terminate payments or claw back any the money we gave to them um so the developer doesn't like that part of the conversation that's been one of the toughest ones um but that's our policy we and we will do that so just wanted to assure you that that would that that would be included and then of course when it comes to the all the public spaces all those public benefits uh we envision a whole series of binding easements that run with the land so whoever owns it at whatever point in time in the future there'd be a binding Covenant or easement that gives the public rights and access to those spaces the parking the sidewalks the trails the housing Etc um so to summarize um the as you know the projects wielded its way through the Planning Commission and the sketch plan and the neighborhood meetings to city council uh We've confirmed that there's a number of public benefits that people generally like to see on the site we've affirmed that there is sufficient revenue generated um based on their scale of investment we've confirmed uh independently that there truly is the financial gap in their budgets and we've also confirmed that the property does qualify as a blighted or substandard building as we prepared the term sheet we've also kept an eye to state law that's where Mr lingren comes in um to make sure we're following the law as well as our own internal policies and that brings me to to our recommendation um and that's where I recommend that we do move forward with the term sheet uh consider the establishment of a new Tiff District that process takes two or three months my recommendation is that we start that process doesn't mean that we're going to reach a successful conclusion but we need to start that process just because it takes so long um recommend is to propose is is to approve the term sheet as written recognizing the maximum Tiff contribution of about 22.8 million um delivered through a bunch of of payo Tiff notes upon completion it's not a subsidy we this would this would be an incentive if they perform if they deliver then they get the payo notes if they fail to perform they fail to deliver to to deliver they get nothing um and so I seek your authorization to move forward and actually finish the legal the legal contracts um based on these terms uh that work will take another two two and a half months as well um so we' like to get started on that if if this is something that you're agreeable to um uh so that's where I'll turn it back to you Mr chair uh myself Jay lingren Nick an Hut happy to answer any questions the development team of uh Patrick Brahma and Ben Ben Ben louser also here for any questions back to you Mr chair thank you Mr narf I'm going to bring Mr lingerin up here and ask him to give us a little bit more um structure around what you called the process which you touched on just generally so that we understand I think I think commissioner Pierce I I think I know what direction he's heading in and that is you know the Council just made a preliminary approval on the project but no you didn't have a final approval in front of us yet as a council and now here we are as an HRA sitting here talking about uh potential use of Tiff I personally know from having been involved in this that it's a lengthy process before you ever get to a decision point but I think we should have a little bit more structure around what's involved in that process and and where the public voice comes into play and where the voice of the Richfield School District comes into play those those types of things if that's enough guidance for you sure Mr chair Commissioners good to see you um good to be here today um without putting a calendar schedule on it what I would say in I appreciate sort of the Rhythm if you will that we've developed over time by asking you to look at a very detailed term sheet we've developed a 40-page document in order to say okay is the general direction going correctly this is not a commitment at this point in time and there are you know several looks at this again before a final decision is made um as Mr newor mentioned if you move toward a establishment of ta tax increment District that takes time so you will be asked to consider calling the date for the public hearing but that's not a commitment to establish the Tiff District yet our next step is to take this 40-page document and make it into potentially a several hundred page document that includes all of the details on how the easements would be structured and all the mechanics of everything so and that would come back to you again and again remember that the development team supplies the city the HRA with the resources the monetary resources to develop that work and so that will take some time at the end of the day from a timing standpoint um you know as as we not just look out for the city's interest but try to form this partnership with the developer we have to look at what their reality is on real estate closings and in the term sheet you have right now they have a schedule to close on the real estate acquisition from Macy's between the middle of December and the end of March and so that's sort of the realistic Marketplace timeline is that these additional steps that we need to go through should wind up giving them Direction on whether or not you agree this is the right strategy by sometime you know at least by early December so do that help go through this deliberation process of thinking about whether we want to byy Tiff to this project and enter into an agreement there's there's an opportunity in there I think multiple opportunities for the I'll call it the public voice to be heard not just our voices representing the public but uh the public itself and the various taxing entities that are potentially affected by this how does that work so each of the taxing entities and and actually Mr an Hut knows this better than I do so he might correct something but in general they're all given notice of it so they have the same kind of numbers that Mr new andorf talked about they will hear about it um you have public hearing involved for the actual establishment of the Tiff District the Redevelopment agreement would need to come before for you for approval um you know in whatever form of public uh participation you want so there at least those you know two very specific times before you as the elected officials in the city um and that would occur over the next several months few months so though we're entering potentially entering into a term sheet it's more like a what we might in Le of business an Loi it's a letter of intent it's non-binding agreement but you have to have something to go forward from a structure from to see if if a deal could be made somewhere down the line yeah and Mr chair maybe I should have said it more clearly what I like about the term sheet is you're making no commitment now other than you know to participate and to communicate this is there's no contractual obligation at all at this point and it's really the question of you're giving your direction to your team to say okay those ideas in general are the right thing flush out the rest of it so we can take another look that's really what we're asking for the recommendation not not really to approve anything it's to say okay you're generally going in the right direction keep going Mr new andorf anything to add to that the only thing to add is that um in addition to the formal process of of the Tiff evaluation by the school district in the county and of course the city we'll also post that to the Better Together website that's been our common practice ractice um we specifically set up this process to make sure that we that the Tiff conversation comes um in the right sequence um and that there is public opportunity to both be informed and to provide comments on that so um we specifically staggered um the term sheet to come after the preliminary zoning approvals because for example if the preliminary approval was declined we won't even be here this morning so we we stay it that way intentionally and the same with the final Redevelopment agreement they need to come in and get their final zoning first and if that is granted then we would come in after the fact with the Redevelopment agreement um but we have staggered it in a way that we can do two things at once um because the the entitlement process I mean it's going on about 18 or 20 months already just to get through the zoning and so if we waited till everything was buttoned up to start the Tiff conversation you're adding another six to 9 months to the process um the real estate industry doesn't move that slowly so we have to be responsive to the fact that they're moving out of at the market Pace turn to commissioner Pierce who has some process questions too I think uh thanks Mr merer um so thanks for that that overview um the um I've got a couple of questions actually could you go to slide 21 before I talk about process so this is um I think this is the clearest slide I have seen and it has something in here that we hear all the time that you are articulating and kind of blowing through um and I mean that in a positive way and so but I want you to kind of talk through it and so here's the question so um you have a current tax collection and that's that's an annual number correct and then your next column talks about active tip District so that's once a project is done that's the during the 25-year period right and so for the Richville School District we're showing that currently it's 62,000 at the start of the Tiff District it's almost a half a million and then at the end of the Tiff District it almost doubles again and so just talk about how that how that is is is that a fair question it it is a fair question so um I'll talk in generalities and then I'll ask Nick to get into a little bit more detail um but in general um I think I would guess that in every state in America when Tiff comes up the one of the biggest complaints is you're stealing textbooks from my kids you're stealing computers from the school kids over the 50 plus years that Tiff has been used used in Minnesota the state legislation that governs Tiff is changed virtually every year there's always something tweaked in there and a lot of the uh adjustments have been with an eye to that concern about are you hurting the school district so there's a whole flurry of um of legislation that's been around for quite some time and and gets modified to counteract that concern um and I'll ask Nick to speak a little bit about about why it changes for the for the school district market value versus tax capacity value and get into the weeds a little bit more thank you uh Commissioners uh Nick anhut with Ellers and Associates financial advisers to the city and the HRA um and I prepared uh the numbers for this slide um perhaps in a little bit more convoluted sense than bill simplified and made it much easier to swallow um the simple fact relies on that tax increment does not uh statutorily capture all of the levies that are adopted by various bodies uh when a tip district is established the base value or the amount that the property is contributing to your tax base is frozen and will continue to provide funding just as it does U before the Tiff district is established it continues to provide that same tax capacity throughout the life of the Tiff District it also does not capture what's called a market a referendum market value uh tax base and that is specifically impactful to the school districts because they have several levies uh that fund their programs that are based on that referendum market value within the community so when a new project in a tiff District comes forward it has tax capacity that comes onto the system not all of it gets captured uh for purposes of that their referendum Market values continue to flow and increase um I would put a caveat that it doesn't mean necessarily that the school district is going to get extra budgetary dollars it just means that this property now is going to be contributing much more than it was in the past lowering everyone else's tax bills throughout that jurisdiction um the school district and I hope that we'll get into this in a discussion with the HRA in the future um they have other mechanisms that might constrain their ability to actually increase their budgets primarily enrollment um and so it doesn't mean that they're going to get extra money but it does mean that this property is going to be contributing way more than it was in the past and then the rest of their tax base needs to contribute less um also the state of Minnesota fiscal disparity pools those are not captured within the Tiff District so those revenues uh continue to fund those programs and the way they're utilized and then at the end of the day once everything uh is desertified whether that's 25 years from now or 20 if it's earlier um all of that tax base comes on to the regular uh tax capacity roles and then helps contribute to the levies that are adopted at that point in time um I think that addresses your question but I'll be happy to dive into more detail um I I would at at a later date want to dive into that a little bit more um I I definitely understand you're saying there's a difference between what a um What expenses a school district may need from a budgetary standpoint and what's available that's kind of how I hear you describing that um and so this project would contribute more to what's potentially available but then the district would look at well how much do we actually need to spend from a budgetary standpoint um so I definitely understand that but would like to to dive in into that a little bit more um at a future date um and then just briefly since we've got a I think we got a hard stop oh sorry just very quickly Mr chair members of the commission that date is going to be August 15 we've uh Mr new andorf and I had some discussions with uh with 's staff they're putting together a presentation for us for our HRA meeting on that morning uh I've already invited the school superintendents to join us that day so we can all kind of hear the same thing at the same time thank you um thank you manager Neil um and then just briefly on a the process standpoint I I started uh talking about that earlier this morning um I I like the time frame that we kind of just discussed um and I don't know who to credit this to uh I'm sure manager Neil will tell me who we should give the kudos to but I actually like the fact that we had developer come in to talk about how to connect these sites um we had the developer of the 7200 they were in the back to kind of hear some of that and now we've and we also have the Macy site and so you can kind of step back and imagine the entire piece allthough they're all separate projects um I I think that that does add some Credence to um how we talk about public benefit more broadly because you can kind of step back and see all of that and imagine um what that potential could be um and but because of that I do like the idea of thinking I was I can't remember who said this but December to March that that's a that I think that gives us more time than we probably need to just make sure we can tick the boxes on all of these projects before um making a decision on um Tiff um and then the other question uh comment I'll make just in our notes um saying that dorsy Whitney and Ellers were prepare you're asking us to prepare a tiff Redevelopment um I don't know if I like the the word prepare but I understand that you've got a 40-page document that you need to do a lot more due diligence with to be able to actually bring back to us so that we can ask even deeper questions about what's in there and how it all gets um allocated and what have you um and so I think that that makes sense um in general I um I I my preference would be um that we on understand way up front um just some relative idea of how much Public Funding we might need for a particular project um as and I think it's unfair to the developer we go so far down the road in terms of sketch plan review with the Planning Commission and we do preliminary approvals and um we get pretty far down the road before we have some sketch out of what we think the public benefit might be and in future I'd like for us to think about how we can adjust that just a a little bit um but I do like uh thank you um Mr lingam for coming up and and kind of talking through that process that's it yeah commissioner let me ask you a quick question uh we on the word prepare I was thinking about that as you mentioned that and wondering if the language uh if we did pass a motion that we would authorize staff to engage dorsing whitne to draft a proposed form of Tiff Redevelopment agreement that if that if that language is something that creates more comfort for you around yeah in Li of the word use of the word prepar yeah anyway uh commissioner Jackson then commissioner Brer yes thank you Mr chair well it's 901 I have two pages of questions about this term sheet and then as we're talking I have questions about our assessment process this is could probably be a 45 minute conversation so I don't know I'm very frustrated right now extremely frustrated so I don't know how to go about getting answers to my questions some of these terms I really disagree with so I'm not willing to vote Yes today um so I I don't know what to do we don't have time to to get my let's talk about that um been reason can't be held over to the 15th of August for further discussion uh there's no major uh reason I think that can work the the um I I'm aware the developer has some deadlines to meet one of the deadlines is this Friday um is my understanding um uh maybe that can get changed on his on his calendar I'm not certain but a two we delay to the city is not a problem to the developer it'll probably be expensive but to the city that's that's agreeable to the city because I I will say as this is written I'm going to vote no so I'm going to have to see some changes I have some big questions about the but four test um it seems like complying with the Southdale guidelines is the but four test to uh the the way I read this so I'm just going to give you the general question I've got the way I read it is that the subdivision of the land and putting those um connector spaces whether there're streets or paths is very much of what the butt four what it what triggers the butt four test for Tiff and I'm very concerned that when we went through the Southdale process and the land use side of this oh this will pay for itself we'll allow this bigger Redevelopment um there's no step backs at the higher levels on these buildings that's something that is encouraged in the Southdale guidelines it's more profitable for the developer to not have the step packs and yet we're still seeing that this isn't going to pay for itself I I'm really concerned about this that what we have put forth as land use um terms seem to automatically trigger Tiff I'm concerned about the parking um I think if you're going to have shops you're going to need parking and to say that that's public is nice but the Public's going to be coming to go to the shops anyways and so I I I don't know how that's any different from the private lot in the South to in the property to the South they have shops they have parking for their shops I can go there I'm a member of the public I park and I shop these are going to be parking spots I'm going to go there I'm going to park and I'm going to shop I don't I don't see why that makes it extra special that we should fund it um I don't see anything in here about the language we've talked about with complying with labor standards um I very much want to see that in in any document that we go forward with um the assessment um if we're paying taxes or if if the property's paying taxes based on a $12 million assessment but this property probably sold for close to double that why does our assessment so far below what the market value of this property is and it's the same with the Kevin key side right you look at the assessment and what they're offering for it in the market it's you know double so I don't understand how our assessment process works um when these sites come up for sale it doesn't seem fair to the taxpayers um and like I said there are just some specific things um in here that um I have questions about how the some of the affordable housing things work the fixed versus floating how it works in the Condominiums there's no detail on how that's going to remain um affordable so I can send you my list of questions but they're long and some of them are very detailed but some of them are big policy questions that I'm really struggling with so thank you Mr chair it seems to me that um there's a should be a conversation I won't call it necessarily a private conversation but I think it's a St conversation with um any commissioner that has any concerns about the term sheet and nice to have had time to react to that and have those conversations so that when we came to a public setting things were more streamlined and effective is what point you're getting at I think too um you were you were going to say something in member yeah I I was just goingon to um pee back on member Jackson I think she did a wonderful job of kind of talking through what I term there's some policy challenges there's some design challenges as well that you describe that impact what would be or could be in a term sheet and so I I just think that is a a a a really good example of why from a process standpoint I think we do need to take the time to go through that um I you could send your questions which you probably should but I think we would all benefit from hearing and seeing some of that um as well so I don't necessarily think we should do it from a private standpoint um we should hear those answers in a um in a public forum and I didn't go through my list of questions um either um and so I think it I think it just underscores the need to make make sure we have a u the time to go through all of that right yeah when I said a staff-driven conversation between the commissioner and the staff I was assuming is that when it came then to the full conversation we'd we'd have the benefit of all of those questions being answered in a public manner so we have transparency member rer commissioner rer um I share um commissioner Jackson's frustration and for me uh because we're running out of time I'm going to focus on attachment a the project site plan and um while I am sympathetic to the deadlines of the developer I do want to underscore that it was me raising a concern about the France Avenue access from the sidewalk not being ADA Compliant and for that to be something that and I did it as a city council person for that to be something that a city council person has to raise at a time when we are under doj investigation for not being ADA Compliant possibly not being ADA Compliant on the Grand View pedestrian bridge is just to me mindboggling and so that I think was a bump in the road that the developer should not have placed there the other thing is as you go back and you look at how these plans are being presented that dog park was supposed to be open space it becomes a dog park very late in the game and I know that when we talked about the preliminary rezoning there wasn't the word preliminary in front of the site plan and so now we have in this document that you want us to push forward a site plan that does not appear to have ADA compliance along France Avenue that has a dog park there were I believe eight things that we were concerned about when when we approved that preliminary rezoning and I don't see those reflected in the information that is going to go out in this Tiff um proposal so I have a really big problem with that and I think this Cycles back to the very initial concerns that were raised by member pierce the sequence of events we don't have the final project plan you know so what are we doing here and I know we did get a long you can just kind of go back and sort of this infinity loop of explaining and all of that but I don't think it's fair to the public for us to move this forward and the other thing that I am concerned about in terms of process this came out on Monday and it I you know I looked at the packet and and this is in the packet so uh my apologies for raising that as a question but when I looked I only saw the term sheet and that could have been me being disrupted by my dog who knows what but um so I want to apologize to staff for raising that concern it it does not appear to have been legitimate but these other things you know really we need to look at these and then we were concerned about a wind study you we're talking about a a tiff investment that's going to last 25 years for architecture 75% of it and I've learned the term stick construction it's not concrete uh you know when you think about these seven St buildings and all the wind over a period of over a quarter of a century what exactly are we going to have at the end of that period I'm also trying to wrestle with the idea of blighted property the Macy's Furniture Store is an upscale furniture store and I know has repeatedly been referred to as a bunker I think it is a remarkable piece of architecture from that era when Earth reinforcement was something that people did and when you walk into that Macy's Furniture Store it certainly does not feel like like blighted property so those are my concerns and I as with my colleague I can't see pushing this forward thank you m thank you I I appreciate the conversation and the queries from my colleagues um but I just want to reiterate I think that that's like the phase of the process that we're in um and I do I do hear um commissioner Pierce uh in there may be some opportunities that we have as a city to begin to reorder some of these things more holistically so that we can have insight into it earlier on but I just want to remind everyone that we're on like phase one of of many phases and I think that that's exactly what folks were looking for right are what are our concerns what things do we want to see tweaked so I think that this was valuable discussion and I I hope that it's just enough to to bring forward um there are no kind of additional components but just one appreciate all of the work that's gone into it up until this point um and know that we will iterate and have many many many many more conversations about this project and Tiff financing in particular thank you you know though the um proposed uh term sheet is a non-binding agreement fact that commissioner Jackson and commissioner Pierce has mentioned as well concerns about some of the elements of it you want to make sure that the structure of the proposed term sheet uh matches up you know because when you get into discussions about a proposed agreement people offer reference back to well it's not it's not in the LOI or it's in the LOI this way you know and U and so these concerns that she hasn't been able to articulate because of the short because of the time frame involved are probably things that we do need to talk about before we do have a term sheet that the term sheet reflects what we think a potential deal Downstream fleshed out with more skin on the bone if you will would look like but those those key elements even though it's non-binding I think are really beneficial to have in a in a so how do we deal with that issue I don't know what kind of situation with the developer but you can tell from the tener the conversation up here that it's a Something That We're uncomfortable you know some of us are uncomfortable moving forward with this morning and how we have a more thorough conversation about the elements of least of the term sheet some of the other things that we've talked about I think can be dealt with as member commissioner agner say Downstream because because of the non-binding nature of this and there will be elements that come into it and there could be things that we we make a decision on as a council that relate to the final development plan and site plan that caus certain things to be altered here as well so um the question is can we wait till the middle of August to have this conversation again or have a special meeting in a couple weeks I guess said that is a couple weeks at the end of the month right we um if I could if I could respond to a couple of those items uh so we we have the next scheduled meeting on August 15th um we could we could set that up as a joint meeting to finish this conversation about the term sheet take action if you're so inclined and still have half the meeting to talk about tiff with the school folks and then we can push down the road a conversation about the underpass to get I think we had a lot of discussion this morning so maybe you got your questions answered on that one today um but we can push that down the road um uh uh I don't want to I don't want to speak for the developer um they would prefer an answer sooner than later but from a City HRA process perspective pushing it down the road a couple weeks is no problem so if that's your inclination that's fine um and the term sheet itself um we strived not to get into matters of zoning or site plan and it was staff was tempted on many occasions to to do that but we really try to keep the HRA operating the lane of financing and leave the planning zoning site plan review to the city council so uh uh how we typically do these uh Tiff packets is the term sheet just includes the most recently approved site plan we just drop it in there the actual Redevelopment agreement the the the legal contract that's binding if we get to that point um would have the final site plan as approved in in a couple weeks or a couple months so um we intentionally did not get into the details of where's the dog park and what's the slope of the ramp and that like that was we intent omitted those areas um but substantive questions or concerns I'm happy to talk on those oneon-one or as a group um we're certainly uh able to revise that term sheet um always be aware that that a term sheet is intended to be concise so when it comes to matters like the long-term affordability of a future condominium unit that's a whole another 30 page document um we didn't want to prepare that document if you're not even agreeable to the concept so the term sheet focuses on the concepts um I think one of the last pages of the term sheet lists exhibits um a through P that we currently Envision would need to be created um and so we would I you know I I hope you you'd have fa faith in staff and our and our advisers that with your consent to move forward at some point in time that you you'd eventually get a full packet that has all the exhibits that has all the detail all the details flushed out we're just not at that point today but happy to get there yeah so it seems to me that there's a couple different possibilities one is we have a work session and go through this together or uh folks that have concerns uh Commissioners that have concerns about elements of the term sheet they send to you in advance so that you can you can prepare answers to those questions or have conversations with them so that we can have a conversation a public Arena about those various concerns um but it is um it is important to have the time to be able to to flesh all this out so as I'm just can use this by way of example is that if commissioner Jackson had a point that would be covered more thoroughly in uh the subsequent document and not in the detail we'd expect in the term sheet then that'd be a good thing to know but until she asked the question and we have the conversation how are you going to know and she also may have some things on her list that haven't even been thought of to that are potential additions of the term sheet or just understanding elements of the term sheet better for all of us you know so uh based on that and and the and the significance of this potential project that was preliminarily approved by the council what what do you suggest we do here is in terms of having a study session together to go over the elements of the term sheet which we usually leave to you and professional staff or do you want to have these little one-off conversations and then we deal with it all on the 15th my recommendation would be to um to do kind of a hybrid if if you've got a list of questions or two pages of questions I'm eager to to know what those are and I can start preparing responses or or edits um we can do that informally in the next couple days or week um but then come back as a group on the on the 15th and show the changes and and make sure that your colleagues hear your questions as well um my concern is if we wait to the 15th to start the conversation we're now going to have to kick it down the road another month to actually get we all agree with that we all understand that member Comm commissioner rer my problem is that we do not have our most recent approved site plan is not showing does not appear to have ADA Compliant access from France Avenue and so we need to have a site plan that shows that um and that needs to be passed by Council and so you know we can have all of these conversations regarding and and we do need to have all those conversations uh regarding Council or commissioner um Jackson's concerns but we need to have a site plan that has Ada access and that needs to happen so so what's your reaction to that a concern uh my concern would be I guess my reaction is that we're having happy to modify the term sheet to make reference that this is a placeholder image to be to be replaced with the final version um that would be my recommendation my concern is if we wait till the final site plan is finished um two concerns um that could be a couple months away I think that kills the project um and also the final site plan that's approved through zoning is not the construction plan there's still two layers of construction detail so the zoning the the even the final Zone own in plan it shows it has more detail but the real plan that they actually build to is still probably 6 months down the road so um uh I guess at some point that that's where the building department gets involved the engineering department gets involved that's when everyone gets into all the detail but certainly the the final site plan that's approved would be closer but it's still not the final detail um so if we wait even longer um you know at some point you just have to act and presume that the that the professional staff and professional Architects and Engineers that put their licenses and careers on the line are doing the right thing Mr lingren you want to you have any comment on the concern what the site plan or the the suggestion Mr uh new andorf is making relative to the kind of a holding holding spot in in the term sheet or the relevance of the site plan to the work you're doing relative to the term sheet Mr chair Commissioners I agree with what Mr new andorf said when we're crafting this for your consideration as the HR we only yield to your decisions as the city council that's not decided in this and so whatever the ultimate decision and the modifications necessary in the site plan that would tie back to this document and I was just actually looking for the language because I think we always put it in here that that we say anything that comes out of the Redevelopment agreement that would might flow out of this term sheet is subject to the final zoning and land use approvals adopted by the city council so in my mind this doesn't determine any of that you know and and there's still time to modify it and it always would be done that way it would only tie to what your final approvals are thank you for that Mr chair go ahead I I think what we're talking about here though is what what are your kind of immediate next steps and I think your immediate next steps is if we can get um some questions prior to prior to our August 15th meeting we would have the opportunity to respond to those and share those responses uh with the commission prior to the start of that meeting certainly um we can we can structure that meeting we didn't structure that meeting with the entire meeting dedicated to school uh School District City Tiff we can we we told that uh our our guests that we were going to reserve half the meeting so we can still sort of do I think we can still accomplish that and and still table some of the discussion and possible uh reaction by their possible action by the council to that meeting what kind of a time situation are we in with respect to um 72 in France uh number three Tiff District was the next item on the agenda so um based on the comments today I'd recommend we we table that resolution of course um but that what that resolution says uh it asks that the city council schedule a future meeting um but it sounds like we need to look at the dates and um if you're not comfortable with finishing the term sheet conversation I don't think you'll be comfortable approving that resolution um so we would what that means the consequence is that the process would be delayed um you know at least a couple weeks um uh it's not the end of the world okay and that's there's no there's no exigency there we have a we can we can put that off a little bit right okay all right um so I think that probably concludes our work this morning uh anything else no nothing else Commissioners or from the executive director all right is there a motion to adjourn we'll move second commissioner eggon moves commissioner appear second so we adjourn the meeting of the H uh this 25th day of July 2024 any further discussion all in favor of adjournment say I I opposed carried h meeting of July 25 2024 stands adjourned