It is 7:31 a.m. and this is the meeting of the housing and red redevelopment authority for the city of Vidina uh on this particular June 12th day. And um uh we have these meetings continuing in a hybrid sort of fashion. People can uh stay home and watch them virtually and call in. There's some call-in information. I think that'll pop up on the screen here temporarily. Uh and today today we have one opportunity to call in and that is during uh community comment and there are no public hearings to call in on today and community comment just a reminder that uh it should not be about something that's on the agenda today or scheduled for a future public hearing. Uh having provided information I'll call the meeting to order and I'll ask our executive director Scott Neil to call the role. Thank you Mr. Chair. Commissioner Risser here. Commissioner Jackson here. Commissioner Pierce is absent. Commissioner Agnu here. Chair Hlin here. Uh, next is the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag 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. We have a form of meeting agenda that's been published to the public and to the members of the HR. Uh, any commissioner have a change to the agenda they wish to make? Staff. All right. Is there a motion to adopt the meeting agenda? So moved. Second. Commissioner Jackson moves. Commissioner Agnu seconds adoption of the meeting agenda as published. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adopting the meeting agenda say I. I. I opposed carried. The meeting agenda is adopted as published. Excuse me. Uh next we are now at community comment and um we have one of our fellow residents in the audience this morning. I don't know if she has anything that she wants to address the H on but uh I also have I think simultaneously having director Benerro check the virtual world to see if they have anybody calling in. I don't have anyone on the line just yet, but because there is a short delay in the broadcast, I would recommend we wait one minute or so, um, giving anyone an opportunity to call in who'd like. My clock shows that it's 7:34. I'll come back to you at 7:35 or when I have a caller, whichever is first. All right. Thank you. It is 7:35 and I still don't have a caller, so I think it's safe for you to move forward with the agenda. All right. Very good. Uh we didn't have anybody coming forward uh in the chambers to speak to the uh H this morning and nobody online. So we'll move on to the next part of the agenda, which is the executive director responding to community comments that were made in the prior meeting. And I don't think there were any. There weren't. All right. So there'll be no response there and and no response at our next meeting. Uh next we have uh the consent agenda. There's only a single item on the consent agenda and that's the regular minutes of the meeting on May 15th, 2025. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda? So moved. Commissioner Commissioner seconds. Commissioner Jackson moves the adoption of the singular item on the consent agenda which is the minutes of the May 15, 2025 regular meeting of the HA. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the uh do it this way. All those in favor of adoption of the regular meeting minutes of the H on May 15, 2025 say I. I. I. Opposed. Carried. Those minutes are adopted. And now we're on to the heart of the agenda today. It's there. There are no action items as we mentioned earlier and no public hearings, but we've got quite a few updates on different things that are going on in our community. and uh our our uh economic development manager, Bill Nuendorf, is going to lead us on most of those items. Uh one thing we've been working on uh rather diligently as both a council and an H is the potential sale of real estate at 5146 Eden Avenue, which is the former public work site. And um we've had uh a couple of meetings on that and more to come and uh he's got an update for us that can go to the public as well. Welcome, manager. Newondorf. Right. Good good morning. Yes, this is just an update on the sale uh potential sale of real estate up at 5146 Eden, uh the city's old public work site. Uh and as this group knows, uh we just had another close session a few nights ago uh to review those proposals, but I wanted to pro provide an update for the public just to get uh a baseline level of information out there. Um so earlier this year we did receive 11 different proposals uh to purchase and redevelop this vacant site. Uh and we've owned the HR has owned this property and as we recall over the years we've explored a wide variety of ideas and concepts for the site. Um uh but these 11 proposals are the ones we're currently considering. uh and we've met twice as an H board in closed session uh which is allowed by by state statute to to meet in a closed session to negot to review those proposals and then prepare for for the negotiations. You know the role of the HA as a property owner is to get the best outcome and the best deal for the property so we can we are allowed to have those conversations and close doors. Uh at the most recent meeting uh on June 10th uh we did re again review the proposals and as a group um uh identified some that are more compatible than others uh more compatible with the goals that were expressed in the request for proposals. Um and so we've we've begun to identify some of those proposals that are more responsive and the HA board exot in the discussions uh identified that it's important to learn more from from the ones that were of greatest interest uh so that we can eventually select the best team to purchase and restore that property back to productive use. So, uh, in response to the suggestions from the HA board over the next, uh, week, uh, myself and city staff will contact each of those development teams, give them an update of where we are, and we will invite some of them to come in to do a presentation in person to this body. Uh, those presentations will be open to the public um because we're not negotiating real estate deals. We're learning more. So, that's that's not allowed to be in a close session. So, those will be open to the public. We're tenatively scheduling that meeting for the morning of July 24th. That's the next regularly scheduled HA board meeting. Um, and doing special meetings in the summer is especially hard. So, uh, this is, you know, five, six weeks away in the future. Um, but that's the date that seems to work. Um, uh, when I talk to each of the development teams, we'll find the precise time for that meeting. Um, but we will begin. no earlier than 700 a.m. and we could go as late as 11 a.m. in the morning. We're going to try to juggle all the schedules of these teams. So, if you could block out that morning for now and we'll get more details once I get in in contact with those teams. Um, and then in advance of that meeting, we will publish the board packet and there will be some information about the proposals in that packet. So, so far all the proposals have been kept confidential. Um but once we start seeing the presentations in the public setting that's where more of that information is released and so you can expect that in the next month or so. Um so that that's where we are and I know there's there's always interest in what what is happening with that site. So that's what we have today. Thank you. Commissioner Jackson has a question for you. Yes. Thank you Mr. Chair. So in our meeting one of the elements that we had were the list of um attributes that were in the RFP. Can we make that public sooner rather than later? So that because I think I view that as is the distillation of the public input we've had on this site to date. And I think what we're going to be looking at is how well these different proposals fit within that those parameters that we set. So if you could set send that out so the public can be reminded of what was in the RFP, I think that'd be really helpful for us. Sure. Sure. We can we can post that online. Great. Thank you. I I think you did uh a terrific job of kind of setting the stage for everything with respect to the analysis of those 11 proposals. And uh Commissioner Jackson's making a good point, I think. And so people in the broader audience in the in the general public can understand what were our sort of guiding principles that we followed in in in reaching a determination to interview a handful of the 11 that uh that originally applied and showed interest in the site. whether they were for-profit or nonprofit developers. We'll get that posted. Okay. Thanks for that update. Uh and then we're going to talk a little bit about uh and get an update on uh something that we get questions about and and think about ourselves is uh as we see those two properties uh redevelop. One's underway at 7250 France and across the street is the old Macy's Home Store that has now moved up to the Southdale Mall into the basement of the existing Macy's retail store. uh we think about ways and it was an opportunity situation for us to think about ways to get people safely across France Avenue other than that grade and uh either over or under and we've been talking about uh possibly under and so we've been doing some work uh both on um the um feasibility of moving people under France Avenue and you've been continuing that investigation on behalf of the council in the H and so we're going to get an update from you on that and I think also something for the public in terms of a a record here that they can so they can keep up to date too. Correct. Correct. Yes. And and thank you. Um so with with this update um I'll run through some PowerPoint slides and we've got a little video to share. Um is just an update. We're not looking or seeking any action at this particular time. Um, but in response to your last direction from, uh, from November of 2024, um, when we looked at the feasibility report, the recommendation at that point was to continue to pursue the under the road option as opposed to the over the road option. Uh, very early in this process, we also looked at improving the atgrade crossing, repainting the white lines and those types of things. We had met with Henipin County Transportation staff. Gosh, over the last year and a half or two years trying to see if there's if there was a way to improve the at grade crossing itself, narrow the lanes, do traffic calming, do some kind of improvement. Um, and Henipin County reminds us that in their eyes, uh, this is county road 17 and its purpose is to flow as many vehicles as f it can as quickly as it can from the cross town to 494. So traffic calming and changing the signal timing for for pedestrians were not compatible with their vision. So that's why we continued to look at either the over the road or the underroad option. So earlier this year I engaged the um designers at Confluence Design uh landscape engineers to pick up where the last team left off. Um, in 2024, uh, we hired LHB Corporation to to start to do some initial engineering to look at the grades, the soils, how does the ADA accessible route work, what are those real, you know, what part of the um, of the project would be compatible with Henipin County transportation standards and what would have to change to meet those transportation standards. Um and we uh that LHB report concluded in November. What we found was that you know two-dimensional engineering drawings are not always helpful for folks that don't read engineering plans every day. And so I hired Confluence Design to take those concepts and put it in three-dimensional form to really help people understand what it is we're pursuing here. Um and the location we all know this um uh 72nd in France essentially between 72nd and Gallagher. Um uh to date we we were in this conceptual study phase but I think it's important to also look at what happened in the past between 2007 and 2015. Uh there was a study called the Prominade urban design study from 2007 that recommended a number of things in that area to to benefit pedestrians and bicyclists. And the recognition was that for generations we had invested in cars and trucks and very little in pedestrians and bicyclists. One of those recommendations from 2007 was to improve the pedestrian crossing at York by the YMCA. Uh and so that happened. Now, there's a pedestrian underpass on York. Um, and it was recommended to to also do something similar on France. The thinking at that time was to do an over the road bridge. Uh, and ultimately that was decided not to move forward because it ended up being a bridge that connected two points that no one was really at. Um, in order to get to one entrance to the bridge, you had to go out of your way. Once you got off the bridge on the other side, you had to you you were already out of your way to get back to where you wanted to go. Um so the over the road concept was was just not implemented at that point. But now as you mentioned uh chair with the redevelopment on the west side of France and coming up on the east side of France, that whole landscape is changing. So now there is an opportunity and there's actually places that you would want to connect at. So, there's still many steps in the process. We're still calling this a concept. It's not a formal project. Um, uh, but at some point in the in the summer, we'll be asking the HR and the city council to consider advancing it from a concept uh to the preliminary engineering phase. With the preliminary engineering, that is an additional financial commitment. We'll be hiring real engineers to do the true engineering on it. Um, with that we can get a a more accurate cost estimate. And more importantly, we'll have plans that we can then take to funders at the uh regional level, state level, and federal level to seek funding to supplement our local funds. Um, since there's tiff districts on both sides of the street, we have a uh we have a ready source of local funding. But for a project like this that is it it it benefits more than just these two properties, we want to see if we can solicit additional additional outside funds as well. So that's that would be the next step in the future. We hope to get there in July or August and um uh but I I wanted to give you an update in in between here. So this map shows the existing sidewalk ne network uh in green. There are some sidewalks in the area. Um sometimes there are sidewalks that just end and and don't extend. Um but it's what we have today. And then the blue line is the um regional bike trail, the um the 9mm Creek Regional Trail and separating uh the sides of the street, County Road 17, uh flowing at 40 miles an hour, uh serving about 27,000 cars a day. Um, our most recent traffic count puts us back at a similar uh traffic volume as pre- pandemic. It's been lagging for a couple years, but we're back to where we were. Um, uh, and that's six to eight lanes in width. We looked into the demographics on both sides of the street, and it's really interesting. On the on the west side, we have the South Cornelia and Park Lawn neighborhoods. Um nearly f 5,000 people live in that neighborhood. It's the most densely populated part of Adina. On the east side of the road, you've got about 4,500 people, the second most densely populated part of Adina. So there's a lot of people here of all ages. Uh the west side of the street tends to be younger. Um the east side of the street tends to be older and the disability percentage is also dramatically different. um on the east side of France the according to to the most recent census data about 25% of that population is is considered disabled in some manner. So having that's part of the reasons why we're looking at alternatives to cars and trucks um to serve the the people that are here. These are the these are the two site plans that were most recently approved um on the west side of the street. The 7250 project, of course, uh called the Craftsman Office Building is under construction. On the same block, the 7200 site is going to be the location of a new um apartment building. There's still one more regulatory step to get some signatures on that one, but they expect to break ground in July. Um and that one is after many years of being on pause and uncertainty, that one is also moving forward. on the east side of the street, the Macy's Furniture Gallery site. Um, we can now officially call it a vacant site. Um, we hope it's vacant for just a short period of time. Um, but you'd mentioned that the Macy's Furniture Gallery has relocated uh into the Southdale Mall and that's the first step that was either you depending on how you want to look at it, the first step in the process or the first roadblock to the next investment that is now no longer a roadblock. So, in the next several months, Enclave Development is expecting to to to acquire the land and then start with their demolition process. They're still waiting on final funding for their big project. So, they don't have a specific date at this point in time, but they're still moving on that path, and we we hope for an update. I check in with them about once a month um just to kind of see where they are. So, when there's something to announce, we will certainly announce it. Over the last year and a half as we as we've looked at the different concepts um we really um started rethinking how this underpass functions not just as a transportation artery but really an extension of the prominade. You know right now the prominade goes mostly north and south and then it shoots off to the east. And somewhere over the over the last year and a half uh it was it came up that well why doesn't extend to the west? why I mean there's all these neighbors nearly 5,000 neighbors why don't we have an extension to the west so we've really tried to think about it more in those route in those terms of of extending that prominata experience this is a screenshot from that 2007 study um the full report has been on better together uh website for for quite some time but in this study uh it recommends a number of different pedestrian improvements different paths throughout this whole area. Um, but one of the things that we uh go back to is the identification that there is the need for a safe pedestrian crossing at France Avenue. Um, and this study also has pages about the over the road bridge that at the time was recommended at 72nd um but then not built. So there's a lot of history for that. And then part of the inspiration um for this whole concept is what was eventually built at York Avenue. um a simple underpass went under the road um landscaped trees, benches, those types of things. Now, the the topography is different at France Avenue, but the sim similar concept would be pursued. So, I'm going to switch to a video and walk through that. Um but before I do, um just to put to put this all in context, this is nothing new, right? This information has been out there since the first week of May. It's been posted on the city's better together.org website. Uh, and we've been collecting public comment since May. We'll collect input until the end of June. Uh, and then compile that and bring it together to the city council and H to make a decision uh in July or August. Um, so no new information, but we haven't formally presented it to you as a group, so that's why we're walking through that this morning. Commissioner Jackson, who has a question for you. Uh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just very briefly, I want to have a shout out to our former colleague Kevin Stuntton who often talked about a western prominade. So that's been an idea that's been out there when we uh redid the sidewalk on Valley View Road just north of 70th that was intended to be part of a western prominade. So I just it's it's been a longstanding um thing and it's always good to mention Kevin Stuntton. So, right. And we've taken the incremental approach on this. Um, it'd be in a perfect world, the whole thing would be built at once, but that's really impossible because we've got active businesses, active residences. So, what we've been doing is is building a section at a time when the opportunity arises to cause less disruption to people. So yeah, that Valley View Road was one of the first links to go. Um, and we'll see the other ones come into play over time. Okay. So, this video, there we go. We're going to start on 72nd Street. So, we're right behind the Sunrise uh senior living on 72nd going east towards France. This is the new project that is currently under construction. And through the development processes and the financing conversations, the city has obtained an easement at a minimum 10 ft in width for a shared youth use path for bikes and pedestrians. In the middle of the site is where the connection to France Avenue begins. In between these two buildings, the city has secured a 60 foot wide public easement um to provide access to, from, and through. So if you look, there's a lot of different elevations here. The lower elevation goes under France. The upper elevations connect the main levels of the building. And then there's also ADA access routes to get from the lower to the upper elevation. At this point, we're starting to go under France Avenue. We've included multiple um daylight openings. We found that natural daylight is very important. Now we're on the east side. This is another 60-foot um pedestrian easement area that would be built by the developer, maintained by the developer, but available for public use. There has been no final decision made about bikes versus pedestrians, right? We want to welcome everybody, but at some point as this uh evolves further, we'll have to get into more detail about the speed of those bikes. And you know, we don't want to create an unsafe condition. Um, but right now in this rendering, we've showed both pedestrians, bicyclists, as well as disabled folks in wheelchairs. Now, we're at the prominade. So, this is the existing terminus. You've got the bike path on the left in in uh gray and the pedestrian path on the right. Moving to the south, if we kept going straight, we'd be at Centennial Lakes Park. But this is where we join the nine mile uh creek trail. So this is the the gray bike trail is existing. With this new project by Enclave, we'll be widening it. It'll make it uh more accessible for ambulances and fire trucks as well as bikers and pedestrians. This is at the point where there's a decision. If you're on the regional trail and you just you just want to go straight, you can continue to go straight and hit and um use the crosswalk. If you want to go under into the neighborhoods or if you just don't want to cross that grade, we have a sidewalk uh that's shown here for uh uh bicyclists and pedestrians. You have an option here as well along France. If you go down the ramp, uh you go to the underpass. If you stay at the upper elevation, you'd be able to enter any of those new buildings that will be under construction in the future. Now, we're back under France Avenue. We're going to emerge on the west side of the street where we began. This is that public plaza um at the 7200 site. You can see the ADA ramp that goes up to the main level. And then we'll finish at this new through uh street through driveway that that connects um Gallagher to um 72nd Street. I think we all felt like we were on an ebike there. Yeah. Yeah. My apologies. On on better together it plays slower and on this player it's at hyper speed. So we can watch it again if you like. Um, but the the rendering gives a better idea of kind of what we have in mind. Take a lot of the details with a with a grain of salt. And now it's starting again. Um, this is just the first cut, right? I think one of the most important things that has to be decided in the future again if we advance is that interaction between bicyclists and pedestrians. um local bicyclists tend tend to go slower, but if if there's a bicyclist that's um going through on the regional trail, one of the questions we'll have to discuss in the future is what's that interaction because we don't want to mix fast bikes and pedestrians. Slow bikes are fine, but not fast. So, um a lot of details to cover in the in the future. Um but again this the intention of this uh video is to really display the concept that we have in mind and then we can um judge the judge the uh the interest and decide if we want to go further or not. But that's what I have for you this morning. Uh in the PowerPoint there's still there's still images. They're just screen screen captures from the video. So I can go through those if you want but it's it's the same as you've just seen. Before Commissioner Risser asked her question, would you go back to that slide where you show next steps or or the sequence of steps and where we maybe maybe uh restate where we are and what's next? Here you go. Okay, commissioner. Um actually, I kind of wanted a different image, but um that's okay. when you got to the point where the um Nine Mile Creek Trail and you have a choice and you can go off to you know off the Nine Mile Creek is that going to be also under um public easement so we can guarantee that people can go on that stretch. Yes. Yes. Yeah. as we negotiated the site plan through the planning commission and the zoning process as well as the tiff financing that would that would reimburse them for some of their expenses. We've secured public access rights to all of these areas and bikes can go on that part of the sidewalk. Um anyone can go on that part of the sidewalk. Okay. And then um I'm still confused how if you're coming from the west and you're on the Nine Mile Creek Trail, how do you connect to all of this? Because that's not in the video. Well, you either go across at grade. Yeah. or you go over to the passageway and go underneath. Yeah. And some and some of those details, I mean, quite frankly, we haven't figured out every detail yet. Um but today, um the regional trail is the blue line. So, if you're coming from the west, uh going through the Cedars apartment complex in that area up Gallagher, uh you would still have the same option of going to the light waiting to cross and take the just use the crosswalk. Um, if you want to go into the underpass, there is a let's see, let me find the right. Here we go. There is a um a 10- foot wide path at the western edge of the 7250 site. In this graphic, it's shown. It's kind of obscure. There's a lot of circles. Those are trees that overhang the the sidewalk. So, there is a 10- foot wide path that connects um to that central spine that gets you there. We still have not gotten in into details about how you cross the street. Um do you cross at that point? Do we put in a flashing signal and a button um and a crosswalk or do we do that further west? That is a it's a great question. We just haven't gotten to the point where we've actually engineered exactly how or where you'd cross that street. Um, but we do envision two options. Either going straight and using the crosswalk or crossing to the north side of the street and using the underpass. We think that is feasible. Just haven't figured out the engineering the engineering yet. Could we go back to the slide that shows demographics on both sides? Okay. Um, I noticed in the video the and I'm wondering if the demographics represented in the video are the ones that are anticipated to use the tunnel because it's primarily um it looks like men who are between the ages of I don't know 20 and 30. And I'm not seeing elderly people. I'm not seeing many women. And when I talk to people, the idea about going into a tunnel where you're going to have bikes going in two different directions and also you're going down into that space. Um the people who I hear from who are most reticent to use it um are not the demographics shown in the video. So, I'm curious. Was the the demographic shown in the video selected because people thought that would be the most likely users? Oh, that's a good question. Uh uh I never anticipated that one. The the people shown in the video are random people selected by a graphic designer who might be an intern. Uh there was no no intention to reflect demographics or racial mixes or gender mixes. Um, in those rendering systems you have different images you can plop in and we asked them to put people in the images. Um, we gave them no direction as far as gender or age or racial background. We just asked them to put people. It's interesting seeing the women that are shown. Okay. Thank you for sure. Jackson. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, this is really helpful to see the 3D design. Um, uh, first I have a question and I just wrote in my note what it is and I can't read my writing. But the second one is when we're looking at this, one of the things that I've heard, uh, concerns that I've heard is like if I live on the east side, why would I want to go to the west? And it would be nice to see what the connection is with the new Fred Richards Park. So you've got, you know, this population that's going to be on the east side is going to be pretty dense, but they're going to have two huge regional parks within a short distance. So I think that would be helpful to have a an image that showed that. Oh, I know. The second one is it showed it looked like there were two um window triang. One is I know in the median on France. If you could tell me what the second one is. Um that small one out on the corner. That was towards the end of the video. No, no, that was a that was a statue. But when you come under So there's one light and then there's a second one. Whoop. We're we're glitching. No, there are two. Yeah, there's multiple um purple triangles. Yes. Um but yeah, so here here's what those are intended to convey. Um we through our initial study we found that natural daylight was this was vital to have to have that feeling of safety. Um we working with Henipin County we initially wanted to have about a 20 foot wide gap uh and the county was not willing to to do that. So the gap ended up being about 8 feet. That's the widest we could get it. Um, and then at that point, it's great on a sunny day, but what about that sloppy spring day when the snow plow comes and splashes the snow into the gap and you're the person that's stuck right there? So, we thought, well, let's put some kind of translucent cover so that the slop of those spring mornings or winter days um doesn't end up splashing that person. Um, so it that's intended to be some kind of uh transparent cover. We thought we could model it more as an artistic element. So you'll notice there's about five or six of those purple triangles scattered throughout. And the idea was let's tie them together. Let's, you know, rather than just having some random translucent cover in one place, let's actually treat that as an art as an art element. Um, maybe it's the same color, the same material, the same shape, but actually use that to populate the entrance point to the underpass for wayfinding. Uh, and the entrance and exit on both sides of the street. Thank you. That doesn't answer my question. I'm sorry. When you go into the underpass, there are two natural daylight breaks. One of them is the median between northbound and southbound on France. And then there's a second one. See the second one there? There's the first one is closest to us and then beyond it there's a second one. Is that the um median between the sidewalk and the northbound on France? Uh I think the answer is yes. So what what that is is um it yes if you're walking on the west side of the street on France just walking north to south we still have to have a sidewalk that connects from Gallagher to 72nd. So at some point um to have that sidewalk connection you'll be going under the sidewalk and then rather than extending the underpass and creating more of a cavern we daylighted that. So that's the first gap that you see is a gap between the sidewalk. Okay. On the west side, not on the east side. I was thinking it was the middle and then the east side, but the west sidewalk and the and the median. That's correct. Okay, great. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um I I'm curious. I know that you've told me this, but I've forgotten. What is the width of the walkway at for the most part or on average of the underpass? Sure. Yeah. And width is important. We studied a lot of different ones. Um we landed uh the the current re recommendation and concept is about 33 feet wide. We looked at at narrower ones, but we found those just gave the perception of not feeling safe. We looked at wider ones as well. At one point we looked at 60 ft and we found that gave the visual impression that you were low and cramped because it was so wide. It's like a runway. Um, and we landed up at about 33 feet and that should be I mean it's it's about it's a similar width to the underpass at York. And also if you're walking at Centennial Lakes, if you go under like 76th Street, those walkways, they're all different at Centennial Lakes, but 33 is where we landed here. Okay. And so it sounds like if in the design phases we landed back on something bigger, there is at least the space there if needed because it sounds like we could go up to potentially even almost double um just from a utility standpoint, everything else. but not questioning kind of the the science and methodology that went into that, but just was wondering where the constraints are, but it seems like it was more just um kind of user flow, user interaction that aligned on this for this kind of current concept. Correct. Correct. And and cost also factors into it. The wider it becomes, the more expensive it becomes. And so 30-ish feet, 33 feet seem to be a good balance. Okay. Thank you. Um, so in the discussion topics, right, you had the point of, you know, do we want to get feedback from the planning commission. I feel like right now we're really looking for all of the feedback mechanisms we can get. It's on better together. Um, where we're looking for I should stop hitting my microphone. Um, where we're looking for more broad residential input. Would love to get feedback also from the planning commission. Um, so if we could initiate that or talk about what the timing could look like for that, that would be amazing. Um, and then I'd also like to understand, you know, a tentative plan if things continue to progress, knowing that at any point we as a body could decide this isn't something we want to pursue right now. Um, but if we do decide to progress, what are some of those other big milestones that we should be thinking about from a timeline perspective? and happy path. How does this right now align with the construction on both sides? I know so many unknowns there and we don't even know when when some will get started. Um but if you could just speak a little to how you are feeling about the overall alignment of these projects that would be wonderful. Sure. Yeah. And and uh the timing is the most critical critical piece here. So, um, that's where it gets more challenging. Uh, the developer on the west side of the street wanted us to do the underpass before he started construction. Well, he started already, so we missed that one. The developer on the east side of the street doesn't want us to even start until he's finished, but he might not be finished for four buildings, could be eight years. Um, so we're trying to find that balance of of what works. Um, and it's not a perfect world, right? So there's always compromise to make big things happen. To me, the most critical piece of this is seeing the Enclave project on the east side of the street started because um the the local funding for this. We there's there's no interest in hiking the tax levy to to build this, but the revenue would come from the new property taxes created from these parcels. So the west side of the street is underway. I'm confident that that tax increment will be generated, but I need to see Enclave close on the real estate on Macy's and give me a timeline to pull a building permit. Um, I think advancing to preliminary engineering in the interim isn't a huge financial risk. It's an investment. We'd be spending, you know, real real money to to pay the engineers. Um, but to actually pull the trigger and build it, I would wait until I know for certain that the Enclave project is moving forward expeditiously because that's our primary funding source. And as we've talked with the HA, you know, the H's charge um isn't road planning. That's not what we do, but it's these infrastructure redevelopment opportunities and the financing of them. So, uh, an example might be, uh, across the street at Mesa Green. We had visions and plans to improve the roadway network around here. I think from since 2016, we had a plan sitting on the shelves waiting to go at some point. Once Mason Green owners closed on the old Perkins site and got their and paid for their building permit, then we knew they were 100% committed. And that's when the city went full charge to get that road rebuilt. I would recommend a similar strategy here because we don't want to create the the possibility where now we started work, we've got a $20 million contract hanging over hanging over our head and our funding source just dried up. That's not a situation we want to end up in. So, so timing is critical. Uh and uh the the next move from Enclave to me is the big one. Thank you, Mr. Richer. I think you had this prompted a question from you. Looking at this image made me remember discussions about this project and how there are going to be times when there are a lot of moving vans. Um they can't go under and use the underground parking necessarily. And when we looked at the video, um there were no cars. there was, you know, no I no indication that there was going to be traffic flow um through the site. And I just want to point that out. And so when we think about and I' I've seen the signs along NM Creek for, you know, want a safer way and um I think we just really need to recognize that on some days that might not be a safer way. So, um just wanted to bring that up. Yeah, that's a good point. And and you're correct. the um uh in in the center east to west spine on the on the old Macy's site. While it's 60 feet in width, there is an active road that goes north south. So, just like crossing any road, I would expect pedestrians or bicyclists to stop and look in the road before they charge into it. Um we've had early conversations, are there are there ballards that come up and down? are there. We we have to give some kind of cue and reminder to pedestrians that, you know, while the environment is built for them, there's also cars. So, we're just not at that point to actually engineer what that precisely looks like. But you're right, there is a road going through it. And didn't the planning commission discuss this last night? We did. Yeah, we put we um we were able to get to get on last night's agenda for the planning commission. So, on their work session, we walked through the same presentation and I tried to listen. It wasn't available at like two in the morning, but I'll go look at it or I'll listen to the audio. Yep. It's the same as you have today. But yeah, it's it should be posted I think within 24 or 36 hours we get it posted. Usually it just happens in a few hours. Okay. Usually the next Okay. All right. Yeah. Thanks for that update. Um, do you want to stay up there and handle the Eden Wilson tiff district or or manager Neil? Do you want to go next with the onus tax bill? Um, Bill, I think I think uh Mr. Neworf can do both of those actions. Actually, the the legislative updates pretty quick. Okay. I feel like I should use a different speaking voice. You're listening to me a lot this morning. Um so we we have two of the otherformational items for you this morning. Um uh just for just for update purposes. So the first one is a legislative update. Uh uh as you may have heard the state legis legislature finally passed the budget and all the on all the related bills on Monday or maybe Tuesday morning they passed it. Not certain if the governor signed it yet but he certainly has indicated that he would be signing it. Uh, and in the tax bill that finally got got approved, as with every legislative session, there's there's a nonlinear path to get to the final language in the tax bill. Um, uh, and in the final version, the TIFF requests from 11 different cities were included in the final tax bill. Um, Adina was among those 11 cities. And uh what that means is you know there's state statute that covers most cases when you use tax increment financing. Sometimes there's strange things that happen. Um postcoid recessions economic are a strange thing that impacted Adina and many other cities. Um so in those cases you the the city has to go to the state to seek a change to the law. Once the law is changed, then we have authorization to reconvene as an HR and a city council and decide if we want to take advantage of that law. So, the good news for us is these uh two pieces of legisl of legislation for Adina did get approved. One was focusing on the 70th in France site uh that Mortonson and Orion are working on. Um and the second is the 72nd in France, the westerly site that Orion and um uh Ari Pirates, his company is working on. Um so the good news is now we have an option. Um in the months ahead, staff will make sure that that law is signed by the governor and all buttoned up and then we'll evaluate how that law could be used to benefit Adina. So, in the next few months, I just wanted to give you an an alert that uh you could expect to see some recommended changes to those existing tiff districts. Remember, we we created those back in 2022 and 2023 um based on what we knew in 2022. Well, the world's changed. Now, it's 2025. So, there are some changes. And there there's two critical aspects of each of these bills. One is giving everybody a little bit more time. Time to get the projects going, whether it's a private building, whether it's a public road or a public underpass, giving people more time. That that's one thing that that we now have an option of. And the second thing is extending the duration of time, the number of years that these districts would collect increment. Um, that one's a it's another option, but it's a more difficult option to extend the time period. The city council would have to approve it, the H would have to approve it, the school board would have to approve it, and Henipin County would have to approve it. So, before we ask you much about that one, we need to do additional homework to see if we actually need it and how we could use it to our advantage. Um uh so but but the good news is at least the laws passed. Now we at least have options. So I don't see this happening imminently, but in the months ahead we'll bring it up again. And then the last update is in regards to the Eden Wilson TIF District. This is the one across the street, the old Perkins site. Um just an update there. Uh so that we all know the project opened more than a year ago. Uh people have been in that building. The restaurant's been open. Their leasing is is still moving along. Their lease pace is slower than they expected. Uh they're about 50% filled, give or take. Um and they continue to lease and have people move in. Uh they had hoped to be more than 50% filled after a year. Um but that the leasing has gone a little bit slower than they expected for a wide variety of reasons. Um but while the project is done physically um there's paperwork right in these if you remember the TIFF agreements that you execute there are hundreds of pages and so we eventually will issue a TIFF certificate of completion to them when they've submitted all the paperwork followed through on all of their promises recorded all the legal agreements. And so I just wanted to let you know that they've done that. They've recorded all the easements. Um, so now the city has a permanent uh legal right to the uh to some of the sidewalk spaces, uh, their parking lot. We have shared use of their private parking lot. We have rights to purchase some of the land for a dollar if we ever want to do a public improvement on the edge of the highway. We've got 20ome years of affordable housing in the project. We have um, first right of refusal if they ever turn it into condos. um we have first right as a HA to buy those affordable units to extend them as as affordable in the future. So all that paperwork is finished. Um we we reviewed their cost structure. Um their budget was 85 million. They came in um a little bit over that. Um uh just under 86 million is where their final cost was for that project. And thus they did earn the full TIFF note. So, uh, a few weeks ago, the city did issue them the TIFF note, and their first, uh, pledge of increment will be paid to them in August, um, August of this year. where that increment comes from. And this is a nice example. Before when it was the Perkins, um they that site generated around $100,000 in property taxes that was split by the state, the school, the county, the city. As a finished building, even when it's not fully leased, they pay $1.1 million in property taxes. So the school, the city get their share, the state gets a smaller share. school gets a bigger share and then a lot of that is the increment. So that's what we'll be using to fund um this reimbursement note to them as well as our debt that we issued to build the roads, the sidewalks, those roundabouts, etc. So that uh district is performing just as we expected um from a public perspective um and all the paperwork is finished. So, uh, it takes a year and a few months to get all the paperwork done, but one of our tiff policies is that we don't issue that TIFF note until they've done every piece of legal requirement we've asked them to do. And I just wanted to update you that that is now finished and and moving forward. So, um, but those are my updates for this morning. Just wanted to get them on the record and keep you guys informed. Commissioner Risser has a follow- on question. Um I have some questions and I realized last night like I'm the newbie on this project because um Commissioner Agnu was on planning, you two were on council um and I was not engaged. So I do have some basic questions about this and um also reading the note like the resources and financial impacts the issuance of the tip note was anticipated in the budget um in the can you tell me what you mean by that like sure where where are you where are you reading um under resources and financial impacts oh sure uh in the staff report grade. Um just to reference that uh in the budget um we we anticipated a revenue increase revenue from this district beginning this year. Okay. We also anticipated uh an expense in on their TIFF note. So it is a it it is in the budget. Um uh there was a point in time for history sake when it wasn't in the budget. This is 101 15 years ago. And as we started seeing the need for tiff become more more frequent, we realized that you know we don't like to have an unexpected revenue and an unexpected expense. So over the last decade, again with our finance policy and tiff policy, we we plug that into our budget so that it's not a surprise. Okay. And it's the building is approximately 50% lease, correct? Like a little over, a little under. We don't know. Approximately. I I don't I don't keep day-to-day tabs on their leasing. And we don't know what their initial We're more than a year out. Somebody said we were like almost two years since it opened, but I don't know. They open in May of 2024. So, a year 2024. Okay. All right. Um, are we cons and and if I'm doing the math right, we do have 10% affordable housing. Correct. Yep. There's 20 units in there. So, 20% of what is leased is affordable. 20% of what's in the of the units in the building are affordable. So, yeah, the the lease rate um there's 196 units, right? 20 uh 176 are market rate luxury. Uh 20 are affordable. So, of the half that are leased, we know that 20 of those are affordable. Right. So, at this moment, the mix Okay. because and I are we concerned about this at all? The other thing is when I was reading this it says insufficient increment is connected to make or collected to make note payments. Neither the HA or the city is at risk and um financial risk pertaining to the TIF notes rest solely with the real estate developer and the property owner. So if we're not making that increment, what does does that mean? we don't sufficiently to pay back the tiff note. Um who pays it back? Um nobody. So that's how we structure our tiff notes. The developer bears the risk. Okay. So the developer will do everything in their power to lease that building, drive the rents, drive up the occupancy. That's their job, so to speak. Um if they don't pay taxes, they don't get paid, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And if if something were to happen, um what about all the tiff that we took out for the road improvements? Um what do you what do you mean by that? Uh well, we just I I understand what happens if you know things go south for the developer, but the city is on the hook. Great. Did we bond for the road improvements? How did we do that? And where does we did? Yes, we bonded for the road improvements. I don't remember the exact amount, 5 million or so. Um, so yeah, repayment, the repayment source is this tiff district. So the city is at risk of repaying the bond, but in the legal contract for the property, um, they're they're compelled to pay their property taxes. And again, even at 50% leased, their generation is 1.1 million. So it's an 11 times increase. So that's that is sufficient. Um as they increase their occupancy, I think their taxes are going to go up. Um and there's also provisions that in case of a um tornado, massive fire, act of God, etc. The building owner is required as long as this tiff district is active to rebuild that building. They can't just leave a vacant site and walk away. Um, so we do have a number of legal protections in those redevelopment agreements. Okay. And we can still, nothing's changed in terms of assuring affordable housing. Um, we can still access and audit and make sure that they're coming through on that. Oh, correct. Yeah, that's that's one of the things that we demand before we'll issue the TIFF note is to make sure that all those documents are are signed and executed by their uh leadership and also recorded with the county so they're on the permanent record. Okay. We still have leverage for assuring that those we've always had leverage. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I think that when I toured over there, they told me all the affordable units were full. Well, it's not it's not a proportion of what's rented, but everything that was committed for affordable housing is under lease. And I it was interesting looking at the chart because the chart the tick off for the affordable housing says it was a confirmed 11420 4 um if you look at line B. Um but then in December of 2024 we learned that Maison Green was not in compliance with affordable. And one of the things I started thinking about yesterday is what if we had an agreement that for a building, you know, you had to come through with as many months of affordable housing and units and if you missed a year then you had to make it up the next year. And so my understanding is they have not been providing affordable housing since they opened. In some cases it did not match up. Some of it was, you know, in sync, but some may not have been. And so why not say, okay, this year, just for example, and I'm just making these, two of your units were not in compliance with our standards. Okay, so instead of having 20 units, you have to have a year where you have 22 or something like that. Let's get let's get a clarification on that assumption from our affordable housing manager. So it wasn't that the units were not occupied. It was not that the units are not occupied by uh as an affordable unit. It's that some pieces of paperwork were missing. And um Mr. Manager Nandorf and I have been in communication with regards to payment on the TIFF note. We make sure that everything is in compliance before the payment goes out and so that happens on an annual basis. Um but the units were rented and occupied. It's just there's reams of paperwork and it's getting that all aligned up and that's okay. And then the the fees that were charged in excess of gross rent were returned to the renters. Correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. And that that's the H's ultimate leverage is if the developer is in is in default of any of their obligations, like truly in default, we just don't make payments on the note. That gets their attention very quickly and and matters get resolved. We've never gotten to that point, but certainly there have been times when Stephanie and I have had conversations of their payments coming due, don't pay them yet. We're still working through things. And when you have that financial leverage, they tend to get their paperwork in order very quickly. Thank you, Jackson. Did that raise an issue for you? No. Okay. And and remind us again the size of the note uh for the Mason Green 5.1 million uh payable at 4% interest and 30% of that is used for the public improvements. Correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. Manager Neil. Thank you. Manager Nundorf and I don't have any other report for it this morning. Anything else on the tax bill? Uh no. I'm just checking I was just checking with our our lobbyist. I don't believe it has been u signed yet, but I don't have a confirmation of that. The other night I ran into our representative Julie Green out at Grooves and Foods, which was a a roaring success out at uh Centennial Lakes. We got the only nice night of the week and it was there were oh probably 350 people out there for the uh what would you call it? The Doobie Brothers cover band. uh celebration and um anyway, I talked to Representative Green and she said that though we were not in the bonding bill for a couple of things that we were hoping to get bonding for uh that with respect to the bridge project, we still had a chance at some funding through Mindot that just wondering if you knew anything about that. No, I have she named two other potential sources of funding. Okay. that we should be exploring uh in the gap period between this legislative session and the next legislative session where we could go back and try to get back in the bonding bill to cover some of the expens we'll talk to her about that. Yeah. Okay. Um did you have anything else for the good of the order? All right. Any commissioners have anything richer? Um just that I did attend the Adina Art Fair twice. um once for art and food and once to just go back for food. It was wonderful. So um and a lot of people there. It was a great event. Y that's great observation. It was a terrific event. Uh I drove to go down Wade Thman who was the sales manager down at Cobalt Banker retired uh yesterday. This had a celebration for him and it allowed me to drive on the way back past a new fire station. I encourage all you to drive by there. the the red doors are on now and it it is really quite impressive. So, I'm eager to get it back in there for another visit before we uh have a grand opening probably in August. Manager, yeah, we we're talking about putting together another tour opportunity for electeds and al other commissioners of the city as well. They're to a stage now where we can do that and it's safe to do it. Okay. And then just a little food for thought for our council uh and what we can think about in terms of uh residents in our community that use Henipin County Medical Center. We uh manager Neil and I had breakfast yesterday morning with the county administrator which we tried to do at least once a quarter and uh our safety net hospital which is Henipin County Medical Center for our whole state and even some folks from nearby states that don't have coverage in their own states or can't get health care coverage come to Henipin County Medical Center. that safety net hospital uh receives at present $800 million a year in Medicaid and all of that is at risk because the federal government has decided now they're going to cut $800 billion dollars out of Medicaid. So there's some conversation about what we might need to do to replace those dollars if all of it is lost and then people are denied medical care or they have the inability to do it. So, you know, just trying to think that through there. The county at least is thinking about a possibility of a 1% sales tax that could help replace those lost Medicaid dollars that uh support all those people who don't otherwise have healthc care uh services available to them. Um that was that was one of the I think most important takeaways from our conversation yesterday. He also talked a little bit about the ongoing uh discussions that the county has been having with the legislature around the twin stadium tax. Right? Those the the debt that that was entire that was it was designed to pay has been retired. Uh there's still revenue coming in before that tax expires and the county has been wanting to use to to redirect that revenue stream to the hospital. And so they've made this request a couple of times in the legislature and without success and I think are interested in trying to do it again but maybe uh getting u a wider group of advocates to to assist them with that. Um the other note I had was that you said there were 450,000 people in the county with open files who need help with jobs and uh living wages. And once they have a a job with a living wage, their ability to pay for their housing on their own and their insurance rises dramatically. So, uh, they're doing good work at the county, you know, this, uh, on that social services area. So, um, kudos to them, uh, for getting people up and moving again on life. Um, and then let's see. Did I have anything else? That was it, I think. Um, so anything else for the good of the order? Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. A second. Commissioner Jackson moves and Commissioner Agna seconds the motion to adjurnn. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adjournment say I. I. I. Opposed. Hearing nothing. The motion carries. We stand adjourned.