Good evening. It is Thursday, March 5th, 2026 at approximately 6:02 p.m. and I call the City of Maple Plane Planning Commission meeting to order. Please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag Thanks everyone. Um, let's get this phone. Okay. Um, we see the agenda here. Um, I either need a motion to adopt the agenda as is or I need a motion to add something to the agenda if there's anything to add. >> I'll make a motion to adopt the >> Mike makes a motion to adopt the agenda. >> Second. >> Stephan seconds it. All in favor say I. >> I. All oppose say the same. Eyes have it. Six to zero. Okay. Okay, first order of business is uh looking at the minutes from February, one month ago essentially. And are there any things we need to add in or adjustments we need to make? Um otherwise, I'll certainly take a motion to accept the meeting minutes. And >> I'll make a motion accept. >> Okay, David makes a motion to accept and Adam seconds. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose say the same. Eyes have it. Six to zero as well. Okay. That quickly brings us to uh the public hearing related to 1800 Pioneer Creek Drive. Um now is this public hearing for both the proposed amendment change for the ordinance and the site plan review or just the public hearing for the ordinance change? >> So um honorable chair commissioner so technically technically the site plan review does not require a public hearing. So the public hearing that we have before us tonight is really the text amendment and then the site plan review is an item that we can discuss. Now certainly you could take comment on >> sure >> the whole thing because they kind of go together. So >> all right. So why don't we just start out with opening the or at least hearing a motion to open the public hearing for the text amendment to the ordinance. Anyone want to make that motion? >> Second motion. >> David makes the motion. Adam seconds the motion. All in favor say I. I. >> All oppose say the same. >> Eyes have it 6 to zero. The public hearing is open at approximately 6:05 p.m. today. Um, did we receive any input from neighborhood or community related to this thing at all? Okay. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make any sort of public comments for the >> No, I can answer any questions you guys. >> Okay. Why don't you just come up announce yourself and where state your name, where you live, and how you're how you're related. >> Yeah. So, I'm Parker Smith. I'm from there. My brother is here. Most of our stuff's in park recently since we're actually possible this property about years ago. What's actually law firms reach out got here is to connect this road that off the industrial park neighborhood. Hopefully maximize utilization of those parking lot workers. It's currently right now right there and actually put rounds through the whole city. opposed to that. Let me know if you're not >> state. There you go. >> Yeah. So, that's that's our goal with the building. So far, it's it's still been tough to find interest because space is difficult to fill. So, It's really city hall located >> might have bigger >> plans on it and we could get the library too I don't think that does it justice when you're in there all around you guys on the back looking out back there. I think you guys probably met it if anybody has any questions. Okay. >> Uh what was your name again? >> Parker Smith. >> Parker Smith. Okay. Parker. Thank you. Um, this is your brother >> Harrison. >> Yeah. >> Got any uh answers for your retirement plans for football? >> He was just in realtor >> actually. Um I mean any questions for him at all or >> uh the public hearing is for the text amendment in particular. Oh, >> this way. >> Yeah, you could you could go ahead and close since there's nobody else and then if we have questions, we can always bring Parker or Harrison back up >> and then we'll just go through our piece of it and then we can have that conversation. >> That works. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Um, so I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. >> I'll move to close the hearing. >> Adam moves to close. Can I get a second? >> Second. Uh Nick seconds. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose say the same. >> Eyes have it six to zero. The public hearing is closed as of 6:11 p.m. Okay. So with that, um Mark, I think first we need to go over the proposed text amendment which kind of encompasses the whole site plan review as well. So take it away. >> Yeah, thanks honorable chair and commissioner. So, um, Parker gave a good kind of overview of what their intention is with this building. They they approached the city um a while ago talking about the possibility of acquiring this building and then talking about this idea that they would they wanted to uh essentially break down the spaces in that building into something that is more manageable for smaller businesses, businesses that are looking to do startup or businesses that just don't need nearly the amount of space that was in this building. Just as like historical context, when Wank Engineering, who owned the building and operated their corporate headquarters from this space, when they uh decided to move to Golden Valley and and then ultimately they're trying to sell the building, they put together um I don't know, four or five different land use scenarios uh that showed how this site could either be um enhanced, repurposed, reutilized, and they've been marketing this site for anybody who's been looking um for the last four plus years um as either a single-use office building or vacant land or a whole mix of other things and and they had utilized uh um one of the kind of local um land use consultants land forum put together kind of a nice nice piece. they've just had zero interest um in the building. Now, with that said, we've I've talked to over the last four to five years, I've talked to probably a half dozen or more um residential development groups that had looked at this site as possibly just a tear down on the buildings and then redeveloping it into some sort of residential. I've had um um like office warehouse type use. I've had storage type users. Um, but none of them have ever gotten past kind of that initial just look. So, when Parker approached uh us on this site and said, "I want to do the same thing with this building that his family does with larger scale warehouse buildings." I said, "That's interesting because that that site's unused." And um that's kind of an interesting concept. And we I have some experience with what they've done. They took a I don't know how many thousand square feet. 60. >> Yeah. So, they took a 60,000 square foot warehouse building in Watertown. That was a single-use building, really a two-user building, but they broke it down into um 20 to 30 individual lease spaces. And it's been wildly successful. is really great because it's brought into into the city a bunch of businesses that are new businesses that were people who had an idea, wanted to start a business, but they couldn't afford bricks and mortar. Um, new construction, there wasn't space. And and some of those businesses now have converted from a 1500 square foot to building their own 20 25,000 square foot businesses because they've been able to kind of scale. Um, so when he when he said, "Hey, I want to do the same thing. I just want to do it on an office basis." And we started looking at the building, I said, "Well, what kind of things are are you looking at?" And we started to talk about some of the things that we were looking at that he was looking at or some of the things he'd like to have possible. And I looked at how the property zone and I looked at our zoning ordinance. Um, and I said, "Well, the property zone industrial." Now, our industrial in Maple Plane is somewhat broad in that we do say that office campus is a permitted use. We do say recreational facilities are permitted uses. And so our our industrial starts to delve into some of these other types of uses. And so we talked about the uses that he was proposing. And I said, "The ordinance the way it is isn't isn't perfect for that because when you start talking about things like, hey, what if I had a spa, but they also sold some retail products or what if I had a jewelry store or what if I had some of these businesses that start to ride lines between office and retail or even like a t-shirt printing company, which is, you know, some somewhat of an office but also a little bit of you know industrial right printing press type use. I said we should look at the ordinance andor we should look at maybe creating this into some sort of a mixeduse district. So Jacob and I met on that some more and we brought in the city attorney. We kind of just walked through it and what we came up with was this idea that office campus uh could very well accommodate this type of use and rather than reszoning this property which if you look at our zoning map it would make it an island of something no matter how we did it because it's surrounded by industrial. We said rather than doing that and and kind of creating quasi spot zone, even though I think we could do it just given the acreage that we have, maybe the right way to do it is just redefine or to define office campus, which if you read the report, our ordinance doesn't do. So we say that office campus permitted use, but we don't say what office campus is. So with that, what we're proposing is a text amendment to define office campus in the definitions of the city's zoning ordinance. So no change to the industrial zoning district. The change comes in the form of a definition change that uh really expands on office campus. And really the intent of the amendment would be to create a higher level of flexibility in the types of uses that could potentially go into this building while still preserving uh some aspects of what we consider to be um office campus. Understanding that this particular site is obviously not the only one zoned industrial in the city. So, we have uh quite a few buildings in the city that I think at some point could potentially take this on. Anybody who's been watching real estate or talking about markets or understanding space demands knows that the big office campus is a dinosaur of sorts, right? We're seeing this all over the place. We know that some that these uses are changing. So, this kind of gets us out in front, I think, a little bit potentially if we were to move forward with this. So, with that said, um this this site, 1800 Pioneer Creek Center is zone industrial. It's guided by the city's comprehensive plan as industrial. There's two parcels that are being considered. One with the buildings and parking, primarily the parking on it, and then one that's mostly vacant um on the that's a little bit east. When Parker approached the city about doing this um and we looked at it, we actually did go out meet on site and we walked the building. Anybody who hasn't walked the building probably doesn't recognize how spectacular that building really is. I mean, it's it's primarily glass on the on on the sides of that building and it has spectacular views. It really does. It's a a really nice um you know, wetland overlook type property. And so, when you start looking at that building, you look at how that space is set up, it really does set itself up for these kind of smaller office lease spaces that would potentially have kind of a centralized lobby. And then it has elevators. It has ample parking. And then it has the ability just the way that the floor plans work out for them to kind of just go in and create kind of whatever right size space you might need. So if you wanted 1,500, you could buy you could lease it and then if the next year you wanted 3,000 and that wall was available right next to you, you could easily just grab that. And then if you needed, you know, the whole floor at some point, you could easily kind of transition that space into that type of use given just how kind of open the floor plan is within that building. So, um, the two pieces that we looked at, site plan review, which is because of a change in use really of the the building going from a single user corporate campus into a multi-use um situation, requires site plan review. And with site plan review on an existing building, there's always this somewhat um subjective uh review that we need to do to see what are the things that we want to improve that would fall into compliance with our ordinances and then are there things that maybe would be uh ownorous or difficult to try to comply with given the the existing buildings or the existing use. And so, um, I'll start with the ordinance, kind of just walk through what that ordinance looks like. Um, as I noted, we don't have a definition for office campus. So, in trying to create a definition that provides more flexibility, um, we looked at providing a kind of more robust ordinance. and I went and looked at some other examples of where we might find some office campus, although that's not a common uh it's not necessarily a common uh zoning uh uh term. Um but there are examples of it. And so what I looked at is it it was a uh single ownership or coordinated ownership control. So that way it wouldn't be necessarily something that was condo condoed down to where you'd have 30 different owners or 30 different individual owners. This would be under a single ownership control or what I called a coordinated ownership control. So that there would be kind of one entity that you could deal with in terms of the management um of the use. I said it's pri primarily or principally comprised of office use um including general office, professional office, medical office within two or more buildings or within a single building designated to function as a multi-tenant campus um together with site park uh shared parking common open space and amenities and then I talked about what office campus might include and I try to expound on this because again we don't have anything that defines this. So office and medical, general administrative offices, professional services and I gave examples, legal, accounting, architecture, engineering, technology, medical, dental, pet uh care, allied health services. So really a broad definition of what kind of office um you could put in that. I also then added in boutique retail and personal service which would be small format retail and personal service uses such as jewelry sales, specialty goods, spa, wellness services, similar shops oriented towards day-to-day needs um of campus users. And then because Parker and I talked about it, he's really trying to land a daycare if possible in this building. And he it's one of his goals to try to bring that to this building. And so we talked about daycare. He's had some interested parties in daycare so far. Um, but a daycare facility, this site really sets up really well for daycare. It actually would support the use really well, too. Um, so daycare as a permitted use. Then recreation and fitness, indoor low impact recreational and training facilities such as golf simulators, indoor sports training facilities, and fitness weight training clubs. This is actually something that we've been getting um as the what I call the degradation of youth sports continues to become more and more businesslike. Um we keep seeing more and more of these. So for any of you who don't know, we just got a basketball training facility in our industrial park um which is going to be like a really specialized um you know hopefully your kid become shack type training facility. Um and that's going into that's going into the industrial park right now actually. But we're seeing more and more of that. So just trying to accommodate that. But golf simulators going into office spaces super common now. And then some of these other I don't even know what they become uh you know spaces that do that kind of recreational. Then we also talked about food and amenity services. So cafes, coffee shops, small eeries, shared meeting spaces, conferencing or co-working sites intended to support the con the the campus. So that's kind of, you know, a mix of things. Um, we talk about it, I try to define it as small eery, cafe, coffee shop, small food services rather than restaurants. I think restaurant is definitely something that could be looked at. Um, but I think that would need to be looked at maybe differently or outside of the scope of what we're trying to define here. And then within that, what I looked at was accessory floor area limits. So limiting the accessory uses listed um above um outside of the office use to um 50% of the total gross floor area. And so that would include and I I'm looking at it now. It would include the boutique, child care, recreation, food, amenities. Those would be the accessory uses uh office, medical office. um professional services would be the principal use permitted. So you could have a 100% of the principal use or you could have 50 up to 50% of the accessory uses in that space. So that's that's an overview um of how that would break down and we can go into the ordinance more. I've got the draft ordinance in the in the packet and we can we can talk through that um if you have questions. I'll just go through the site plan um also. So site plan amendment I'm sorry site plan review to allow allow the reuse of the building. And so what I noted in the site plan uh review is that the existing building has 37,000 square feet um that's located in two buildings. There's a skyway that connects the two buildings. There are four stories in the west building and three stories in the east building. Um, when you walk into the west building, which is really kind of the main part of the building, you actually walk in on the second floor. There's a lower kind of walkout level floor and then you would go up to the third floor essentially to connect the skyway to go over to the um adjacent building. Uh before you get too far, does the ordinance amendment really impact the site plan review? So if we say like no to the ordinance amendment, does that kibash the site plan review? >> Yeah, we're we're tying them together because what we're saying is the uses that are being proposed without further definition in the ordinance wouldn't be permitted, right? >> We we really need to think of them hand in hand. Now, we can change the ordinance however it's corrected, but we really need some sort of an ordinance change in order to make this um use go together. >> Yeah. So, what I want to kind of do is first take a pause on the site plan review and see, okay, what are the actions for the ordinance amendment? Any any comments associated to that? Um, and then what I was potentially thinking is doing a vote on the ordinance amendment so we can figure, you know, do we need to go into the site plan review or should we, you know, pause and maybe the site plan review has to pause because of the changes we submitted to the ordinance review. Is that does that make sense? Is that fair or >> however you want to look at it is totally fine. >> Okay. So, what comments do we have for the ordinance amendment, I should say, or questions? >> I guess I have a question. And I I like where you're going with this, and I get why generally you don't want to do spot zoning. It seems like if we're trying to make this as broadly appealing as possible while getting away from, you know, offices hard to fill right now, what would your argument be against just doing the spot zoning and making it more commercial friendly? >> Well, so I mean I think I think that's we could do it that way. To me, it's it was kind of the it was kind of the the same end. Okay. >> Just with a different goal. So then when I looked at it and we talked about it internally, the idea that we have this kind of broadstroke undefined campus, office campus, it seemed like we could add in enough language that we would add anyway to just if we were going to go to reszone it. The other issue was it require it would require a comp plan amendment and I I thought that became too ownorous and probably not necessary to go through that process and cost really to go look at a comp plan amendment because it's guided industrial. So if we pull it out of the industrial bucket we got to come up with something and that would require complaint amendments. So when we talked through this, we said, you know what, that office campus gives us probably enough latitude to to make it as broad as we want. And I think our office zone, our industrial zone, um there is opportunity for some of this to I think occur within our industrial zone and still be compatible with the types of uses that are in the industrial. We did talk about doing the reszone and reguiding it to a mixeduse district, but then we would we'd have to come up with the mixeduse district language. If you look at what we're talking about in this industrial ordinance and you compared it to mixed use or mixed use general, >> um it's not or mixed use gateway. I mean, it's not far off. I mean, we're not really we're kind of we're kind of creating that just with a little bit of a tieback to office so that we we wouldn't just get a like a flea market, if you will. >> Yeah. >> So, would this then apply to, and this is an potentially ignorant question here, would this apply to every industrial zoned uh plat, whatever you want to call it. Y >> it would. Okay. >> Yeah. So, it really does change our industrial. Now, again, you'd have to have an you'd have to have an office primary use in office. >> We get more commercial warehouse and manufacturing, but we are seeing, you know, changes in some of that space as as offices go away or some of the bigger warehouse buildings go away. We are seeing more and more where people want kind of a small office, a small little maybe warehouse or a small manufacturing or a small like sales area, right? We're seeing that demand in all areas of the city right now. So, this this starts to accommodate, I think, a lot of the changeover that we're seeing with some of these bigger box buildings that we have. And I asked that just because I'm one I would hate for even that 50% necessity of office to become sort of a blocker to potential tenants. Uh especially once this is this is a really nice area right off of 12. Um but I I hear you. It's sort of threading the needle of flexibility and simplicity. So >> and the number 50 I made up. >> Oh, okay. So, so I mean we I I was just trying to put some I was trying I was trying to if we're going to call it an office campus and it had zero office I like then I think we're getting away from kind of that. But if you said it has to be 75 of of the kind of office use and then or u I'm sorry 25 of the office use and 75 of the accessory. I've got there's no heartburn in that. I don't I think we could I think we could define what we want it to be. >> If it was outside of the 50, you'd just have to come in with an amendment, right? >> Yeah, you could come in with an amendment um to do that. And I I don't think that would be that significant. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> Can you define again all the accessory uh uses? >> Yeah. So, it would be it would be items in the ordinance two, three, four, five. So of of the bullets here. >> Yeah. >> It would be okay. Two, three, four, and five. You saying? >> So the bullets would be um >> boutique >> to food. >> Boutique to food. Those would be the accessory uses. >> So if somebody want to put a trampoline park in one of these buildings on the highway, that be accessory or would that be a primary? >> It would be accessory. >> So they couldn't do that? >> No, they could. >> Oh, they could. >> As long as there wasn't three of them already in the building. Okay. >> Yeah. >> I was just up in St. Cloud. I kind of seen this all these same concepts where you're taking these old buildings and they're converting them into things. I just drove by one today and I was like, "Oh, a trampoline park." You know, it was an old commercial building. So, not that there's a problem with it. I'm just trying to understand how these apply to all these buildings sitting on 12. >> Yeah. And this, you know, I mean, I talked to Parker too about that the percentage and I'm I'm okay if we change percentage or I mean, however you however we want to do that. I think what we had looked at in that building in particular like a trampoline park wouldn't probably fit because it doesn't have >> No, I know. But I'm just saying conceptually, right? >> Right. Right. But if you got, you know, like >> Yeah. So that Well, that would >> that would fall under recreation and fitness, which would be part of that. >> Yeah. I'm just trying to >> Yeah. >> understand the concept of the primary use and the accessory use or Yeah. >> Yeah. I think it's a great idea. The proposal, I think it's fantastic. It's forward thinking. It all comes into this whole idea of, you know, like smart zones and incubators, all that kind of concept that have been around for a while now. So, I think it's a great idea. >> If it was increased about And the other side of that on the definition of industrial in our zoning, how heavy do we go and at what point does industrial start becoming a hindrance to this other side that we're moving towards, right? where you start getting incompatible neighbors. >> Yeah. And I mean I mean it's a question this has lived together with industrial arguably our heaviest industrial user in the whole park is the neighbor to this building and it's never been an issue right I mean um the neighbor to the east McDonald Enthone is like a super potent bad chemical I mean bad good company but >> No I know what you mean right? Yeah, they do really heavy heavy chemical mixing in their buildings. So, but so I don't I don't know in in um in a bigger city I think we could start to break these uses down more because we could get but in Maple Plane where we need to be flexible. I think the trend is create more flexibility. >> I agree. I'm with you. I just asking that question. >> Yeah. >> So I and and we're seeing this more and more. I mean, the more we can create flexibility in the ordinances, I think the better we the more likely we are to have buildings that are full, right? And >> um like I just said, I mean, we just got this basketball studio, basketball training center, and it's going in next to manufacturing in the same >> building. Um to not too unlike gymnastics. >> Yeah. Right. Exactly. >> I think it's a great idea and I um more about it better idea. I think it sounds like my only reservation I guess is some of the accessory uses that might have a lot more traffic in and out you know uh talking about you know some of the uh cafe coffee shops eeries um and you know where people are coming and going much more frequently. It's not like you're going there for hours at a time. Um, and this site, you know, the the the access off of 12 is pretty rough. Uh, you know, getting out. Um, and it's a bit secudous to I mean, it's safer to go around, but it's that's kind of a, you know, circuitous route as well, too. I'm just worried a little bit about traffic and and the amount of uh amount of traffic in those more frequent visit type of uses. Yeah, I think it's a good question. Um, couple of things. One, they have ample parking on this site. So, when I looked at the parking ratios, even if you started to get some like small coffee shops or cafes, you're not you're not going to hit a parking threshold that I think is going to be deter a deterrent. I think this site is overparked for what it is. But with that said, um I kind of am when I when I thought about that, I talked Parker, I mean I I think if you got a if you got this thing filled up with tenants and then if somebody wanted to open a little like coffee shop with a pastry or something to serve the tenants, I think that's more likely than if we're going to get an actual, you know, caribou coffee. >> Yeah. Most of those retail places are going to want visibility. >> It'd never go in this. So it kind of is going to self-regulate is what I thought. But does that mean we couldn't get um you know the like state fair cookie queen that wanted to like open up the you know retail front to sell their cookies out of? I think you could maybe get that but again I don't think that has day-to-day traffic that's going to be prohibitive to the just general natur. I guess I was more concerned about the in-n-out traffic. Certainly has ample parking and there's room to build more probably. Um >> well, it's going to be a roundabout, >> right? I think the parking on this site was probably designed for like a or it's a question designed for a kind of a 8 to 5. >> Yeah. Heavy in heavy out the Well, this sounds like there's the potential for a lot of back and forth as well as deliveries back and forth, >> whatever. So, more of an 8 to five, but constant, >> which um is interesting. We know on Highway 12 how that's how that's grown over the years, the amount of traffic um that can get backed up coming from the last week. Is that is Mindai going to change that as part of the divided road eventually where it's going to be only >> Yeah, I I I think there is a real possibility that at some point it's going to become right in right out. >> Yeah. >> Um >> and that's what they're trying to do. So with this with with the site plan, they're trying to build this road, which actually has been something that's been talked about for a while. The former owner wanted to build this at one point and had put together plans. Um, we've looked at it and think it it works well. >> I do think this would become a potential out at night for people or even people that are delivering that want to go back west, I mean east because everybody knows that's just terrible sight lines. So, so I think this is a win for that site and does change how we would perceive in-n-out traffic because >> you're not dictating it and for sure there's people who are going to go out the short way, but if you try to go out the short way during peak traffic times, you're going to sit, you know, like you're going to have a hard time getting in and out. Um so this I think is going to become more usable or more used by the tenants in that building once it's constructed that this is proposed as a part of the site plan approval. So this would be a part of what we would ultimately approve in that. >> Going back to something Parker I think you said did you say there's seven tenants? >> Well there's seven. >> Okay. Building two are able to elev We could increase, but we are subdividing up already. building. >> The reason I asked that is because I I do like the idea of nailing down the I know you just threw the 50% in there, Mark. And Parker, I believe you said lowering that would probably be helpful in finding tenants. >> 80% that would be awesome. >> Well, so two out of seven would be 28%, three out of seven would be like 42. Do we want to look at making it 40 or 30 or do we want to leave it at 50? And that's something we would have to do here in in this uh >> Yeah, we would have to recommend changing the 50% uh >> this is just a draft, right? So the ordinance is considered. So >> what I gave you is just a draft. We we can recommend any changes to that prior to going to city council. >> Okay. And uh so kind of coming off of his question because office campus suggests a primary use is going to be office. Does office use have to be 50% or is it if it's 25% office? >> It's totally up to us. >> It's up to us. >> We get to define what that is, which is why we're yeah doing this is trying to get to what is what do we think makes sense for this? And you know, with every ordinance, I always say it, we can change it. And sometimes we get it right and it works perfect. Sometimes Parker's going to come back and say, "Hey, guess what? I got three trampoline parks and they all are really great and we want them in there. You guys help me out because I want to build I want to rent them." So So I mean it it's nothing's perfect. We try to do our best job at how do we make this what we want it to be for the most part and then if something doesn't work, we change it. So >> I would like to throw the idea out there of it being 25%. >> It's the opposite way need to go. >> So 25 >> 25 office >> 25% office 75% accessory and you're saying >> Oh no, you're right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yep. >> Why why are um professional services considered accessory? Why couldn't they could >> They're not. >> They're not. >> No. So in that >> professional services are >> office >> primary office >> office medical general administrative professional services medical dental pet care and allied health clinics are all permitted as permitted use I'm sorry that bullet point there was a per I >> well the first bullet point is all those bullet points you're talking about accessory uses >> no so that is saying that but that's what I clarified is that the first bullet point is permitted uses that defined the the office permitted. I'm I apologize for that. It should have said permitted then between office and boutique. It used to say accessory and I don't know what happened. >> Okay. Yeah, that's I was reading the same. >> So maybe >> does it need to be >> something like an office campus may include the following primary uses and then that's where office and medical is listed. >> Yes. And then >> and accessory uses would be the two through points. And then it would be another paragraph that says the office campus may also include the following accessory uses. >> Yeah. >> And then that's where we would say okay 25% of the space could be office 75 would be accessory or whatever. >> The way it's written the ancillary and accessories occup it would be done 75%. Right. >> Yeah. And so if you look at the draft ordinance um we have a provision that says accessory floor area limits and it says ancillary and accessory uses may occupy up to 50% of the total gross floor area of the office campus. And it does say unless a higher percentage approved by the city through a conditional use permit that would but in this case what we'd be saying is we'd be making a change to this to say occupy up to 75% um >> of the total gross floor area. So accessory uses operate or occupy up to 75. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> It it seems a little off to me for calling this office campus to have only 25% office. >> Yeah. My fear there is we've heard multiple people say that they're struggling to get and we could do this sort of as it becomes necessary. We've heard from developers that they're struggling to get office uh you know companies to move in. So, do we just make that make it easier, I guess, off the bat because I know the whole reason we're doing this, and I agree, like from a naming convention, it's a little it's a little iffy, but we're sort of doing it to increase the flexibility of the space. I'm also, I guess, personally thinking about the fact that it's right off of 12. I think it's going to be more attractive, unfortunately, to the what is it? Accessory floors >> um or the accessory uses. That's sort of my thought at least. Well, and I I mean I I do think so, but at the same time, I you know, I talked to Parker and he's he just threw out 80, but I he and I talked about 50. He's got two floors of the East Building least, and I you you're hoping those get released here shortly. very conscientious of ecosystems that are individual buildings. We're not Whatever. My point in the existing is you've already got a huge percentage of that, right? We've got two out of seven already occupied by office. They're going to stay >> office. So, the idea that you >> you couldn't get to 50 or maybe if we made it 70 30 what I mean >> I don't know how relevant it is because I think you know we're using the office campus because we don't define office campus I don't know they'll I mean do we really care that child care goes into an office building and is that an accessory use I'm calling it an accessory use we probably could call it a permitted use because it fits the mold of office buildings many office buildings um so so maybe we could pull that one out I do I think recreational fitness, food services, and you know, the the the boutique retail are definitely outside of the definition of office. But maybe if we threw child care into permitted, >> now we're down to the three categories and then we bucket that a little bit, maybe more like 30 70 or something and at least 30% of the buildings are occupied by office. But again, we're using the office campus as the as the definition. We could redefine it, but we already had it. So, we and I kind of do like it because an office campus to me implies mixed use, not just office. >> Trying to get that balance right. I was trying to maintain some tie to office because I think from a land use standpoint, we want to maintain some office use, right? We just don't want it to become all X, whatever that is. We want it to have an office presence. kind of those comments and I kind of I feel I maybe move the child care up to permitted use and then leave it at the 50% and then you still have a conditional use permit lever you can pull if it's something different like especially if it for a different building or who knows what ratio is going to be and what the effect would be. I think it might strike a nice balance between >> Yeah, I'd be fine with that. >> Yeah, >> the def definition of office and flexibility. >> We should also keep in mind what other buildings we've got this other industrial area too south of town. Um how might this uh definition affect those buildings? I mean, we're talking about one situation here now, but um we should make sure that it works well for >> the rest of the industrial areas in town, too. >> So, I looked at the remainder. I mean, really, to me, the kind of the biggest other building we have is the Proto Lab campus. I think when I went around and looked at all our other buildings, they have such a high percentage of warehouse or warehouse manufacturing that they would not they wouldn't they wouldn't want to sell for they wouldn't want to do what this building's doing >> and they wouldn't hit the definition. They're going to be more apt to be just following it whatever the warehouse uh industrial allows which still does allow a broad spectrum. We just don't have these buildings that are like this where they're multifloor and they were single tenant user >> and they were 100% office. >> Yeah, >> we just don't have that many. Protolabs is one. But if you kind of drive around our industrial park, you think about all the other buildings we have >> almost excl I think there's one other on the south side of P pioneer that was I mean I think it's more office than not office. But >> what about south of town? South of 12. Yeah, I mean ABC's not the warehouse building, the boat storage building, the weld drilling building, the landscape building. I mean, none of those really fall into office. >> Yeah. >> Um, so I just don't know that we hit it. >> And so this to me is kind of a two off, maybe a three off in our city. >> Protolabs for sure could come in and do this. >> But Protoabs also set up totally different inside than this building. >> Well, we could see that, right? I mean, >> is it empty now? >> No, it's just it's a ghost town compared to what it was, but not empty >> or what they wanted it to be. >> But I mean, we're seeing this, right? I mean, we're seeing office buildings in downtown Minneapolis converting to apartments, right? Um, we're not suggesting any residential use, but I mean, there are definitely reuse office buildings. I think this is going to be our one and only of these, but >> it would apply. I mean, it would apply to whatever else could meet it. >> I think it's really exciting. I think it's sort of part of the evolution, I guess, of the way things are. I agree that keeping some office in there I think is important. It protects I think one of the questions was how does it impact the greater part of our industrial parts? It comes to that. I think making sure that we have that as a strong component. Um, I mean, it's a great way to move that building forward. My only other question is it does state an office campus may include the following accessory uses that primarily serve employees, tenants, and campus visitors. Um, does campus visitors include just general public? >> Good question. >> Yeah, I wrote that in there because, you know, when I'm talking about some of these boutiques, so like child care, uh, recreation and fitness, there's a mix. Food, amenity, there's a mix. Um, I don't think I was trying to limit it to it has to serve the users. I think it can be open to the public. So it may be that that language should be changed to just say that that not primarily but that serve employees, tenants and campus visitors or we could just change it to say accessory uses are as follows and not try to prescribe that that hard of a line with what these uses are because I don't I think in talking through this with with um Parker kind of and and walking the site. I mean, I just Yeah, I think if if we get a fitness club, I mean, if they went in the bottom floor that overlooks the um >> the whole marsh area and you can pull in that back lower level, you could drive right up, you get out, probably swipe your fob, get a good workout in while you're looking out. I mean, we care that that serves >> employees or if it serves our community. I think we don't care about that as long as it's into these uses. >> So that's probably a good point that that sentence. >> Yeah, I would almost just leave it up as here's what an office campus may include and we don't necessarily have to limit who is able to use it. Just strike that. The only one that I'm thinking about still a little odd in my mind is the child care. U hard time visualizing that being sort of open to the public. Child care. Yeah. People, you know. >> Well, I mean in in child care perspective, uh they would have to have certain securities just to, you know, the public may be able to access on the front of I'm paying into this child care facility, but it's not like if I'm not Um, if I don't have a child going there, I'm not going to go into that building. Nor am should I be allowed to go in that building. Like childc carees have to have certain security arrangements. >> Um, in some respect to even receive if they get state funding or you know I'm just >> and I think that child care in this building would again would be that bottom floor. I think it'd be hard to do it on the multi on the >> you want to have kids who want to go outside as well too. So you'd have to manage and control that. >> Yeah. And so that if you the bottom floor of this building, the walk outside is really I think conducive to that. So if you look at this um look at this building, >> you have any images of the outside of the building. >> Um >> yeah, I think there's area by that bottom floor you could fence in a playground area. >> Yeah. So like you could fence in. Um I do have photos, but let me Yeah, I just use Google Maps. >> Give me one second. Yeah. Did you get to the bottom street view of it? >> There is not a street view because >> I drove in there today and look like there. It's like I had to clean a lot of dead trees out of there. >> Yeah. >> That's one of the comments for the site plan. It's like there's a lot of overgrowth. >> Looks like they've been cleaning it up. >> Yeah. They took pictures inside. Yeah. >> Yeah. I drove the other. >> Oh, nice. >> Yeah. And I'd even say, I mean, this is getting off track, but from a Highway 12 perspective, >> um, sight line isn't great of the building and of the area. So, >> Sure. >> Sure. building >> future future conversation. >> Yeah, I can just see where that was maybe a sound natural sound barrier too. So, I'm trying to find I I had some interior photos, but um >> Oh, that's fine. >> They're not popping up, but >> yeah. And our our isometrics aren't probably going to work very well to show that >> to the point the walk out level, the bottom level is really set up to be its own thing. You could easily put a daycare in the bottom level that you'd have um you'd have drive up parking really well. I mean it would be private single floor entrance in and out. They have a kitchen on that first floor too like a small kitchen at area. >> You could easily convert that. And you know child care is definitely one of the things we hear a lot is a needed entity right I mean there is not enough child care. >> So I think it's a good use. So, I think it's super compatible with what they could do in this building. >> So, does anyone have any concerns if we remove the limitation on who can access or just the the wording there? Uh, keep the 50% and then add child care to primary use for office campus. Is that kind of what we've chatted about? >> Yeah. >> What do I say? motion to make those changes. >> Yeah. I mean, so, um, yeah, as you had stated, we're looking to strike the wording to limit the use to particular people. >> Um, there was a conversation, do we want to increase that percentage or, you know, what percentage do we want to apply? Do we want it to be 50/50? Do we want to be to be 8020? Um, so then, and then the last piece was changing, you know, child care from an accessory use to a primary use. Um so then it would be are we motioning do we have a motion to accept the amendment of the ordinance as is or is there a motion to accept the amendment with the changes of striking c the population to visit increasing or changing that percentage. Um, and then you know what to >> what percentage is that and then changing date child care to a primary use. >> I'd support your your proposal. >> Yeah, I mean we could keep it 50. If we made it 40 and they keep seven tenants, that makes the three out of seven, but I'm also very comfortable keeping it at 50. I especially if we add child care into there. >> Yeah, >> they'll be they'll be at it >> pretty quick. So anyone have strong opinions about 40 verse 50? I think 50 is good. >> 50. Okay. >> Works. >> Keep it 5050. >> Cool. >> We have the flexibility for the discussion down the road. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Parks, it's right in the middle. >> Okay. Yeah. Because then there is the point of unless a higher percentage is approved by city through conditional use. So if they were going to add something in that pushes them over 50, well, they can still do that as but they have to go through the cup process. >> Pretty straightforward. >> Yep. >> Okay. So, I need a motion in some way, shape, or form. >> I have I have one more one more small question before we take a vote on that. Uh, very small question, but >> we're talking about ownership. Uh, Mark and and either single ownership or coordinated ownership control. Is that defined somewhere? What? >> No, I just think it it eliminates the possibility that you could have individual ownership of each space. >> Yeah. So, I mean, I could we could I could work on that wording. If you want to clarify that even further, I could have >> Scott, our attorney, just maybe add a sentence to that. >> A little saw that is a little confusing. You know, what if you had whatever four or five or something? You know, is that coordinated or what what is coordinated ownership? >> Yeah. >> Mean, >> I think if you if you wanted me I what I would do is just make that a recommendation to amend that to clarify coordinated and then I'll work with Scott. I'll work with the city attorney to come up with that. >> I like the idea. It's just I >> Yeah, >> I can just see maybe it being potentially an issue down the road. >> Yeah, I think it's >> something comes in and >> it's a good comment. >> Is that something that um we could recommend to the city to define coordinated ownership rather than having it be implicitly detailed here? So, we could approve the amendment with the way that it's worded, but then our recommendation would be, you know, the city needs to define what coordinated ownership and control is. >> I don't I don't think so. I think we would def I I think it would be better in here because it's really only applicable to here. I don't want to confuse the rest of the ordinance. So I think we just in that paragraph um in that recital that it talks about coordinated ownership we clarify coordinated ownership to mean not individual not individually own units cannot be individually owned. >> Y >> right and I and I'll clarify what that is but I think that is an important aspect of this is that you couldn't take a building break it up into a bunch of >> I think we just just add that to our motion recommendation. So, what was that last one? >> It was >> define coordinated ownership within the >> That's really it. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, I need a motion to adopt the amendment as written with the recommendations that we defined or we define what coordinated ownership means. We change child care to a primary use. Um, we're not changing the percentage. >> We remove those. >> We don't need to do that. and we remove the um uh spec specificity of who can access these or use these >> and make it clear that the first bullet are all primary uses and not under the accessory use list. >> Okay. So I'll make a motion to do that to I mean if if I want to get explicit with it uh I'll make a motion to approve on the basis that we define coordinated ownership that we make it more clear what the primary uh use cases are. that the primary use cases include or we're adding to the primary uses child care uh and that we are removing the limit uh the wording on the limits to just employees, tenants, and campus visitors and keeping that broad. >> That's it. >> All right. Uh Nick motions to approve with the added recommendations. Uh do I hear a second? >> I'll second. >> Seven seconds. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose say the same. Eyes have it six to zero. The uh amendment is approved. So with those recommendations, does that cause us to pause on the site plan or can we proceed with the site plan review? >> Yeah, we can we can proceed with the site plan, >> right? >> Yeah. Um okay. So then going through site plan review um so with this project then we looked at um really in general we just looked at how that site laid out. We looked at the parking. We looked at um the kind of general site conditions and then we did a more detailed review relating to the access road um with our engineer looking at storm water grading um connection points to the city road. And so the applicant um let me see if I can pop this back up now that we're on this. Um they provided us with a um kind of a full oops set of plans that showed the existing parking um that's currently in place. And so you can see on the south side of the buildings, there's a lot that comes off of Highway 12. Um then there's a driveway that goes all the way around um to the north side. It wraps around here um these back spaces back here. As it goes around to that back side, it becomes um that's kind of a walk out as I was saying. So, the um the door to the building that is down here is at a full uh level lower than the door that you would come in on this side of the building, if that makes sense. So, as you go around the building, you're actually going down. And then there's an entire back parking lot in the north part of the building. And then what the applicant's proposing to do is extend this drive aisle, which doesn't exist right now, um to then tie into the culdeac on Pioneer Creek Drive. And so we highly recommend the connection to Pioneer Creek Drive as being necessary to facilitate this building being broken up into the number of units proposed. and we've looked at the um grading that would that's proposed along with drainage. Um the city engineer had some minor comments but noted that no additional storm water requirement um or threshold is being hit or triggered by the additional uh driveway that's being put in. So we looked at the parking calculations. We said the current site has 165 parking spaces. We require one parking space for each 250 square feet of office. We noted there's three 37,000 square feet of office. So if you took that, that requires 148 parking spaces. So there's really about almost 20 uh parking spaces in surplus for general office. The city requires same level of parking for retail. So whether or not it was retail or it was office, we still require one um space for every 250 square feet, the one that would change would obviously be if it was a full service restaurant or something like that that would drive. But even with the small kind of boutique restaurants that we're talking about, the the additional parking that's on site I think supports it. Um so based on all of that, um we believe that the parking is adequate. I did have the city engineer uh go out and he did uh on site review the condition of the parking lots because if anybody else drove out there, you'll note that the north parking lot is a lot of has a lot of grass sticking through it. Um but his review was that the parking lot was structurally good. He felt that it was fine and that he recommended that it just be cracksealed and restriped as a condition of the approval. So, I added that as a condition that both parking lots would be crack sealed as needed and then restriped um so that it's fresh and you could see the designated parking spaces. The other thing I looked at is the um existing parking lot is illuminated with exterior pole lighting that we noted that it should be brought into compliance with applicable standards. The applicant did prepare a lighting plan showing the existing lighting and proposed lighting um for the new access road. Um they also provided cut sheets. Our only comment in that and and it is in the packet what they provided is that they um convert the existing lighting um in both the north and south sides. They're showing um the parking lot lighting um being converted on the access road and then around a portion of the building. We just noted that the existing poles the the actual light standard be converted to a to a full cutoff um standard but they did provide a parking I mean a um photoometric plan. Whoops. And um for part of it there's no impact anybody on this site um based on the parking lot lighting the distance to surrounding residential properties. I think um as long as we review it at the time of building permit to ensure that they're bringing it into compliance, we feel like that's satisfactory. Um fire department had no comments relating the pro proposed use and neither neither did West Henipin public safety um as it related to the conversion. They both thought that it would work fine. Um and so with that um we don't have really any other comments relating to the site plan. This site is somewhat unique in that it is this kind of campus space back off of the highway. Um, you know, you utilizing the existing building, the existing driveways, and the existing parking lot. While the parking lot itself doesn't currently meet some of our standards as far as um parking spaces without an island or things like that, it doesn't seem like there's a real strong need given that they're trying to utilize the buildings kind of in their exact location. um that it it doesn't seem like it it makes sense to try to completely retrofit that, but obviously I'd look for planning commission discussion direction related to that. So, with that, I'll I'll kind of yield back to the planning commission and we can talk about any of those um pieces as much as we need to. >> I have a question about signage. Will there be signage at either of the entrance points? Yeah. So I I mean I think we talked about I mean they'd be subject to meeting our signage ordinance for a multi-tenant space. I mean if so we have a provision already that allows for signage in the industrial park for various types of signage. They can apply for a signed permit that would >> meet that if they wanted any exceptions then that would be a separate measure separate application. >> But they didn't submit a sign package with this. Are there intentions to put up new signs uh at either entrance point? The one as far as it bigger right now. Same with the other side. Similar sign. Any other questions? >> Are the sight lights on the road required to be there like on the drive or they're more just to light the drive for >> on the private drive that they're proposing? Yep. >> So, are the is the lighting required on that private drive? >> Yes. Okay. We would so anytime we have um >> a space that's utilized by the public whether it's private or p public we require um adequate lighting to ensure safety and that type of thing and this would obviously be used at night. So we will for sure require that. I don't have any issues with it. I think um >> that connection makes the site a lot safer for getting on and off 12. >> So do we just need a motion to approve? >> Yeah. Yeah. Motion to approve as uh suggested by the city. Right. >> I motion to approve the site plan u as the city has defined it. >> Okay. Second the motion. >> I have Nick motioning to approve as the city has uh written it up and then I have Adam seconding the motion. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> All oppose say the same. >> Eyes have it six to zero. Um, site plan review is recommended for approval. So, what's next? >> This will go to city council on March 23rd. >> It's March 23rd. Okay. >> Consideration. So, we'll we'll work on the ordinance, get that amended and cleaned up, and then uh we'll bring the site plan with the ordinance to city council for their consideration. >> All right. Cool. Um, moving on to item seven. Any other business or something that wants to be stated here? Otherwise, I'll take a motion for adjournment. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Do motions to adjurnn and Mike seconds. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose say the same. >> Eyes have it six to zero. Meeting adjourned. >> The time is 7:16 p.m. Thanks everyone.