Hello everyone. >> Let's see if Charles >> Hello. >> Seeing that it's 6:00 p.m. I would like to call this meeting of the Lake Economic Development Authority to order. The first order of business is to approve the minutes from the last meeting. Uh I hope everyone has had a chance to look at them. Uh I'd like to make the motion that we approve the minutes from the last meeting as they were submitted. >> Second. All in favor? >> I I >> No one opposed. Thank you. That passes. Okay. The first uh document that we'll talk about is the uh the work plan for the coming year and I would like to ask community development director stop to go ahead and pre present it. >> Okay. Good evening. We have the 2026 work plan. We presented this I believe at the last meeting. Ask for input. So, as you can see for our mission statement, our goals have remained the same. The work plan items have changed slightly. So, the market, the city owned 180 acres. We finished the ULI tap process. So, we want to begin that and [snorts] we're going to cover that tonight after um purchase a grant for the former former fire station and parks building. Just so you know, the appraisal is ongoing and the survey is is happening to the title work. So hopefully we'll have um a purchase agreement by the first quarter. We're still waiting on the um the brownfield the environmental will come back. We've been >> That's what I was just going to ask. Is phase two still not done yet? >> We we've asked a couple times hopefully a week or two or any any day now is is basically what we're looking at with that. So, um, but we have explored brownfield brownfield grants in case there is a cleanup and we can discuss that more if that comes up because that may affect the purchase price and we can figure that out. Um, identify and evaluate city- owned properties and develop a disposition plan. Uh, create plans for city- owned properties. Consider um analyzing properties for purchase. that came up last time at the EDA is I think it's just being flexible in case properties come up, we can address them and talk about them at the meeting and put a plan together. Just so you know, we talked about the city owned properties. This is city-owned uh watershed county. What we plan to do is basically go to the GIS and pull everything that's in the GIS file, the parcel information from the county and just go through that and create a plan. We're going to go to the EDA, the planning commission, obviously the council, but just to see where that fits best, if there's any property acquisition. We met with Valley Branch last week, I believe, or the week before about um property that they're acquiring that they would like to donate to the city. So, this comes up from time to time. Uh create and implement a plan for Old City Hall. So, that'll be interesting. We are going to come back with just kind of a parking plan. Uh I reached out. I'm going to be meeting with a broker to get a BO, bro, a broker price um opinion on it and then also a commercial contractor just to see what a basic remodel would take um just to get some pricing options there. Uh evaluate the landfill um so we can develop it as an asset for the city. Currently, we will do a workshop early next year. I'm waiting on um Excel to get back to me. They said that they will have someone reach out to me about the power purchase agreement. That option, we had discussed that in the past that potentially without paying out the bonds, you could move forward with a public entity and they could move forward to to actually install a solar uh facility, but I'm waiting to hear back from them. So, I'd really like to hear from them before we do the workshop and provide options. If they say they can't do it, then that's when we're going to go back to uh >> Okay. So, so at this point you're not sure when the workshop would be held? >> I haven't said it yet. I think we probably I would like to give them some time. Do a workshop in February, hopefully February, March. >> In February or March time frame. >> What I'm hoping just kind of following it, we've talked about it for over a year now, is that Excel does have a pathway um to make it happen. So hopefully they'll be able to >> Okay. Yeah. I maybe I'll talk to you offline about it a little bit. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. And then uh we just streamlined some of this um the communications effort working with Cath Kathy just working to improve our website, social media, keeping our outreach material up to date. We updated our community development projects page and that's something that is much easier to update now and we're going to continue to make improvements to that. um share comm community communications with Stillwater Chamber of Commerce doing that and then we've started a comprehensive list of businesses that we continue to update and then also collaborate with Washington County CDA to explore and share resources for businesses. Um I went to a meeting with a leadership meeting and I think they have some um grants that are interested interesting outside of the CDA too that the CDA works with other uh groups. So, I'd like to talk to them, reach out to them, and maybe they could come and just present to the EDA everything that they do. And then, obviously, we talked about updating the EDA handbook. We want to just make sure that that's more of a housekeeping thing. >> Is there anything else? Questions or >> Yeah. go back to create and implement plan for old city hall. >> Okay. >> Um, I think there might have been a comment on this last time, but I I don't recall for sure. Um but there continuing rumors that Fury is thinking about or entertaining opportunities to sell. Is it possible to to include in that plan the potential for marketing property to be you know that's contig well it's really not contiguous to fury it's contiguous to school right >> but but but that whole area then school thing is up in the air I guess a year from yes year from yesterday is proposed closing date with a lot to be done between them. what what are the chances that there could be a more holistic view of developing that area? >> So, it's possible. We discussed that as an option at the workshop. Also, I talked to the broker after the workshop. Um, the school site is I believe moving I believe they're under contract, but they're under contract with the Valley Community Center to move forward. So the community center is doing their due diligence for the next month to see if it's financially feasible to um basically own operate a community center at that location. One of the challenges is it is you know VMX VMX requires housing. So that um they most likely would have to look at bringing in a housing developer on a portion of the site or the Fury site would have more housing. There's different ways that that could be done. So that's been communicated and uh I think there's opportunity there. I mean I've talked to the person that is uh works for the community center for over a year now. So I think there's opportunity to do that. So >> might be a fit for the old city hall property with that with the community center. Maybe >> I think what we're looking at is potentially a parking lot for the city hall. Yeah. But the benefit to them is that they get to use it as density to increase density. Okay. >> And then potentially we could work out a deal that benefits both the city and >> Okay. Thank you. Are there any further comments on this on this presentation? >> Question on the brownfield grants. Um, is it our burden to be looking for those or is it the potential buyers? >> It's it's the buyer, but I believe through the county there's a program with MPCA that makes it easier for us to work with the buyer since it is still city-owned that we would be eligible for funds. I haven't looked into that in several months, but that's what I was told months ago. >> Gotcha. Thank you. I like the idea of uh having a comprehensive list of Lake Elmo businesses, which is updated regularly. I think that's uh an important thing to have out there at least on our on our website or someplace where it's uh readily accessible to people that are looking to shop locally. >> [snorts] >> What's the thought on that as to what is the source of truth? Like what are the the ways to obviously the the chambers of commerce for Woodbury and Still Water both have our businesses, but who truly has a single source of truth? Like I'm thinking Department of Revenue has stuff, but only when they have a certain type of business. Um the county has certain things but there really isn't a single place where we can just go and purge their data. >> There isn't I mean [clears throat] we don't have a business license process. So where I used to work we monitored that so we had everybody right and everybody had to come get a license. We don't do that. Um so it's just really difficult. We have change of use. So we process zoning certificates of zoning compliance. So anytime there's a change of use we'll capture that. We also want to talk to anybody coming in and usually they communicate with us and fire just in case they're making any kind of changes to their building whether it's restaurant to restaurant. We've seen that where something's changed or they do a minor renovation but then they need to add something. It's good for them to talk to us and fire to make sure that they're getting the correct permits. But to answer your question, I'm not aware of a list and we've discussed it that is easy for us to access >> and even our utility billing system even for the DBA only works for those who are on water or sewer. So that doesn't give us get us the whole list either. Um yeah, I'm just trying to think of ways to help and make it easier on the staff side for that. Can I add? Um, I think we have a a list going right now um from previous EDA. I'm wondering if anyone um on the EDA knows what they did to start that list. Maybe Nina or um Tony, >> the one that we got from the county >> is is that where it came from? I just I stumbled across it. So, that's that's the >> Yeah, and there were a lot of dead ends on that one. >> Okay. Thanks. No, just as a point of clarification, it says the is the idea to have a comprehensive list of all businesses that have physical locations in the city or would that I mean got to be a lot of businesses where people are operating out of their homes. We're not considering those correct or incorrect. >> I mean, we do um process home businesses. So, we we are considering more brick and mortar though, actual stores. I think that's what we're more or less interested in so we able to share that information with residents >> to make it easier so you're not having to go find people. Could you put something just a little blurb in the fresh have a new business anything and just have it ongoing and you have a form that they can just submit if they want to be listed. >> You can do that. The purpose isn't for any like government documentation for say it's it's more for marketing and hopefully we can have folks opt in or flag changes and >> serve it serve its purpose. I like that idea. >> I I think it's certainly within the the purview of the EDA to try to uh improve the situation of businesses in the city. So, uh, yeah, to have a list of businesses that are public face, you know, that would deal with local residents. We don't need somebody who's based in St. Paul but wants to wants to get work here. We're looking for local, you know, make a list of local businesses that would want to do business with local people. >> Yeah. And if there's anything us as an EDA can do to make sure they feel connected into the city, their voice is being heard. Whether or not they want, if they just said, "Hey, I want to be left alone." That that's fine. But just having a connection into city council, into EDA matters. I think that's powerful. Something that honestly drove drove me to, you know, commit my time to the EDA. I think that's that's pretty interesting stuff when you can have a real impact and a voice for for businesses in the city. >> I think that's a good point. [snorts] >> If there's no further comment, we have a motion suggested here and uh to recommend approval of the 2026 EDA work plan as presented by staff. >> So move. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Uh is there any discussion on hearing? Nobody. I would like to go and uh ask uh all who approve of this motion. >> I I >> Is anyone opposed? Okay. Motion passes. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> So the next item is the um 180 acres tap. So, I just wanted to they gave a presentation at council. Some of you were there. I just wanted to kind of go through that presentation and talk about next steps. Um, also if you have questions, comments, you can stop me and we can just talk about it. But, um, let's see. All right. So, I've taken portions of their presentation. Um, this is just I'll skip some of it, but development opportunities in Lake Elmo. You can see here's the site next to the um public works building. It's 18 acres. It's three parcels. And we provided them with questions. So we wanted to know what land uses would generate the most taxes. Uh what land uses are the most um feasible in the current condition, current market. Are there any development trends that you're seeing for uh comparable properties? What are the pros and cons of dividing the site or selling it as one? Should we offer it in phases? Is now a good time to sell the property? Uh you know, anything related to the market? Those were questions we asked them. Uh does the timing affect how it should be sold? We also talked about economic incentives, the typical ones like tiff tax abatement and then what kind of requirement strategies could the city put in place to encourage community participation in the development process. So a group of panelists the top two panelists we worked with for few months um to kind of get this together and we'll kind of go through the process and we had other people have backgrounds in real estate development, planning and then public finance. So that process for the few months we gathered all the briefing materials as some of you know when you went through the process that this site was supposed to be developed. It wasn't. So we wanted all the background information that we could all the land use zoning. Um we were able to put that in a folder and they were able to review that the two main panelists um to kind of start that process. We had a tour um with the panelists and then with the group and then they interviewed almost 30 stakeholders. So we had a stakeholder list that was generated. Uh I know the ED help helped create that list and then there was more discussion at the reception. The panel made recommendations and a report the report was sent yesterday. We will be forwarding that to you. So just it's very similar to the presentation but if you have any comments let us know. So the stakeholder meetings were with city staff, building owners, managers, developers, architects, brokers, lenders, advocates, community organizations. And you can see here, these are the three parcels. This is how they're referred to one, two, three. Um, we'll go in a little bit of detail. You can see this is the guidance. The main thing to point out here, I believe, is just that most of it is guided business part except for a small percentage that's commercial. and they had a really small area that was uh not them but prior we do low density residential and a buffer zone to the north the infrastructure just that there's rail um both uh between the first and second parcel there's also overhead power lines and there is a utility um easement this red line going through here is I believe a gas pipeline so those are things to consider so the guiding principles this is what heard after meeting with everyone is that they want to maximize the community benefit, maintain image and character. Um they talked about the gateway. It's a gateway to Lake Amo. Establish design and performance standards. Basically, the developers who come in should know exactly what the city is looking for. Pres preserve future flexibility at such a large site. um advance sustainability and resilience, ready and responsive to the market, build internal capacity, integrate open space and trails, and effectively manage transitions. So, the site's contribution to the city, uh, fiscal economic benefits. We're looking at taxes, daytime population, can it attract, um, people, jobs, retail, housing options. What should the housing options look like? Um, the gateway presence, the green space network, and then the village. How does it connect? Is it close enough to kind of It's different, but how does, you know, how can we kind of blend it? and looking at trails obviously roads. So the study questions themes were market feasibility the local benefit in terms of like tax benefit uh community role and community engagement and then the phasing and timing. So this is what they came up with. Essentially parcel one would be almost a business park light industrial and then parcel two the same kind of um development and then parcel three would be a mix of commercial and housing some of it lower density higher d medium density and higher density apartments. Um the access, we'll talk about that a little bit, but the access points um were discussed with the county in the past. They look like they I wouldn't say pre-approved, but we need to work with them to make sure that that's where the intersections can occur. We feel pretty confident that that a roundabout or intersection could go into the site between the two on 34th Street. So, that was uh that was good to hear. And then this is just a overview of of the site. They want to just talk about retail kind of show what it could look like. We have a little explorers across the street. But the industrial talking about more of a light industrial. Um we see some of this along Hudson. The big question they brought up is do you want to consider heavy industrial? Typically what that means is outdoor storage of any kind, materials, trucks. So it's just something to consider moving forward. And then multif family, they brought in these kind of four story multif family buildings um to talk about the precedent. And then town houses and small single family. So one of the things we talked about is smaller lot single family that could be owner occupied and it could be sold at a lower price point than what we typically see here. And we have a lot of flexibility since we own the site. So, it may be the one opportunity where we can kind of guide what we'd want to see and consider housing at different price points and design. This just shows connectivity. I know there were some comments that I saw. The the lines kind of in the back were just trails, potential trails that could be connected to um Sunfish Lake Park and the new 76 acres. So market feasibility, this is just at a really high level. Just want to talk about what they're what they're discussing, but site one would be about 230 um 230 um,000 square feet of warehouse and after it would be built out estimated at 27 million. The second one is 500,000 square feet, 67 million. And then combined where you have five retail locations, 56 town houses, 17 fa single family, 44 mini single family and 230 apartment units. That that group would be around 94 million. For me, what's important here, what I like about this is that we can use this moving forward and we will use this moving forward like in terms of our pricing. So, it's apples to apples when we talk about um what we think if anything we want to change as a city. we may not want as many apartments and that sort of thing. And we'll talk about that in a second. >> What What's a mini single fan? Is that like a tiny home or >> No, it's actually a a full-size home and >> it's a 40 foot lot by 4,800 feet. We have this in our medium density districts and they're usually um they they are required to be rear loaded. So, it's a way that you can create single family housing and create a lot of value that um like the the units to create that value. >> Are these like slab on grade type? >> They don't have to be. They can be basement. >> We have some numbers too and kind of walk we can kind of talk through that. But um I would say think of it as like a a house in in the cities that you know is a little bit older but with better alley layouts in terms of like >> Got it. So the garage might be in the backyard. Yeah. >> So Wildflower is another example of those but those are obviously larger lots. >> Yep. Got it. And it's a silly question. This is all proposal like this is what they came up with. >> Yeah, we'll get into the next steps too because not it's not like this is exactly we're going to have to go through a community engagement process. This is just the beginning of starting the conversation getting some real numbers. We wanted someone to tell us like you can do this project next year too like there are people wanting to build this and like Elmo >> you know the question is like how much industrial um could be built right? So it was it was almost 100% industrial. So we just wanted to ask those questions too. >> So if you see here, this is an industrial only >> and this is a blend of residential industrial. What you can see is the taxable market value is pretty much the same and the city taxes are the same. The annual tax value is a lot higher for industrial and that has to do with the fiscal disparity tax. Um so that just came up that you would pay more um with an industrial only. So that's just based on the existing land use. Um so so they just wanted to show that this is a lot harder to read. Um but if you seen the report, this is just on the two pink sides are just the slide before kind of side by side. The next is saying if you have $50 million of value, you could create that with 63 low density single family. You could create that with 83 smaller lot owner occupied single family. But to create 50 million of value in high density residential, you need to create 172 units. And then commercial 200 um this is just 200,000 square feet and 500,000 square feet. So, this is kind of giving you that comparison and you could read through that. It's pretty interesting. Um, what we saw, one thing that didn't wasn't brought up and I think it should be brought up is that, and I've seen this in a slide from the county CDA, is that for every dollar paid for residential property, the amount of services is about a$120 requested by the homeowner, whereas commercial industrial is like 30 cents. So that's something to just consider too is you know that was brought up as a question but it's not answered but I have seen that in in the presentation and then that blue section is if you had 100 acres how many units could you fit realistically. So 255 low density 425 medium density and then 850 high density um residential. So you can see that you have 425 medium density compared to 850 high density, but the value is actually higher for the medium density single family. So you're creating home ownership opportunities, fewer units, um, you know, more tax revenue. So it's it's interesting to look at this financial tools. This came up with public finance and with Tammy Amdom. So just high level the third one the land write down is is kind of the easiest process when a city owns the property and doesn't have to go through the whole tiff tax payment process. So it's just something to consider that the the city has it. Um also talked about just you know bonding this will come up but bonding the the sewer if we want to do the sewer improvements now to make the site more development ready that is something that we could approach through bonding. So, community role. This is basically we want to have a robust community engagement um and just see what people have to say about the plan and what is proposed through ULI and that um we'll get to next steps um pretty soon here and kind of discuss this more phasing and timing. This has to do with finances too. How much money does the city want to spend to accelerate the timing? Um that's kind of guidelines. want to have clear design guidelines kind of skip some of this but the sewer connection we have the lift station in Oakdale 2021 the cost was 893,000 30% cost share from city lake uh we have about 500 wreck units that was discussed with engineering and this is the implementation scenarios essentially the for sale sign is find a broker and just kind of hand it over to them after we do our community engagement what makes a lot of sense and we've discussed this with the the tap group was option two which is try to uh install sewer. The sewer needs to go under the rail. It's going to be challenging to do so. So that seems to be the path but you know that's up to discussion too going forward. I will say the challenges of building a road is the sewer basically needs to run parallel with the tracks. So it's you kind of have to you know does that is that where the road should go? Who knows like where the road should go until a developer comes in. Just uh something interesting too that was discussed with the train tracks. If there's a spur there and you need to run the sewer, I mean you really don't want to run the sewer under the tracks probably wouldn't even allow it. So we have to talk to the we need to talk to engineering more and then also Union Pacific. So, next steps showing um public engagement, railroad crossing initiation, sewer extension, curb cuts with the county, uh policy framework. This really has to do with updating comp plan and and building it. If we were to build this out, we would need comp plan amendments. So, this is just our couple of slides moving forward. Just, you know, the big question after this is this really what we want to build, right? So, what kind of development should be built? Uh what infrastructure is needed? Do we have a budget for it moving forward? Um what do the residents want to see here? Does the preferred land use align with current comp plan? Do we need to amend it? And then uh what does the market support next step for steps for us just you know since this has ended we're going to move forward with working on kind of the technical and the research and that's discussing water sewer rail trying to find a contact at Union Pacific to go over rail spur options that may not be an option right so we want to be able to eliminate that before we go forward with community engagement issues with sewer near or under the tracks um access in streets So, we need to meet with the county to discuss access points, valley branch with storm water, and then the AU just getting that updated. Also talking to land brokers, what's the sewer approach going to look like? And then working with the CDA, maybe with site selectors, see what assistance they can provide. Um, and then for us creating an engagement process, how we're going to inform the residents, discuss priorities, talking about having basically um you know question to the EDA is you want to have maybe a public hearing at EDA um to kind of uh work through some of the issues. I think we'd want to have like more of a town hall first, but putting together an engagement plan and communication plan and letting you know, we'll work on that through the EDA, create a project website, maybe do surveys. We can do that online um to ask specific questions and then working with Kathy on communication strategy strategies and creating a timeline and then um posting FAQs on the website and just having a website that people can go to and get updates. So this is our basic timeline because I know that's what that's the main question where we go [snorts] next right so December through February just reviewing research topics February prepare another presentation with update to the EDA also to the planning commission um maybe make some recommendations to the council in March. I think one of the things that we need to talk to the council and everybody is is do we want to start this process of running the sewer under the tracks to start development as soon as possible on the par other parcels. We would like to start community engagement in April and launch the web page and communication strategy and then April May also meet with the planning commission EDA that could be where we have public hearings and meetings. Then in June create the marketing materials, brand the site and then hopefully we can launch the marketing earliest in June for parcel one. Now we could also maybe October market parcel two if the sewer is brought to 34th Street. after that market the residential section or parcel three. I do think we'll have strong residential demand. So if that gets set up and we can get sort of to that site, we'll have people that would want to build. So this is our our first timeline. So really I just wanted to bring this as an update. Um I know some of you maybe haven't seen the the presentation online. So if you have any questions, if you have any comments too about the process, I'm just really this is just to hear from you. >> I have a couple of questions. Uh if you could back up to the slide number 37, I believe it is. >> Uh uh can can you say what a rnm means? >> Okay. So that's the uh the basically the environmental for the site and Bolton and Mink would be updating that. That's that's the idea there is just to do that. So um we have an AUR it's existing and we can renew it essentially and that would be the process. It' be cheaper to do that. >> Okay. Thank you. And if you go back to 33 this looks this looks like the crux of the matter here as to how we're going to proceed with this. From my own point of view, I like the idea of the lower ones where the city has more control for a couple of reasons. One is that I I believe that it would make sense for Lake Elmo to develop the the capacity within the city staff to deal with these kind of things which which will serve us in the future as well as for this project. And the the other I think is that from the from the point of view of control of what happens there, uh if the city essentially zones each each parcel and says what they want there, then you're not at the mercy of whatever developer wants to come in and put the most, you know, to make the most profit on it. We could do better for the community. I think if we had more control, and that's my own personal feeling. I do think that with the um since we own the site, I think we have a lot of control over what's built if the city wants to move forward. Um you know, as a city as a developer is basically taking on all the responsibility for for the infrastructure and going through a potential plan unit development plat. I you know it's just complicated to say like where the city stops like um but >> yeah I think I think that the the amount of uh of improved value you can get that way would pay for the the cost of the staff development required to make this happen. because if you if you uh uh if the city invests the money to put in the infrastructure, then you you can sell the lots for a lot more money. And that's just my my my thought. >> If the city was going to be acting as the developer um I mean do you guys have the skill set to do it or would you have to hire someone to kind of guide you? Seems like it'd be a >> that's kind of that would be a huge lift in terms of if this were to be if we were to take this plan, >> we could work on certain aspects of it through our engineering department to make sure everything is designed and done correctly on large lots. the idea of like doing a PU a residential PUD speculative I don't know how we I just you would almost have to say like everything well you could you could potentially do it but um you'd be guessing right you'd be making a lot of guesses and then you're basically selling the challenge with developing um I'll just say specifically what I've seen here in Lake Elmo it's all corporate builders that we've worked with and they're large builders that come in and they want control of the entire site. >> Sure. >> I've worked in other places where you have small builders that will buy lots. It's pretty inefficient. Um, it's good in some ways, but this would be that would be a challenge to do that. I mean, if you're asking like where our capacity is at the most, it would be um you know, setting setting the roads and the sewer and getting all that designed, but that's that's going to take a lot of that's a lot of cost on the city because Bolton and Mink would most likely do it and they're engineer and they're a contractor, [snorts] right? So, >> Yep. got it. >> To me, the basic and medium infrastructure um scenarios seem fitting. I say I like it's impressive what outside developers can bring and the ideas they bring forward. We saw that with the old fire station. Um you get fresh perspective that you know within the confines of the city. We we just don't have. So I like having some influence that piggybacks on my question here. For all these parcels, are we looking at a process similar to what we ran for the old village? Um it it's maybe a little bit looser than that. What >> I think it would be looser. I think that we would want to find a broker that we could work with. >> Yeah. >> And create a marketing plan on parcel one based on what we've heard here and agree to whatever is going to be built after the community engagement process. Also work getting the sewer under the tracks to set up that next developer to come in and extend the sewer where they need to extend it where they think it makes. We we'll have guidelines where it needs to go so it can connect to the north. >> Um but an RFP process this is too big to say I just and I don't think it's I don't think it's the >> I think we can just open it up, market it and hear from people in the next, you know, four or five months and just see what we're and then take that to council and kind of figure out what um interest we're receiving from the site. >> Yeah, understood. There were a couple of things that be clubbed me over the head. I I sat through the presentation to council recently and a few things of interest came out and first the first bucket that hit me over the head were all the things that the city has to do and step up and get done and pay for. Uh, in fact, they even made a suggestion that um the property that the public works sits on is so valuable maybe the city might want to consider moving it down to parcel one. Uh, which I thought made a lot of sense. But there's a commitment, you know, right there and upfront, you know, move. But, you know, if if you're going to go with their exciting plans here for the larger property up north, that's probably the thing to do and make make that use, you know, part of the of of a new development and not remain its public works. But then there's all the other infrastructure things you need to put in and a lot of that infrastructure probably will vary depending upon which way you want to go. When I say which one way you want to go, it was another comment that they made near the end that uh and I couldn't look at these numbers and make sense of it, but the benefit taxable benefit to the city is really not a lot different between an industrial development for the whole thing as opposed to the exciting development that has, you know, all the bells and whistles up north. Uh, and I would think, you know, uh, that would make it a whole lot simpler. The one exception might be, do you have a business that wants a real spur, you know, and and how is that going to work? Um, and what does the city have to do to prepare for that? I I don't know. Uh but it, you know, going to the staffing issue and I that really does concern me, you know, if we're going to do all of this work up front that it might be um simpler to go the all industrial route doesn't bring in a lot of people. And in fact, the numbers that they pointed out saying, hey, the the benefit to the city is about the same in both. And that doesn't include the extra costs of services as you pointed out that are likely to be a whole lot higher with the exciting development than it would be with industrial. And I I I I think about it. It would really be fun to see it developed big time up north, including moving public works down south. But I I just it seems like it's and maybe you'll learn differently in the next few months when you research, but that looks like it's something that this city couldn't handle, >> could not handle. >> I don't think you could I I you know, I don't think it's staffed it to handle and and and then and not only that, but get the commitment for all the uh investment that needs to be done up front. They strongly encourage that you have the infrastructure there. So when you have a, you know, a builder, he can go right to work instead of waiting for the city to put in all the infrastructure. >> So that came up with the moving the public works building and the finance um public finance person who works with the city basically said you need 2530 million just to move it and [clears throat] then the idea of like you're going to make that back is going to be very difficult. So >> triple our annual budget. >> So so her recommendation was not to do that. We also heard from stakeholders that they really like the barn as a gateway. So, as this idea of like a gateway to the city, they like seeing the water tower as like the sign with this barn. And I think um she she seemed like it was just more cost and, you know, more money. You just need to find more money, right? >> So, you know, >> just you know, and even if you keep the uh uh it there, you're still going to have to pay a lot of money upfront for for for infrastructure. Yes. And uh I you know it I get I get really concerned that we've been biting off more than we can chew by having uh that big- time up north uh development. Uh it and and then comes the benefit. Not only the extra cost, but that is so far away from downtown that if you bring in extra traffic and people for that for that area, who's going to get the benefit of the extra traffic? Well, probably a lot of it go to Oakdale, you know. In fact, there was a comment making the the retail businesses in the Oakdale side are struggling, you know. Uh so, you know, this might help, you know, ignite a lot more traffic there. And that's probably who would benefit. I don't see that extra traffic coming downtown. It's too long a drive, you know, and uh it it it I I I I just question whether it's worth it to bring a whole lot of extra population uh in in a complex development uh if the industrial uh might be simpler and bring in similar tax benefit to the city. >> Just a couple points of clarification from our standpoint. Just the basic infrastructure, the number two makes the most sense for us just talking to them. um without discussing it with anyone else, the cost to run the sewer was about estimated to be about 800,000. Public finance um person was like, "That's doable, right? That's something the city could do." Um the other thing too is regardless of the staff capacity, how many people we have, we could still have areas guided for residential that are interesting where we are not really involved in laying it out. We would not our plan is not to lay out a plan unit development. What we could do is say yes this area is residential and the other reason it's residential in here is to buffer the existing residential but state like we want a traditional neighborhood development. We want a certain type of development and you could put that out when you market it to make sure that this is what you want to see and then you give that to certain people that can do that type of development and those are the people you want to bring in and look at concepts with. So we would be following our same process that we would with any developer. But just to be clear, um we could still have residential and not, you know, have to design it ourselves. We can just kind of put a framework around it. >> Do we have enough flexibility in what we have currently in our codes where we would not need to look into a possible overlay for this site? And I guess I ask in terms of and I Don, I agree with a lot of what you you said as well. I I have very little interest in having residential except for the fact that it is a buffer and so this shows suggestions of possible housing stock. Do we have enough in there that it would be that it would work there to begin with or would we want to go start going down the route of we're just going to do an entire zoning overlay here with new use and new um requirements that apply only to this spot in the entire city or would that also be >> I think we could do it without an overlay because we could make that a condition of the sale. Right. So you have this area, we work on it. We kind of figure out what that overlay looks like instead of adding it to the zoning code. It's more or less like like an RFP in a way where you say like this is what we want to see on this site and they would look at those requirements and you know there there are groups out there that do these traditional neighborhood developments and you may not need um the same units, right? So the units are over 200 in the apartments. Maybe you have more of the single family small lot because you get a lot of value out of that and you can bring home ownership opportunities less than $500,000. So maybe that's something to consider. So >> I don't think you need to actually adopt an overlay zone. >> We have other tools in our toolkit that can serve the same function. >> Well, in our stakeholder thing, people are saying how safe Lake Elmo is. So if you start to get these lower homes, you're going to be bringing in a different, you know, residents than we're used to. So, there's that risk, too. >> I'd like to comment on on Don's comment that that uh if we go industrial, we uh will pay less to service that land as compared to residential. I think that makes really good sense. And and the uh the other thing is if we did it in a phased way and we started out with the selling the the e easiest one first, then the the money coming in from the sale of the land could be used to to pay for infrastructure on the next parcel rather than because we're not in a hurry. You know, it's not it's not like we have to have it all sold by by the end of n of 2026. you know, we can move along in in a phased way and figure, well, within three or four years, we'd sell all the land, but in the during that time, we could basically bootstrap the the uh infrastructure development of the second parcel on the income from the first. >> Yep, that was definitely discussed, too. And I'm trying to find the slide with the dollar amount. That's not a new idea, but that's definitely the idea of of making it a phased growth rather than all at once. >> And we know for sure that the settlement with 3M, we don't have we didn't codify any restrictions in any resolutions that we passed for how we shall use the dollars for the sale. >> We've looked and no. >> Okay. >> Just that number is their estimate is that it's 3.4 million. So that's more than enough to to start the process of moving, you know, bringing the sewer to the through parcel two and potentially under um the road to parcel 3. >> Yeah. >> And I don't want it to be lost on the retail commercial aspect of this. Um I'll stick up that frankly like having this all industrial doesn't excite me. I'd be curious what the feedback is. like you have some nice retail and being built up there on the Oakdale side. So to have an industrial park as soon as you enter Lake Elmo, I don't know, say what you want about the the residential, but I think some some level of shopping, restaurants, commercial is important there and does present a gateway. Maybe it becomes more of a shopping district than a residential district. That excites me when I when I think about this and see it and excites me for the city. um similar to what we saw in the old village. So I don't want that to be lost in in the discussion here. >> One of the things I was thinking about too like hearing everybody talk about the gateway is maybe the other corner on parcel 2 is is a commercial use, right? It's not necessarily industrial, but >> yeah, that that also came to my mind as well. Yep. >> Do we have up well current plans for everything that Oakdale has platted over there? because I know they're continuing like it's not just the Starbucks and the >> Aldi >> uh Aldi's and they're also putting in um burritos >> Chipotle but there's other businesses coming in as well both on the north and south side like are we >> are we staff can we get updates as to what they have planted like I've searched our site from time to time but I haven't really put too much effort in >> yeah I'll reach back out to the community develment dctor We talked during this process. It seems speculative. We ask the panel to try to get more information on too because it's like how can we leverage this where it's kind of interesting people say you know you're going to Lake Elmo it's different but we're thinking like well how's this one shopping area whether it's Lake Elmo or Oakdale it all kind of blends together. Um so that question was asked but I don't think we we got enough information. Um I think it is speculative at this point. Um on that side, >> I mean there's the hypothetical that at that intersection it and I agree. I I would prefer something that has a bit more diversity of options of the the uses there. >> I don't like the idea of added service cost, but that would add diversity of uses. a a person who's driving by who's not a Lake Elmo or Oakdale resident functionally may not see a difference between what is on the Lake Elmo side and the Oakdale side depending upon how it plays out. I think that would be a missed opportunity to make sure that it is different and whatever way we say is the preferred way. It's not because it's better or not just this is the Lake Elmo side. We are it's different either architecturally or in the services being offered. So that that was just my thought as to making sure we're not um >> mimicking them. >> Yeah. >> Are there any further comments on the plan if if if not I'd like to thank community director Stappa for the presentation and uh uh good luck with this. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Thanks. So, communications updates, fire station, parks building. Can't give that update. We're just working through the appraisal, the survey, title work. Um, they submitted drawing. Um, we're reviewing that for the parking lot. I don't know if there's anything else to really add there, but that's that's the process. And obviously environmental is is we want to get that back. And then upcoming meeting dates. Do you know >> the upcoming meeting dates are going to be discussed at uh or or up at council after this? But the proposed dates as they stand now are uh 217, 47, 616, 818, 10:20, and 12:15. Um so hopefully we'll have those uh tonight and I can send them out. >> We might change them, we might not, [clears throat] >> you know. the vibe. >> Maybe have a February 14th meeting day and >> we'll all be in the doghouse, you know. >> Did does anyone else have any >> I wouldn't be [laughter] >> I'm curious how many of you like participated in in the panel or that that tap. I wasn't able to to go. You all did. Okay. Awesome. >> It was very It was very interesting. Very interesting >> whole process. I learned some stuff I didn't know about school. >> I'm glad you all could join. I wanted to join. I think I was on vacation. So, >> well, and they they definitely took into account feedback because I the group I was in I there's direct feedback that others in the group mentioned that is in that report. So, I I can say that for those who weren't there like they took it into account. Absolutely. Uh is was incorporated. This this process was very useful, I think. And we could even think about it for something like what to do with the old city hall building or whether it would make sense to try to find enough money to buy the fury property. You know, what could be done if we, you know, if you had to pay market value for it, uh what value would that be to the city? Mhm. >> And and so my my uh impression of the tap process was that it would be very helpful to use for other questions. >> Glad we did it. Yes. Thank you. >> If there are no further comments, I'd like to adjourn the meeting. All right.