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Minutes - 09/14/2006 Spokane Valley City Council/Planning Commission Special Joint Meeting Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan Minutes Council Chambers — City Hall, 11707 E. Sprague Ave. September 14, 2006 CALL TO ORDER Mayor Diana Wilhite called the meeting to order at 6:05 pm. Mayor Wilhite thanked everyone for attending, and introduced Terry Moore, from EcoNorthwest, who would facilitate the rest of the meeting. Attending the meeting: Consultants Michael Freedman and Hiro Sasaki from Freedman, Tung and Bottomley, Terry Moore from ECONorthwest and Bill Grimes from Studio Cascade. From the City: Mayor Diana Wilhite, Deputy Mayor Steve Taylor, Councilmembers Dick Denney, Mike DeVleming, Rich Munson and Bill Gothmann. Planning Commissioners: Chair Gail Kogle, Vice-Chair Bob Blum, John Carroll, Ian Robertson, David Crosby, Marcia Sands and Fred Beaulac. Staff: Dave Mercier, City Manager; Nina Regor, Deputy City Manager; Marina Sukup, Community Development Director; Greg McCormick, Planning Manager; Scott Kuhta, Senior Planner; Neil Kersten, Public Works Director; Steve Worley, Senior Engineer; Carolbelle Branch, Public Information Officer and Deanna Griffith, Administrative Assistant PRESENTATION BY THE CONSULTING TEAM Mr. Moore introduced the consulting team. Mr. Moore explained that Mr. Freedman would go through a presentation of the corridor and what recommendations the team has made so far regarding a City Center. Afterward the consultants would take questions from the Council and Commission members. Mr. Freedman made the following points during his presentation: • Covered the objectives of the evening. • Traffic that had kept Sprague healthy for years has now moved to I-90. • Community's feels that the first impression of the City is Sprague and that the corridor makes the City's worst face. • Explanation of Vulnerability to Change study, shows which properties along the corridor are vulnerable to change. • Thoughts that Appleway going forward could be something different that what it is now. • Explanation that the way things are is based on zoning as it is now. The way to change things is to change the zoning. • Community aspirations, Comprehensive Plan Land Use, Community suggestions of the importance of a City Center. • Plan will begin with a City Center and work out to centers and segments and suggest design parameters. 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 1 of 8 • City Center is the first step, what is it, how it's distinguished from a shopping center, what characteristics does it have. • A City Center is shared territory, a community home, where citizens can gather and find a sense of community, possible civic center, not a commercial strip. • Some of a typical investor's requirements are within a 5-7 mile radius that there are 30-50K households, approximately 30-50K cars going by a day and that it is an easy right turn on the way home. Approximately 20 acres of land. • Main Street must have curbside parking, and slow moving two way traffic. Other items that are important include having surface parking or parking structures, anchor stores, civic buildings, library, movies; Part of the challenge will be that the corridor already has several anchor stores. • Several examples of successful City Centers around the Country. At this point Mr. Freedman covered where on the Corridor the City Center could be sited. • Where is there enough land that is vulnerable to change that could be developed? • The only space on the corridor where there is enough land available with most of the desired conditions is at the Sprague/Appleway — University area. • Mr. Freedman explained the choices and the good and bad of each of the suggestions. • � ��e ��e� ¢��� ��e� � ��e i� �� � P�� P���'� ��'I��° � ��e�/�I� • After having discussions with the property owners, developers, in July and several other Focus Groups, comments that were made, suggestions about location, Community meeting comments from the September 13 meeting about suggested locationsl there was great support for the selected site, but there were other suggestions: Pines and Sprague, but there is not enough available land. Some of the other comments: If you put it on the south side of Sprague it will hurt the north side, safety is important, is there a possibility of a freeway interchange at University. • There is great support for this project and support to get it done soon. • Phase One, the City Center, it will just be the planting of the seed. • Mr. Freedman showed a rough initial concept drawing of what a City Center ground floor could look like — it includes an anchor store of approximately 56K sq ft.; street layout with shops, street parking, entrances from Sprague, Appleway and University, buildings, a second floor layout that shows housing on the upper floors of the buildings; townhouses lining the Appleway Blvd., a road with green space leading from the grocery store across the street, leading in from Sprague and in front of the civic building. • The role of the City leadership is key in a successful City Center development. • The siting of civic buildings in the City Center is important to help bring in the public realm and sense of community to the site. • Strategy Guidelines are: Policy is the minimum you could do to develop a City Center, the ne� would be to develop policy, select the site and entitle it with clear guidelines and zoning and hope that the property owners will follow through with the City's vision; or the most successful guidelines is for the City to 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 2 of 8 develop a policy, entitle the site and make an investment in the City Center (land) to show that they (the City) have belief in their own project. • Questions for Council/Commission are: • Are you comfortable with the site? ■ Are you comfortable including civic buildings in the plans? With the presentation over, everyone took a break. At the return Mayor Wilhite thanked the consultants for their presentation, explained this is a study session and that there would be no public input at this time. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FROM COUNCIL/COMMISSIONERS • Commissioner Kogle: A study was done by the Transit Authority regarding dollars spent on transit bringing in so many dollars in revenue, ratio of investment approximately. 1:7, is that something that you could see reflected in this study? Moore, The ratio is within the realm you could expect, it would depend on what types of involvement the City would invest in, but it is difficult to say without having apples to apples to compare. We understand that Light Rail is a possibility and that it would enhance the City Center; it would help to boost the housing element; we recommend that the City work closely with the transit planning people so that it would be able to enhance the City Center. Mr. Mercier asks if Light Rail were to not materialize, would it change the site selection of the City Center. Mr. Moore answers that it would not. • Councilmember Munson: It was mentioned that the City could buy the land if we want to promote private investment; why would the City want to buy the land? Freedman: It makes the City's plan more likely to succeed; it gives the City more control over keeping it as the City needs it instead of having it fall out from under you at the last minute. You could zone it and just let the property owners just try and work it out and hope they come up with the vision you want. • Councilmember Schimmels: Last night you spoke of a transit center and the possibility of moving it, can you please expand on that? Freedman: From the point of view of ridership, where the transit center is is just fine, but if you want to gather the synergy of the retail, then when you are standing on the platform, you have to be able to see the Main Street or you don't get any benefit from it all. The suggestion would be to work with the transit people to build a station so that the entrance would look straight down to the Main Street. • Deputy Mayor Taylor: Assuming that we use options A, B& C, how long would it take to develop this? To get started? To get the commitments? Work with a developer? Would it be an RFP kind of thing? Freedman: Yes. If we have the land tied up, then you would go out and look for a developer, and after you find a developer it could take about five (5) years to bring something together. It is really a step by step process. 1. Get the site, make sure it is the right site, big enough, not too big. 2. Work with the property owners, see if you have a problem anywhere with them, if you have one you cannot get over then you have to look for another site. 3. FTB/ECONorthwest to develop a Performa stating what the City costs could be for a civic building, street design, amenities, open/green space. 4. Move toward the entitlement process, basically the zoning. 5. Begin to structure a deal with the property owners, working with ECONorthwest and their experts to assist in structuring a deal. 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 3 of 8 6. Issue an invitation only developer RFP to known developers with known track record, to prove that their vision is the City's vision. 7. Developer begins talking to tenants. 8. Find a phase planner for a civic building (going on at the same time). 9. Move forward with the Master Plan. The most important thing is to begin discussions with the property owners and determine if the site is truly viable before the other steps are taken on, to make sure that a new site does not need to be found in case of a problem. • Deputy Mayor Taylor: In terms of that timeline, we are currently working on updating our development regulations; how does that factor in, along with the recommendations that will come from this plan, is it good that we are going through this now or will it elongate the time frame? Freedman: A developer will not talk to you until you have en entitled site, it is certainly possible that the land use regulations are helpful, but the developer will want to see the Mayor and the City Manager saying that although we have not had a final hearing yet, this is a sure thing and we are moving forward with this, the sub-area plan is your new zoning. Sub-area plans such as this takes approximately 18 months on average, along the way there are plenty of other things we can do. • Councilmember Denenny: Most of the traffic discussion has been east and west but do you see an impediment that University is not an off ramp to the freeway? Can you see University developing more north/south as this project moves forward? Freedman: Quite a few people seem to be hung up on the fact that there is not an off ramp that says University, but frankly as you come from the west you get off on the exit that now says Sprague Avenue; on I-90 you are closer to University frankly, than if you went through one of the interchanges farther east. From that direction you have perfect interchange access, there is nothing on the Freeway that says, City of Spokane Valley ne� 6 exits, this way to Spokane Valley, you have a right to this kind of signage and we suggest that we work very hard with the State to get this signage changed. The off ramp at Sprague Ave should say Downtown Spokane Valley exit. It is a bit more difficult coming from the east, you can take Sullivan or Pines, which would make Pines a better City Center site but it is not as viable and University is a pretry good site and it can be signed so that it works. • Commissioner Carroll: Where will the North/South Freeway terminate? It will terminate closer to Freya, will that add or detract from your recommendation? Freedman: I don't know enough about it and I would like to have the traffic consultant Glatting/Jackson get back to you with an answer for that at a later time. • Councilmember DeVleming: Clearly the recommended site is a good one, what are some of its downsides? Freedman: Well, it does not have a University labeled interchange, as Sullivan and Pines do, it does not have quite enough north-south traffic, it has a confusing one-way/two-way traffic configuration, gas station on the corner, couplet is too far apart, University Road redirection is too confusing, market visibility is split, the grocery store is a good add, would recommend redesign of University to link better to the U-City site, would be good for everyone, designed the street so that the grocery store traffic would feed out right to the main street across the street, never get a grocery store to share a parking lot. • Commissioner Beaulac: What happens to the businesses on the north side of Sprague as the City Center develops? Freedman: Typically it would develop around and expand the City Center and the thought is it would expand there first. Eventually you could encounter so much growth around the city that you would need to redesign the sub-area plan. • Councilmember Munson: The suggestion is that people will want to live and walk to work; at this time the City Center does not have an industry that would reasonably support that. Is 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 4 of 8 there a place in the plan that would support that? Freedman: The suggestion would be that any place in the City Center that allows for housing you would allow for lodging or offices in order to allow for more uses to be incorporated into the upper levels of the Center. For example, female travelers will stay farther away from an airport, closer to the population in order to feel safer and not have to drive in order to fulfill the needs they have in their travels. City Center hotels are perfect examples of this type of development. • Councilmember Schimmels: In relation to the housing issue, what is the general mix that is preferred, rentals or owners? Freedman: Both works, but ownership housing is preferred. Attached family housing is a good example; and there are many forms that attached single family housing can take on and still look like a single home, where you enter your own home from a street entrance and not from a joint entrance like an apartment. It is easier for developers to do rentals on top of retail, and wait to see if townhouses are selling before wanting to add it to their development. It is normal for developers to have to draw up special agreements with people to make sure that they understand it is not normal housing because there are different noises than in a residential neighborhood, street noise, smells, service trucks; will need to write special codes to cover the housing and mandate that the edifice of the building be flattering to the image of the City. • Councilmember Gothmann: You show on the plan a civic building, let's say that it is a City Hall and a library together, and what would you do if you needed to expand those? Freedman: Currently the diagram shows the civic building to be 65K sq ft. Currently City Hall is using 30K sq ft. However when we do plan civic building, space planning that planning would incorporate growth and allow for approximately 25% growth. • Councilmember Denney: How many acres are dedicated to open space, especially those that are in front of the civic building? Obviously that is a direct cost to the community, it would be a fair amount for the civic building itself and the green space. Freedman: There are City Centers that don't put in any green spaces, just as long as you have a Main Street, however it is not set in stone how much space is dedicated to open space, it can be as little or as much as you would like it to be. • Commissioner Carroll: What would the height restrictions be, two stories? Freedman: Our recommendation would be to allow a 4/5 story limit. Allow the tallest buildings in the entire City to only be in the City Center and make the statement that it is the City Center. The height also allows the developer to get the most from their investment, office space, lodging, condos on the upper floors. Civic buildings should be completely different, they should have rounded roofs, they should be at the terminus of a street, it should have towers, it should be special and grand, it should dominate the rest of the buildings and make a statement. • Councilmember Gothmann: You had stated that a library brings traffic to the City Center, are there any incentives to construct the library in the City Center? Freedman: Retailers love City Hall but they love libraries more because it generates more foot traffic. In terms of getting it paid for, you can get contributions for the libraries but that is more consistent for performing arts centers where you can go out and get private funding to build. As for assistance in getting a City Hall built, you can make a deal with the developer to build a City Hall with your specifications and then they would own it for a number of years and then the ownership would revert to the City. Moore: These deals come together in all different ways, but we are not near far enough along to being discussing how these things could come together. Gothmann: does it have a bearing that the City and the library are two different tax authorities? Moore: they are separate so the City has less control over what the library will do, but Michael has mentioned that the library has stated it's interested in being in the City Center. You definitely have two different funding sources, but it is difficult to tell how the funding sources will come into play separately, and it will require more discussion in that area. 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 5 of 8 • Commissioner Sands: Based on the size of Appleway and Sprague and looking at the proposed design of the Main Street, you would want to create walkability if things, transit station stayed the way it is, Appleway remains so wide, how would you deal with that? Freedman: There are plenty of things that can be done to make things more walkable, street design, buffering from the parked and moving cars, buffering with street trees, with street lights, planting strips, wider crosswalks to reducing traffic lanes, retro fit the road for capacity for walkability, crossability and amenities. The sub-area plan will come back with suggestions for circulation capacity while providing more amenities. • Commissioner Beaulac: Councilmember Munson mentioned that Appleway is still an issue for the City, can Councilmember Munson explain that? Munson: No, I can not discuss it at this time, the matter is still under negotiations, Mr. Mercier confirmed that it is still a negotiation factor and can not be discussed. Mr. Moore stated that we believe pretry strongly that we need to agree on a site before we can get to the next step. We are trying to generate interest in an untested market. If we don't get to a site where we start to pursue something for real, we could continue to study it forever. This might not be the perfect site, but it is the best site we think we have to work with, but until we begin to move forward we won't know what we have to work with. Mr. Freedman stated there are a lot easier ways to make money than trying to build a City Center. This is a very big effort, it could create political controversy, and city expenditure. He feels there is nothing more wonderful that a City trying and achieving a City Center, but you need to understand this is a very big project, it pulls the staff from other projects because it is so big, the core team wants you to know how important it is but to understand it is a big undertaking and not to be taken lightly, it takes City money and as much as we love it, we don't want you to do this just because it is a good financial deal. Mr. Grimes laid out the following questions: • Question one: Are you comfortable moving forward with the preferred site for the City Center? ■ light rail independent, • freeway access is a pro and con based on exits, • supermarket is considered a pro, however it is not laid out as well as would be preferred, • Sprague and University as historic center in the community, ability to expand around the site, • con could be that the transit station could be too far away to be considered a prime location for the City Center, • bank and gas station not necessarily prime tenants but a manageable issue, • the confusing terminus of the Sprague/Appleway couplet There is discussion from Councilmembers and Commissioners regarding agreement that this is the preferred site - this is a good starting point, look at the amount of time and energy with the Comprehensive Plan and this falls in line with what we were thinking then, pretry closely echoes what we have heard from the Community over the years. Mr. Mercier asked if there are any objections, no one raises any objections. Deputy Mayor Taylor asked if we should bring in other players in other areas, Pines and Sprague possibly, to work on an alternative. Mr. Freedman stated that they would not suggest 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 6 of 8 that. Everyone will know what the Council/Commission prefers/suggests soon and he would not suggest pursuing anything else at this time. Everyone in and around the community will know what we are doing and thinking soon and if anyone else is interested they will come to us at this poi nt. Answer: This is the preferred site and we should continue to proceed forward stating that this is the preferred site. • Question Two: Are you comfortable with our continuing to include civic buildings as part of the City Center? • City Hall at this site will allow for growth on this and expansion around the site. ■ Inclusion of civic buildings reinforces and compliments other activities going on around the City Center. ■ Library brings the most foot traffic. • Con — we have other issues that require City dollars, sewer problems, road problems. • Other possibilities are performing arts center, visual arts, civic recreational area. Discussions included ideas that if we don't start down this road, how will we know how much it will cost. There is the possibility that the Chamber and the Fire Administration offices are looking for a new home, is the cost to not building a identity going to offset not building a City Hall, will you lose more tax base in the long run if you don't become a real identifiable City? Proper choice of civic buildings can draw private dollars. Mr. Mercier: beyond economics is this group interested in creating a civic center or simply an enterprise zone for retail activity? It seems that if you are drawn to the first, then that is a compelling argument to include civic buildings in your City Center versus building a non-shopping mall shopping area. The civic anchor is what will set us apart from the rest of the areas. Is the library a good substitute for a City Hall, Civic center is more than one civic building on one site, a City Center is a district. Do you need to have a City Hall to have a City Center? No. Can you picture your finished downtown without one? Wherever you look at the best downtown City Center, can you see it without one? If you put it in your City Center, you double the bang for the buck; shows commitment, and helps bring economic development to that area; helps instigate change. Picture your end, what does your best success look like in your mind? Answer: Yes, continue to view this as a civic center, including City Hall as part of this plan. • Strategy options, Mr. Mercier — Should any of the strategies suggested earlier be taken off the table. Option C— securing the Community's rights to develop a City Center on the property, we are talking about the City buying the property, is that correct? If you have the proper zoning and development regulation in place can you do this without buying the property? Mr. Moore addressed this issue, in the end, you can do that, but in the end, you can not force the property owners to do exactly what you want them to do and at some 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 7 of 8 point one of the property owners could chose to go another direction and cause enough issues that nothing would happen at that site and you would have to start over and find a new site. There would be risk that you could not accomplish your goals because you don't have enough control. Councilmember Gothmann suggested that it is exchanging one type of asset for another, land, with an amount of risk. Unless we start down the road of option C, we will not know where we will go. Another idea is securing options, as the first right of refusal on the property. Land value generally does not go down. Mr. Mercier wanted to make sure that there was some discussion on these strategy points before the consultant returns again. • Answer: Continue forward with the idea that the City could/would own or option the property for control • Mr. Mercier stated that the City Council likes to have key policy points expressed early on in the discussion so it gives more time for consideration and weighing it as you move through these decision points. Part of the economic development study that we have commissioned is in search of determining what is the amount of available retail space currently along the corridor verses what is the predictable growth demand for that square footage over time, and to come to a determination as to whether or not we have a greater capacity of retail zoned property along the corridor than could be realistically expected to be used over the ne� planning horizon and if so, it would beg the question of what sort of modification of zoning entitlements would have to be considered elsewhere along the corridor as well as those complicated regulatory schemata that would be put in place in order to further the development of the civic center/City Center. Comments made were that there is no doubt that there will be difficult decisions along the way As we move forward with the site location we will not know where we are until we move forward. Let's move forward. Mayor Wilhite stated that some important decisions have been passed on to the consultants to move forward. Mayor Wilhite thanked everyone for their participation. The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm SUBMITTED: APPROVED: Deanna Griffith, Administrative Assistant Gail Kogle, Chairperson 09-14-06 Planning Commission Joint City Council Minutes Page 8 of 8