The Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 meeting of the Eden Prairie City Council is now called to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> It's customary at the start of each city council meeting for me to read an open podium invitation to our residents. Open podium is an opportunity for Eden Prairie residents to address the city council on issues related to Eden Prairie city government prior to each council meeting. These council meetings typically occur the first and third Tuesday of each month. The open podiums occur between 6:30 and 6:55 right here in the council chamber. If you wish to speak at open podium, please do contact the city manager's office at 952-9498412 by noon of the meeting date with your name, your phone number, and subject matter so we can be better prepared for you. Open podium is not recorded or televised. If you have questions about open podium, please contact the city manager's office. Tonight, we have no proclamations and presentations. That's actually um not the norm. Uh they're always enjoyable. But nonetheless, we'll move on. We um first item is in our agenda is the approval of the agenda. Council, are there any items you wish to um add to the agenda? I believe council member Nurayan. >> Yeah, I have one council uh report. >> Great. Uh anybody else? Could I have a motion then to approve the agenda with the addition of the one council member report? >> I'll move to approve the agenda with the addition of a council member report. >> Second. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Moving on. Minutes. We have two minutes uh that occurred back on October 7th. The council workshop minutes and the city council regular meeting minutes. Are there um any um lines, items that you wish to edit, learn more about, correct, fix, or are we ready to make a motion to approve them? >> Move to approve the following city council minutes. City Council workshop held Tuesday, October 7th, 2025. City Council meeting held Tuesday, October 7th, 2025. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I >> opposed >> consent calendar which for the students in the audience it's the list of important items but ones that we don't typically need further discussion on so we clump them together tonight we have quite a few A through Q but I do give the council an opportunity if they have questions about any item to um pull it off temporarily or even vote on it separately. Council, are there any items you wish to learn more about? >> If not, could I have a motion then to approve items A through Q? Move to approve items A to Q on the consent calendar. Is >> there a second? >> Second. >> Further discussion. All those in favor say I. I. >> I opposed. All right, Mr. Gro. I believe we have um four public hearings this evening. Um I'll turn it over to you. >> Uh thank you, mayor, mayor, and councel. So, our first public hearing is related to a a project on Valley View. It's Valley View Hotel and Restaurant Development. Uh there are a number of approvals uh for this site. In summary, uh CSM development is requesting approvals to develop 59.6 acres at the northeast corner of Valley View Road in 494 into a 157 room hotel and approximately 8,000 square foot restaurant. The hotel and restaurant will occupy just over 6 and a half acres and the northerly 53 acres will then be acquired by the city to be preserved as parks and open space. You will see here that uh several of the approvals involve a comprehensive plan amendment uh zoning approvals preliminary plat planned unit development site plan approval. uh the planning commission uh re recommended unanimous approval of this project to you at their September uh 22nd meeting and the applicant is here to provide detail of their project. I know uh city council that you actually over the last year and a half uh received some preliminary preliminary um discussions actually um about this project over the years as the school had purchased the property uh to the east and as the property had um kind of redeveloped as a former office property. you're very familiar with what's happening here and um as a development moves into this change with the with the mixed use of the school use and now the the hotel and restaurant use. But uh the applicant is here tonight to provide a presentation and then the staff and the applicant can certainly answer any questions you have. Obviously we have a public hearing and then uh many different actions tonight for a first reading. >> Great. Please come forward. give your name, address, company you work for. >> Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. I'm John Frier. I'm um vice president of architecture and development for CSM Corporation, and we're located at 500 Washington Avenue South in Minneapolis. Also with me today from the project team are um Mark Kronbeck and Nick Grage from Allian Engineering. They did the civil engineering, the landscape um plan and also the traffic and parking study. Um also here today is Scott Cross. He is the the GM at the existing residence in and John Carland who is CSM's development analyst. So we're extremely excited to present this project. As you stated, it's been kind of a long journey. Um, and I really want to thank planning staff for helping us with our submission um, and getting us to this point. So, I just want to thank planning staff. All right. So, we are the owners of the current residence in that's offline cloud drive. This is a first generation prototype built in 1984. So the concept then was a separate clubhouse that held the amenities and then there was 16 8 unit separated buildings for the guest rooms. So Marriott in recent years has indicated that this residence in concept um is obsolete and needs to be replaced with a new prototype or we fear losing our flag in Eden Prairie. So one of the reasons for this is the inability to convert it to the new prototype. So every 5 to 7 years uh Marriott requires what's called a PIP which is a property improvement plan and we are required to bring it up to as close to the prototype as possible. They've now deemed that these first generation uh prototypes are not able to be brought to the new prototype. In addition, functionally having a hotel with separated buildings like that, it just doesn't function very well. [clears throat] So you may ask, why a new site? why don't you just tear down the existing um and build a new on the existing site. There's a couple of reasons for that. Um this is a very high performing hotel for us. So there was a desire to keep the hotel open during the 16 to 18month construction process. Um and also the light rail impacts. So we feared that there would be noise and vibration impacts because the light rail comes within 30 ft of the site. So, here are the UNFI parcels, which I'm sure you're probably aware of. On the right side is on the east side is the uh parcel that the school district purchased and reszoned uh earlier in the year. And the two parcels on the left CSM uh now has under contract with a redevelopment proposal for the area in red as you see today. Um the proposed development utilizes about 6 and a half acres of the almost 60 acre site and most of the site will remain undeveloped. And as stated earlier, we're seeking approval for PUD concept review, guide plan amendment, zoning amendment, site plan review, and preliminary plat. So as part of our PUB concept review, we're looking at uh three waivers. So, one of the waiverss is increasing the building height from 40 feet to 52 feet 2 in. Um, and the reason for that is we wanted a compact footprint. Um, so we didn't impact the natural uh character of the site. So, that's why we wanted a more compact design to get the uh number of keys that we needed. The second uh waiver would be um a decrease of the shoreland setback from 200 feet to 100 feet from Super Valley Pond. And if you look at the graphic on the upper right hand, there is precedent to having reduced shorland setbacks on this water body. The red line you see the the building that you see there is the office building that was the former UNFI office building and the red line indicates the 100 foot uh shoreland setback. In addition, we're asking um to remove ve vegetation for the from the shore impact zone, but that will be um reveated with native plantings. Sustainability requirements. So, we are going to pursue lead certification, silver. Um, we're excited about this. We're following the Eden Prairie Sustainable Building Standard. We've already started that process. We have a consultant that we've been working with and some of the strategies that we're looking at are listed there. Um, but those are just a start of the strategies we're looking at. We're we've completed our initial uh lead um scorecard. Um, and we're identifying some additional strategies as well. So, we're we're pretty excited about that. So, um as stated earlier, it requires a zoning and land use change. So, the two graphics on the top, the one on the left is the existing zoning, which is all rural. The one on the right shows our site with the restaurant and the hotel as being reszoned to regional service commercial. and the commercial use at that front of the site is consistent with the use across the street. Um the northern undeveloped parcel will be parks and open space. In addition, we need a a land use amendment. So um on the bottom are the current land uses. So the the front of the site where the hotel is is currently guided office. The middle portion is guided medium high density residential and the upper portion is um parks and open space. So we are proposing that um our site again be regional commercial and then the rest of the site be parks and open space. Um and as you can see the the parks and open space in our proposed um guide guiding is larger than the current designation of parks and open space. Um we originally proposed apartments. I think you might uh remember that from about a year and a half ago. Um but we worked with staff and they determined they did not support that because of the impacts on steep slopes and bluffs. So we feel the land use change is warranted as the office market, I'm sure you've heard, is in sharp decline. So in the metro area, 17 of the last 18 quarters have had negative absorption, which means that more office space is being vacated than is being leased. And the vacancy for office use is approaching 25% in the Twin Cities and is expected to reach 30% by 2028. So here's our proposed site plan. Um the hotel five stories 157 keys is in the center of the site and the restaurant pad is in the lower right hand corner. It's about 8600 square feet. So we we cited the buildings so that they had the least impact on on the natural features of the site. So um as a result no heritage trees will be removed and 88 12% of tree caliber inches will be saved as well. Also um the way we uh place the buildings it has it avoids the steep slopes and avoids the protected bluffs. Here's a bird's eye view of the development um showing the new residence in prototype which is a single building uh with the amenities integrated into the same footprint which helps operationally and it's just a better experience for um for the u people that that stay there. It's a contemporary design with a mixture of studio, onebedroom, and twobedroom suites. Um, and there'll be a small meeting space. So, on the right side of the plan is a we envision a fullervice restaurant to support the hotel, but also area businesses. Um, we have not identified a user as of yet, but we are marketing the space. And finally, this is a closer look at the the building. Um, we have over 75% class one materials. So, in this case, that's brick, glass, and cultured stone. Um, there's some stucco and fiber cement panels as well, but that's just an accent. Um, the prototype for residence in is um mostly fiber cement board. So, this will be upgraded look um from the prototypical residence ins. So, um, as I said before, we're extremely excited, um, about this development and keeping an existing hotel in Eden Prairie. Um, thank you for your consideration and the project team is here to answer any [clears throat] questions. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, John. >> Uh, council, again, this, um, is really your prerogative. If you wanted to ask a few questions right now, we can do that later. We can open it up to the public. You would like to ask a question? No. >> Yeah. Um, >> go ahead. Council member Tumi. >> Um, okay. So, when you had the planning commission meeting, um, someone came up and spoke about a bald eagle's nest. I was wondering what, um, is going on. >> So, we had three different groups investigate looking for a bald eagle's nest. Um, and we could not find that. Um the area that he identified as where he was watching the bald eagle's nest is about 1120 ft from our proposed development. And uh the fish and wildlife their their limit is if you're within 660 ft um you have to address it. So even if it was where he said it was, it still wouldn't be within that radius. >> It may be more visible as the leaves fall. Yeah, we we looked pretty we had three groups go out and look. Um there were several downed trees um where um the gentleman said the eagle's nest was and he did indicate that it was in a dead tree. So we're thinking that maybe one of those trees went down. >> Okay. And I just want to say thank you for not removing any heritage trees. >> Yeah. >> And um how big is the retaining wall going to be? >> So it varies. Um Mark can uh our civil engineer can speak to that. >> Okay. >> And one of the reasons for the retaining walls is we wanted to impact as little of the steep slopes as possible. As a developer, it's never efficient to build tons of retaining walls because they're expensive to build. However, to maintain, you know, the the natural slopes and the bluffs, we do have a fair share of retaining walls on the north side and then on the west side. >> So, appears the appears the highest point is 22 feet um west of the building there. >> And what type of materials are you using? >> It's concrete modular block, traditional block. Uh council, should we go ahead and have a public hearing then if you want additional questions? So people in the audience, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience this evening wishing to address the council on the valley? What's it super val resident in? Valley View resident. I I wasn't reading. I was looking for it fast. Um, anyone wishing to come forward and address the council on tonight's um issue with this public hearing, please come forward. >> Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, council people. Um, I'm Bard Kudson. I live at 7120 Willow Creek Road, Neen Prairie. And, um, I've been acquainted with this property for many, many years. Um the the beautiful hillsides that um is on this property and uh adjacent to the school um is all natural beautiful blocking and landscape for this building. My concern tonight is the 52 feet versus the 40t. Um, I would like to see a plan where there would be [cough and clears throat] um, elevations on the top hills so we know how it's going to be set into this position. Um, and I'm hoping that it can be hidden by these beautiful hills so that when you're on the lake, you're not necessarily looking at another commercial building. That's my biggest concern tonight. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh Julie, do you want to uh respond to that or have um the applicant? >> Mayor, members of the commission, actually the applicant has some slides that show a variety of different uh perspectives in their slide deck. >> Do we want to wait till after the public hearing is closed? Let's let's we'll we'll get to that. Thank you for that question. Uh anybody else in the audience wishing to address us this evening, please come forward. give your name and address. Not sure if Bart, you did say that, so thank you. >> Uh, good evening. I'm Bruce Paradis and my address is 12530 Beach Circle. Um, and I don't know if now is the right time to ask the question, but mainly my questions has to do with the other uh undeveloped part and what are the plans for that. So, I'm I don't know if this is the right time or not for that. >> It it is and um if you've asked it if you want to add clarity to that. It was on my list, too. So, we'll make sure to get an answer to that. Um it sounds like it's going to be within [clears throat] city ownership. So that that will be great to have us have the control of that. But it's a good question. >> And and specifically um whether or not it will create any more pressure on our lake in terms of boat traffic and things like that. So if there's any intention with regard to a park um >> whether it involves the lake or not. >> Good question. Thank you. >> Thank you. [clears throat] And Julie, just for clarification, there this entire parcel of supervalued property had slip rights or dock rights or something to Brian so many slips or something, but those rights went with the school district portion. Is that correct, >> mayor, members of the council? The shoreland ordinance talks about dock rights um along the shoreland. Um, this property of course does not have direct access uh to Bryant Lake. So that northern outlet that m Mr. Paradis just questioned, the intention is for the city to acquire that as a part of this uh development project and the city would have that guided and zoned for park and open space and have it maintained in its natural condition with no plans for improvements or access to the lake impact to Bryant Lake. >> Perfect. Didn't know I'd get that great of a full answer here on that. Thank you so much though. Is there anybody else wishing to address the council tonight? Please come forward. Name and address. [clears throat] Good evening, council members, mayor. Uh my name is Hance Rasmmanson, 5540 Queen Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Um I am the senior director of real estate for UNFI. wanted to let everyone know I'm here if there's questions. Um, and then just I guess a couple quick comments. Um, you know, I've worked with uh, city staff and the planning department [snorts] over the years on this. Been lots of questions when I was with uh, Super Value when Unfi bought Superv Value. So, there was obviously a lot of questions then. Um but just want to say you know we've been um marketing uh the land for about two and a half years. Um all of the interest um other than s CSM was for residential single family homes multifamily homes assisted living senior living everything and there was a lot of it as everyone's aware it's beautiful piece of property. um you know, it was clear that that wasn't the preferred uh use for the property and and so we listened to that and and sort of moved on. Um obviously worked with the school district and and sold uh the headquarter building to the school district um at somewhat of a loss, but you know, glad that you know, it's beautiful land and and we're glad that that they're able to use it and hope they make the most of it. Uh the second parcel, the vacant parcel that CSM has under contract with us. Um you know, it's [clears throat] it's land that I think was bought what in 78 or nine by superv value. Um so for almost 50 years, it's been assessed as developable land. Um as recently as 23 24 it was assessed north of $6 million. Um and we will be selling it at a significant uh I won't CSM might want to share it'll become public obviously when it happens but it's uh let's say less than half of that. So it's a you know so again happy to do it um happy to see that the city might gain a lot of land that'll stay unused. I used to walk the hills at lunch and and uh so anyway uh you know just want to thank everybody hope we can move forward and happy to answer any questions if there's anything else anyone has as this process moves on. >> Thank you. We um have through the years appreciated UNFI being their super value. Um I won't say paying taxes every year but thank you. Um but um it was a great um company to have within our borders. So deeply appreciate that and used to used to rent part of um our building for quite a few years. So >> um >> yeah, we wish the best to UNFI and I know they're going through a lot of transition right now. And >> um sounds like it's going okay though. We can talk later offline, but yes. >> Yeah. No, it's going well. Yeah, there's a lot of changes, but yeah, the office use thing is >> Yeah. uh very different but everybody's over in Hopkins at the big campus there and there's people there and so >> Yep. All right. Well, thank you for coming up. That was nice of you. >> Anyone else in the audience wishing to address the council this evening on this particular development project? >> Okay. If not, council um why don't we go ahead and just close the public hearing seeing if there I think there were a couple questions and maybe we want to make some comments and then we'll um make the full motion later. So, would someone um move a move to close the public hearing? >> Move to close the public hearing. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All right. Um so, Julie, I think you answered the question really well with the 53 acres. The only thing I was going to ask is is it contiguous to any other city park land and therefore what um plans do we have in terms of possible trails? Um and again contiguous maybe to our trail system and maybe that's Amy actually. Sorry I saw the mic move over Amy. >> Yeah >> trails. >> Yeah thank you mayor and council. um you know as it would be moved to park and open space. I think the way the topography is it would be hard to have a parking lot and um an access point around the hotel property but there would be opportunities to partner with the school district to access the land with potential nature trails in partnership with them from their property. Um, so I think moving forward we probably look to them to partner with any um kind of low impact amenity such as a nature trail >> and they could utilize the land for their school programming in there. So that would be a win-win for both of us. Y >> um so I I don't know how much um any of you can answer this from a resident in perspective but what what are the plans that you know of at this point for the current residence and building once the new one is completely constructed? Um might there be a possibility that the old building would stay and then the city might have some interesting interests in that? Right. We are considering all options right now whether it be reuse of the existing buildings or um a new development. Okay. Um we haven't you know fully decided on that. We are going to see you know how this went and then and then we will start considering that. >> Okay. I know cities across the nation are looking at the idea of getting some type of price point uh lower that people could move into a a one-bedroom condominium ownership perspective. And every one of your units has a kitchen, its own door, um, bathroom, living. I mean, it's just really ideal for that kind of venture, but it would have to be a partnership with all of you. I just throw that out as a >> absolutely >> separate from this approval tonight. >> Yeah, I mean, we would consider that. Um, we just haven't gotten to that stage yet. >> Understood. >> Thank you. Uh, council, um, other questions? >> Um, Council Member Nelson. >> Yeah, a little bit along those lines. I was curious, obviously your new hotel site will have some larger units from what you said. Um, is this anticipated as just for travelers or businessmen coming in for a month type thing or is this envisioned as being a possible year long, two yearlong um residence for someone? Mayor, council members. My name is Scott Cross. I'm the current GM at the residents in in Eden Prairie. I've worked with CSM um lodging for 24 years. So, I've been most of that time as an extended state hotels. So, residents in um our model is really that long-term guest. So someone has a fire in their house, a flood, something like that, they would move into residence in while their house is being worked on. The other one is we have contractors that um come internationally and stay. We have a group that's in house right now and they're in for eight months working with um corporate partners around the city. So that's really we we don't we don't rent well we rent rooms. So people use us for short-term lodging. They use this for short-term needs. We also rent one nights, two nights, um, you know, volleyball teams, hockey teams coming in. That's we do a little of that, but it's not our core business. >> Interesting. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Others, >> I just have a simple question. The restaurant you're uh talking about, is there any driving? I didn't see that in the diagram. >> Uh, we we don't envision a drive-in or a drive-thru. Sit down. Try to sit down. >> It's a sit down bar restaurant. >> All right. I hope you pick a good vendor. >> We will. [snorts] >> Council, anything else? Are we um are you satisfied? Are we ready to make the motion and to vote? So, let's make a motion on the next uh six bullet points then and then we'll um you can still have if a question pops into your head, we can still have some conversation. Uh, someone make a motion. Council member, >> I'll move to close the public hearing and adopt a resolution for a comprehensive guide plan change from medium density residential, parks, and open space and office to parks and open space on 53.01 01 acres and commercial on 6.59 acres and adopt a resolution for a plan unit development POD concept review on 6.5 acres and approve the first reading of an ordinance for a PUD district review with waiverss on 6.59 acres and zoning district changes from rule to parks and open space on 53.01 01 acres and rule to see res uh regional service on 6.5 acres and >> 59. >> It's okay. >> Adopt a resolution for a preliminary plat of one parcel into two lots and one outlet on 59.6 6 acres and adopt a resolution in support of park dedication fees on 6.59 acres and direct staff to prepare a development agreement incorporating staff and commissioned recommendations and council conditions. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right, council. Um any um final questions, comments? >> Just just one comment. >> Sure. I think you mentioned about the current hotel too close to the light rail and you are concerned about any vibration. Is that based on other studies or something or >> Yes, we did uh conduct a lot of studies when they um they took some of the land so and they assigned a value to it. So we conducted numerous acoustical studies and vibration studies um and went through that whole process with the Met Council. >> Interesting. >> It comes very close to one of the existing buildings. >> Um and with you know the trains going every 11 minutes and the bells because there is a crossing there. >> Um it would it would have been um we thought it would been a disturbance. >> Thank you for >> Okay. Are we ready to vote? So on this um quite lengthy motion, all those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Passes 50. Um welcome to um your new uh building here in Eden Prairie. I appreciate having you here. I think it's going to be a really nice addition to that entire site. So all right, and you know what? One other thing, we really really appreciate the uh dedication of the um 50 what nine acres or no 53.01 acres. Um that's I think that'll be a great addition to our public open space. So thank you. >> All right, council. Um moving on then, uh Mr. Getto um to the second public hearing. >> Uh yes, Mayor. Uh, one thing to on the last project for um for the developer on the first project, I think the um the first gentleman that spoke at the public hearing had some questions about the elevations in the uh >> Oh, yeah. Yes. >> Yeah. The for your property and the >> Could we show them quickly? >> Yeah. I don't know. I was just thinking we have first to second reading. I'm thinking maybe he could they the developer could show him. We don't have to to do it in the meeting here, but I thought that's just information. And I think he wanted to see I don't think we you don't have to show it in this meeting but I thought they could show him. >> Bard I think had that raised. And I wanted to add one other thing with that in our packet that the building is being set down so it's actually absorbing some of that extra 12 feet. Did you know that exact figure off the top of your head? >> Um >> like how how much? >> Most of it. Um we did corridor studies that um from across Bryant Lake. We did them on Bryant Lake. We did them um from across 494 and the building will really have no visual impact. >> Well, the pictures I saw from in the packet from across the lake, you wouldn't see it because of the hill rises. Did I see that correctly? >> Yeah, there's some burming and the buildings are set back several thousand feet beyond that. So, there's tons of foliage. There's there's burming. There's steep slopes. Um and I can show the gentleman outside. I have the printouts in my >> Yeah, Bart, if that's okay. And then um if we want more information or there's more um residents that contact us in that week at second reading, we can also have some of that shown to you. You don't have to come back, but we'll figure that out. But >> yeah. Yeah. So, my point for catching Yeah. Well, no, my point, Mayor and Council, was that I know you have that information, your packet. I know you know some of that, but I didn't want the gentleman to leave last night without the ability for you to know that they have the information that they can show you. >> Yep. I will talk to him and get his info. >> Excellent. >> Thank you. And did and we covered the other issue. >> You did. Okay. You did. That was park and open space. >> Okay. Excellent. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, John. [clears throat] >> All right, Mr. GTO. Our second public hearing for the evening. >> Yes. Sorry about that. Yes. Uh, next topic is uh Roars In Curry Apartments. Uh this is again we have um a couple different actions associated with a plan unit development and a comprehensive guide plan and a a PUD and development agreement. Uh here we have uh Roars Company's proposing to demolish um an existing fivestory office building at 6436 City West Parkway. again that kind of story about um office um repurposing and constructing a 195 unit apartment building at that location. Um so this is in um kind of off in that 212 um city west Parkway near Optum area if you're not familiar with the area. Um the approvals uh necessary include a comp plan amendment as I mentioned zoning district change PUD planning and development district review with waiverss. Um, the planning commission also voted 5 to recommend approval at their September uh 22nd meeting. Uh, the applicant is here to present an overview of their project to provide detail. Staff and the applicant uh can certainly answer any questions at the council or the public uh may have as well. Uh following this, we also have um a public hearing, some action related to some tax increment financing related to the affordable housing that would go with this project, but that's a separate action in a separate uh separate public hearing, but this is related to the land use approvals related to the construction of the apartment building. >> Great. Please uh come forward. Applicant, proponent, name, address, and uh company that you work for. Thank you, mayor, and members of the council. My name is Nick Asta. I'm with Roers Companies. We're at two Carlson Parkway, Plymouth, Minnesota. Um, just quickly on Roers Companies, we're a vertically uh integrated development, construction, and property management company. Uh, being vertically integrated allows us to keep all uh parts of the process in house, have full control, and ultimately set up the investment for long-term ownership, uh, which is the plan with this project. Um to date we have completed about 15,000 units. Um we are we have a presence across the country uh but obviously are based here. Um we also have uh kind of a unique private capital raising structure in house that has allowed us to be nimble and continue producing projects in times when maybe the institutions aren't quite doing that. Um so just wanted to kind of give that context and in the confidence that we're able to uh to execute on this project. Uh and then finally, just want to point out that Roars Company's kind of bread and butter that we've built up over the last decade or so is really this suburban uh you know, multifamily, four or five stories over one. Um and this project really fits right in with kind of our breadandbut investment strategy. Um as mentioned, planning commission, there were no major concerns, but happy to discuss anything there. I do want to point out that we hosted two different neighborhood meetings and nobody showed up. That said, um this pro this property is part of a condo association and that condo association had a pretty in-depth review of the project and ultimately approval process. So, they're well aware of what's going on. They've made certain requests and from what we know are excited to see the the new investment in the area. Um lastly I did want to touch on you know the the project is technically transit oriented uh being adjacent to the new light rail station. The construction timeline would be similar to the opening of that light rail and with the tiff we are working with staff on utilizing some of that funding to help build a trail that would connect our site to said >> just writing that note down like when's the where's the trail and when's the trail coming. Thank you. and that would hopefully be in conjunction with our construction process. So, we're really excited about that. We think it's a unique opportunity to have a transit oriented kind of urban feel out in the sub a suburban area. Um, so I'll stop there. I do have the project team present, uh, JG Architects, uh, and happy to answer any questions as well. >> Just real fast, since we're on the trail, do you know how long it's going to be if just, um, practicality, if somebody were to get off the station and walk home, >> what are we talking about? I mean roughly or anyone know or Julie somebody Amy >> mayor members of the council we've looked at two different alternatives um for locations and the city is working to determine which design uh will fit best into the natural conditions of the site. So there you know obviously with two locations one could be a little bit longer than the other. Um but it is probably about a I'm guessing here a quarter to a third of a mile wide. That's what I was wondering generally. That's that's real real walkable. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you, >> council members. Mr. Mayor, I'm Justin Murkovich with JLG Architects, 710 South 2nd Street in Minneapolis, and I'm happy to make a presentation and show the design of the project, and we can be as shallow or as deep as as we want to be. Uh, it's just cover page. Oh, I have control. That's right. Oh, okay. So, if we want to get into uh the waiverss that we have, the project was unanimously approved at planning commission. So, I'm happy to get into these in any depth uh as desired, but um density waiver, slight density waiver, it's consistent with the uh Aspire 2040 plan and all the goals there. Uh front yard setback um is kind of a middle ground between RM2.5 and the TODR district. Still trying to keep um eyes on the public realm. Um heights is another one for RM2.5. Um and again it's consistent with the uh 2040 plan for this type of uh project providing housing etc. Uh parking there are 200 there's 322 total stalls on the project and that comes out to be a 1.65 65 stall per unit ratio and uh there's over 200 structured parking stalls within the building itself and then um roughly 115 uh surface parking stalls. >> Can I ask a question there while we're on it? Um, so I drove out there this afternoon and it I I I do believe based on your data and the other projects especially in the city that that you're adequately parked for type of people that move in there today and possibly using LRT that that that's all great. So I guess my question is on those rare occasions and I don't know if it's like night to unite where people invite you know brother sisters parent whatever but on that rare occasion where you've got whatever 315 and 370 cars come or something can they park down there's there's a road that comes in with a median and there's no yellow markings no parking I mean could could people spill out if they had to if you had an extra 20 or 30 needed spaces. Would it absorb that? >> Well, on our project site within our property lines, um, no. >> No. I I get that. >> Yeah. But I'd say that there is way more parking than is necessary out there. And most of those, well, all those buildings frankly within the immediate master planned area are all office buildings and those obviously clear out at night. And I don't want to tell people what to do. Obviously, the stalls would be available and um, we haven't really engaged. We are engaged with those owners. I I don't want to speak for Nick and Roars, but they have engaged with the uh condo association that the office is a part of. So, they've had those conversations with the number of cells we're showing and their comfort level is is high with it and they've been uh supportive of the project. So, >> no, you've answered that's helpful. I I understand the nuanced and you know, the ambiguity that's necessary. Okay, great. Thank you. Keep going. >> Okay. Um, so I guess getting into the design and again I can go as deep or shallow. I don't want to waste everyone's time, but um, I was out on site many times. I live about 5 miles away from the site and uh, our best family friends live in Eden Prairie, so I'm in this area very frequently. And uh, I found this very charming um, farm on in a pretty close proximity to the site. And I thought it was really interesting that it had remained throughout all this uh, time. So, I went back into the historical archives and looked up some old aerial photography. And um this takes you from 1956, which is the earliest photos I could find. And that farm is circled in orange there. And it's remained throughout the life of this de of the development of Eden Prairie to be frank, which uh I thought was really interesting. And then going back to the site um playing amateur investigator, I thought it was very clear to me that um that historical context was brought into the master planning of this uh site as it currently exists today with the office building. So you're seeing a lot of curves uh a lot of terracotta brick and I thought that was um echoing what was happening on the site previously with the grain silo I just showed. So this is looking at ways that the materials are kind of simply reflecting that context with just some very simple reveals. And then obviously that grain silo you can see in some of that images is echoed throughout. And I can talk about these uh images in as much depth as as you like, but this is an image from uh southwest looking back towards downtown Minneapolis. CC 212 is kind of curving away towards the city there. And this is uh what the site looks like from the main approach. This is from kind of the opposite angle from the southeast uh with the light rail transit uh shown in the foreground and obviously 212. While we're on the subject of the uh trail, is there a way to maybe you can't see this, but there we showed kind of a retaining wall up around the norththeast side of the site facilitating that uh possibility of that connection to uh the city west station. I'm a Congress for new urbanism member, so I love transit. I fully supportive of transit. took my kids on the city bus to school throughout their uh time as students and I I think this is a great site. A quarter mile walkshed is roughly a five minute walk. So a five to 10 minute walk is uh considered a five-minute walk shed and this is a great opportunity to use this kind of project to facilitate that connection for this whole district. Obviously there's other multif family on site which is great and um office buildings same. So the person and child there are kind of on that path that we have shown. Uh here it's headed east towards the highway and then it would turn north and head up through the site. And this is the main entry just kind of recalling those curved elements. And I just wanted to highlight here that um I wanted to be subtle with the use of curves here and not go totally overboard and try to mimic the architecture. I wanted to be subtle about it. So, we've got the main entry with a curved element. That's the tallest um kind of massing of the building. And then the uh balcony kind of uh bumpouts there for the dwelling units are also integrating that curve in some of the reveals from the northwest looking back at that facade. End of presentation. So, I'm happy to answer any questions. Obviously, council, what's your pleasure? Do you want to ask a few questions now? Um, Council Member Tumi, you're looking very like you do. So, go ahead. >> Um, okay. So, thank you for coming tonight. Thank you for your presentation. I really like the curved aspect of the building, how it fits in with the other buildings in the area and the silo. Um the building that's there currently is it's to me sometimes disappointing to rip down buildings and put up new ones, but um I was wondering um um what happens with those materials? Do you have a company that comes out and maybe recycles them? I know we have several in the area. Well, RORS has their own um constru general contracting group and they could probably speak to that maybe a little bit more, but um yeah, they have a great history of uh general contracting and construction and uh if there's an opportunity to do that um don't have any reason why they would object maybe, but >> yeah, I mean the ultimately they they'll end up you know being recycled appropriately. Um it's hard to say exactly where they'll end up. Um but I think the reality of it is is you know office vacancy in in the metro is nearing 30% and we're seeing buildings like this just reach the end of their life and and that's ultimately what's happened here. >> Well, thank you. And I like I I do like this design. Um um I kind of would like to see a little more um definition in the top um floors. Just it just you know how I I'm not sure how to explain it. Like I think a lot of the buildings going up right now look the same. This one does not, which is good. But um uh yeah, I I don't I just think it might have a better aesthetic if you because it is going to be facing the highway. We do care what people think about when they're driving through Eden Prairie. So, um >> we've Can I add to this? We've heard often from um architects and designers, and I think I'll be the first I I won't speak for my colleagues here, but I think I've heard you say similar. We're um we have other professions, other careers, other jobs, other expertise education. Um so we get um educated as best we can about what we do up here, but nonetheless, we have experts on staff. So with that being said, we've often heard that uh a f especially like a five-story building needs a top, a middle, and a bottom to be aesthetically pleasing, right? You have aspects of that because you you run that brick element up to the fourth floor and then you have the fifth floor being alone. So you have that sense of that top. I think Lisa and I have talked um open Mean Law. I can't talk to any of the rest of them, but she had called me earlier this week concerns about the kind of the monolithic um dark black color, but initially we saw just on the drawing in our paper packet, which was not the best. I mean, it's not your fault. Well, it's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault. It's just it wasn't this. So, we didn't see this until we were encouraged to go deeper into the um electronic packet and then we actually I ended up and I think you did too watching the um planning commission video. So then it's like I got the whole picture. Okay, I get it. But in the meantime, we were thinking what if that top fifth floor was and it probably can't be done because it might mess the whole concept up. I totally get that. I trust that you know what you're doing. But if it was a different color or something was happening at the top to more differentiate. And if that's not possible, um, great. If if you're if ideas are going through your head right now that it might be, that's great, too. Uh, we'll trust our staff, uh, Julie and other planning. Um, and if they say, ignore what the council said. I mean, I'm personally fine with the way it is. If this is the way it ends up, I think it's very beautiful. So my thought would be if only it could be better just to differentiate that top a little bit better. Do you want to add anything to that? >> I agree with you. Yep. >> No, I was expecting you to say like like add 10 other comments. No, no, I agree with you, Lisa. So >> yeah, >> Julie, anything to add to that? I mean, we're we'll just send it back between second reading. If it stays the same, it stays the same. That's fine. >> Mayor, members of the council, absolutely. staff can continue to work with the developer and brainstorm some ideas and take a look at what those impacts are. >> Sometimes we've even talked about at some buildings of adding an apron at the top. That could be expensive. So, I understand all the financial piece of that. But, um anyway, if if you would look at that, I think um we'd appreciate that, but it looks I don't even know 50 times better than it did on that flat two-dimensional where it was just all black with a little bit of brown in it. And they were like, >> we had a lot of back and forth about how he wanted the print the printed sets to look. And I said, "Are you sure these are >> 4 foot by three foot fulls size drawings scaled down?" And I said, "They're not going to be able to see anything." But >> yeah. >> Okay. I'm glad we had the opportunity. >> But this three dimensional look like almost from a drone was very good. And I think that's helpful for us as a council to see it in the perspective of the context of what's around it. And we are, as Lisa said, um, quite interested in what the view looks like from 212, but also the LRT line. This is going to be an entrance after they, you know, stop at the station at Optum. I mean, this is kind of the entrance into the market center area and to just we want that building to to look really nice there. Um, okay. Let's see. Where are we at here? We >> Kathy. >> Oh, yes. Council member Nelson, >> the one thing I haven't seen that you you might be there, but you haven't just put it up. Is is there a play, you know, you talked about having children here, but is there a playground here? Um what about um outdoor spaces for residents of one kind or another? Um, if you've got um also flowers and flowering shrubs, if you've got some of that, could that be thrown up on the screen to see what it is? Unfortunately, in the presentation, it's all renderings. And I don't know if there's a way to zoom into them to kind of show you more detail, but just a few things I want to touch on. Exterior design. So, 75% class one materials. We exceed that on every elevation. and we took a lot of pains to get there with glass and brick and really wanted to make the building special in that way. Uh as far as landscape requirements go, we are also above the landscape requirement for caliper inches replacement and for planted trees and the developer in working with the property owner to the south has agreed to do some additional landscaping on their site to kind of create an even nicer buffer between. And I think the rendering would show it best, but there's a continuous path all the way around this building that's fully landscaped. And if that trail coming down from the Met uh City West Parkway station were to happen, you would see that it's fully landscaped that that whole way around. So, uh we're also above the outdoor area requirements for the project. And then to your question about um resident amenities, the level two terrace, so on the roof of the level one, there is a pool deck, grilling stations, uh sauna's proposed, etc. And it's a ample space and um there's a dog run on the south end of the project. So there's lot of opportunity um to play on the site and be in nature. A big reason why we nested the building into the hill was to not consume or to consume as little landscape that already existed on site as possible. And um there could be some trails facilitated in the hills and the for the kids to play. And I think nature is really what's singing here. And we tried to preserve that as much as possible. >> But there will be some possibilities for children to do something other than just watch TV in their unit. Lots of open space and and trails are facilitating that. Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> Parents might be involved in that, too. I don't know. >> Um, >> let's Well, we can keep with the questions or we can have the public hearing close and keep going. What? What? What? >> Doesn't matter. >> Is that fine to go ahead and have a public hearing and then we'll continue? So, if you want to sit and we'll call you back up. >> Okay. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to address the council on the Eden Prairie Apartments by Roars Company up off of City West Parkway? I think I always take this as a positive that we've done all of our homework in connecting and and getting a lot of public input along this process. and to the developer. Um, thank you for evidently, um, you know, again, having enough information go out to contiguous neighbors. So, one more chance. All right, seeing none, let's go ahead and close the public hearing, then we'll continue with any questions or comments. >> Move to close the public hearing. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All right. Council member Ryan. >> Yeah. Um the [clears throat] rooftop did you say there will be pool and other amenities in that? Okay. So >> the rooftop of the first floor. >> Oh of the first >> it's on the second level. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It's it's the roof of the first floor of the building. So it would be on level two. >> Okay. So way on the top is there a is there a ability to put solar roofing? Yeah, we actually have a solar study in hand that shows kind of that preliminary uh capacity that a solar on on the high roofs could could generate. Yep. Four 400 kilowatts is the preliminary estimation. Obviously, we have a lot of mechanical systems to work around. So, we need to develop that a little bit further, but that is in progress. So, are there plans to go ahead and I think I read this or heard it. Go ahead and do this and to offset any natural gas use because at I I think you're still on track with this to make it an electric building. Yeah. >> Which would be maybe one of the first of its kind. We certainly would want to advertise that around the state and help you but help us. But um so you may have plans right now to put some solar up there. >> Yeah. So as you imagine an all-electric novel [snorts] system there's some uh you know challenges to that but that's kind of the proposed direction uh currently but um we also have an alternative to go to lead uh silver if we needed to go that route but we we want to make sure that we're doing our diligence. So we've had an energy modeling consultant on staff since the beginning of the design. They've seen all the metrics associated with this project. They've been engaged with the solar provider and and looking at those offsets. And we've been working with Jennifer and Jeremy to see what we could achieve with all electric with some gas systems but a minority of gas systems and then using that rooftop solar to offset that uh to the degree possible. So we are hopeful that uh the metrics we would work great. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Uh I have another question is uh no question comment. I like the architectural change in Eden Prairie. I mean, it's good and bad because if you look at a lot of the high-rise buildings here, it's totally different than the way you look. Uh so but I like that being the difference a little bit little bit difference but I also agree with Miss Tumi and mayor in the top and it look like it's just too black to blend have an accent something that will I think aesthetically would be a lot more pleasing. >> Thank you. >> I got council member Fryber. >> I got a question if I could please. I'm trying to visualize um looking at 70 was it 71 uh uh feet plus that you're looking for in the variance. Does that make it the tallest building around there? >> Are we including Optum? >> I was going to say 15. [laughter] >> No, no, that's the answer that I wanted. I'm just trying because I was just trying to figure Okay, so it makes it the second tallest is what you're saying. Okay. Well, unless you're including the other two optimum buildings also 11 stories. >> It answered my question. Thank you very much. >> It's probably and then you've got the ones across the street or whatever that fits in. >> We're probably seventh or eighth tallest in >> That's fine. That's what my point was though is that it fits in as far as in that area. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Good question though. >> Not >> I don't know what it is but there's other tall buildings around there. >> No, that's fine. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Other questions or comments? council. So, let's I think we're ready to go ahead and make the full motion. If one of you would do that, we can still ask questions at the end of that, but would somebody make the motion? I'll continue. Adopt a resolution for comprehensive guide plan change from industrial flex tech to medium high density residential on 5.86 acres. and adopt a resolution for plan unit development PUD concept review on 5.86 acres and approve the first reading of an ordinance for a for a pub district review with waiver on 5.86 86 acres and zoning district change from office to RM-2.5 on 5.86 acres on 6.59 acres and direct staff to prepare development agreement incorporating staff and commission recommendations and council conditions. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> I had just one more question. I was reading through my notes here. Um, if I could have I guess to to the left there, Nick, come up. Um, one of the concerns that we hear a lot from residents is that our older apartment buildings are going through resale to large holding companies that are doing quick investments, sometimes flipping. So, I there's something about what every seven to eight years. Um, is there a write off process? I don't really understand all the financial dynamics, but I know you said you uh vertical company. You like to hold on to your properties. And I know you can't commit to 50 years of holding on to, but the goal is not just to build it and run it for a while and then sell it off to some other company from China. Literally, I mean, there's some Okay, so maybe just respond to that. I've had some questions about that with some of these new apartment buildings. >> Sure. Yeah. I mean, the the business these so long is just long-term hold, and that's what we sell to our investors. And being that we're also an in-house management company, that is the plan. Um I think part of what you'll see in the TIFF documents is that there is teeth in those documents and look back provisions that if we were to say actually we are going to sell um that would be not advantageous to us. So we are truly setting this up to be a long-term hold and and with that tiff agreement in place, I think you can feel comfortable with that. >> You answered it. Thank you so much. Council, any final other questions? If not, all those in favor say I. I. >> I oppose. 50. Welcome. We're so excited to have you up in that area. Um I used to work at Optum and um I know the area pretty well. So, welcome. Nice to have you there. >> Thank you. >> All right, Mr. Gro. Um continuing on with the same um Roars project, but now we're going to be dealing with TIFF. So, Mr. Gro, >> thank you, Mayor. Yeah, that that that's a good lead in because obviously another um main goal and tenant of the c of the council is affordability and housing affordability and with almost each and every um housing project certainly um rental housing project that's come before you in the last decade. We have affordability and uh recently with affordability we have tax increment financing but also we have your uh inclusionary requirements as well. And as was just mentioned, um, with a lot of these projects, uh, tax increment financing not only brings the affordability, but also brings long-term affordability that's built into these agreements. This process for this public hearing, um, simply gets things started. There's going to be many more approvals, but what we're asking tonight is for you to hold a public hearing and then you're actually directing staff um to establish a tiff district and to u begin adopting this plan that would be put on a future agenda and then you would take future action to actually approve any tiff assistance or to place the tiff uh into a development agreement. Um you can see in the packet the proposed um tax increment uh plan is in there and creating um the district is in there as well. So you are taking some of that preliminary action tonight. So um what you're proposing is if you look at 20% of the units um with 195 units produces 39 affordable units to those earning uh at or below 50% of the uh area median income. And then, as you know, because Eden Prairie has inclusionary um housing, there's another 10 units that would be required at at least 80% of the AMI. Uh that is in addition to that. So, uh you would be holding a public hearing and then starting that process of creating uh tiff district number uh 27. And so, the planning documents are enclosed in the packet. Uh we have uh Ellers who has been our financial advisor. We have Jason Arsold here tonight if you were to have any questions along uh with our community development director myself that could answer some questions related to this. But we're asking you to um hold the public hearing and then uh begin those actions to uh move forward with um the TIFF plan tiff agreement. >> So Mr. Gro, just from an educational standpoint, since we're going to be coming back to this and voting later um to implement it, what is it that people tonight would be speaking for this or speaking against it? In other words, what's exactly happening that they would have some kind of a vested interest in um weighing in? I if if if you were to hold a public hearing, it could be anybody that would want to speak in terms of um you know the city providing any tax increment financing assistance for this particular project. >> So it's the whole concept of using tiff at all possibly but also using tiff particularly to expand out on our affordable housing um potential and getting a few more units within the city >> for this project. >> Right. Okay. for this project >> and and and reminding people that um when you're looking at affordable housing for someone at a 50% AMI um and if the average income in the county today help me here 100 um 10 110 and so 50% someone that makes $55,000 a year it's a job you have to have a job that makes 55,000 a year that's 2750 an hour I mean there there are people that work for um the school district, work in our city. Um these are people that are around us all the time serving us, doing jobs that um don't pay a whole lot, but nonetheless are incredibly critical. That kind of person would be able to live in our city and afford an apartment unit. That's and in order to do that, you have to subsidize that to a certain extent. We're subsidizing it really with future tax dollars that we never would have gotten anyway off the old project. But by building this new project that has a whole lot more value, we grab some of the potential value and we use those tax dollars in ways that we want to use them. Sometimes around the Mall of America was for building bridges and roads. You can state government allows us to use it in different ways. We're using it to buy down basically subsidize some of a small percentage of apartments for um to make them affordable. Okay. I don't know if I mixed up or help clarify that. Yes. >> Can I just cl So so m Mr. G the tiff is can you just explain the audience what tiff is? >> I think the mayor just did >> but [laughter] the point is I want to say is is is come from the federal government. Right. >> No. So tiff tiff is tax increment financing. So we're actually taking the future values. Let's say the project let's say the building today that's going to be torn down. I'm going to make this up worth a million bucks. But the okay now I'm really going to be out on a limit on what the new building is going to be worth. But let's just say it's I don't even know I'm going to make it up 15 million. That means that we have $14 million of new tax um potential uh tax base to tax that we never would have had before. So, we grab some of that money. I'm going to make this up, three million of it. And we pulled what would have been taxed on that. So, we're not going to get that tax in the next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. And we're going to use that money up front to buy down the value or the cost of these apartments. That's what tax increment. It's a state. It's a state legislative um authority to do that. The state and they also govern it. They have all kinds of rules. There used to be a a but for clause meaning that this project would never take place but for so in this case the affordable housing would never occur but for the use of tiff. Um so you have to be able to go back to the state and prove that you really meet all those criteria um and and conditions. Does that make sense? Okay. >> Great explanation. >> All right. >> We might also want to say at the same time that this is not the first time we've done this. We've successfully doing this for quite a while. We have tiff districts. Would you say this is number 27? >> That's correct. >> We have 26 other tiff districts around our city. Bloomington has them. Manica, Hopkins. Everybody has their tiff districts. But again, the state legislature tightly governs how you can um create a tiff district and and and the conditions for it and then how you can use that money. >> Yeah. Real real quick and Lisa brought up a good point. Yes. Um, some of them have ex have closed, some of them have expired, but in the history of the city. Got it. >> Uh, 27 districts. And and the other point just to summarize is it's very it's, you know, usually specific to the project, but over time, you know, you we are able to pull dollars and we're able to over time provide um money for other housing projects. That's a whole another session, a whole another time, >> another educational, >> a whole another uh session. But Mary, you explained it very well. >> Uh, any students in the audience? Um, get your teacher to invite me in. I I'm a retired teacher. I miss that very much. >> You can do an hour on TIFF. >> Yeah. Like really, they're going to get me invited in on that one. I already have them asleep back there. All right. Um, so this now I'm all confused. We need a public hearing, right? So, this is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to address the city council on this tiff issue related to the roars apartment development and the use of tiff for affordable housing um initiatives. Please come forward and address the council. I either scared them away or >> you scared or didn't explain it well enough. All right. Uh let's go ahead and make the entire motion if that's okay. So, I'll move to close the public hearing and direct staff to include the redevelopment plan modification for redevelopment project area number five, establishment of TIFF district number 27, and adopt a TIFF plan on a future city council meeting agenda and recommend that staff include the TIF plan and the TIFF development agreement on a future HA meeting agenda. >> Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion, questions, comments? Okay. If not, all those in favor say I. I. >> I. Opposed. All right. Moving on to our last public hearing of the evening. Mr. Get. >> Uh, thank you, Mayor and Council. As you know, each year we uh gather together all the assessments, special assessments over the course of the year that have been levied for a variety of reasons. Many times they're development projects that have occurred. Um in many cases there are assessments that uh people have agreed and asked uh to be assessed for. Um in this case what you see on the list and it's in the packet tree removals. Um in some cases I think the majority of assessments here have been when the city has had to have gone in and have done um mowing of grass or weed removal. So, not in all cases have the have the property owner has necessarily agreed uh to have the city do the assessment. Um, but you can see that we then place the cost of the service on the taxes with interest. I think all of those assessments that you see outside of maybe um the one development assessment is only for one year with interest. And then we send this assessment on to the county. it's put on the property tax statement. Uh so you need to hold a public hearing prior to uh sending that along to the county. And we do this um each year at the end of October for some reason. If someone were to still want to pay this between now, I believe in the close to the end of November, even after you after adopting this tonight, you you can do that because in the resolution that you adopt tonight, someone still has 30 days to pay this before it goes on to the property tax statement with interest. Council, uh, any questions? It looks like, um, I was trying to do the math fast, somewhere around 40 or maybe more. Um, but we're not talking about thousands. There's just a couple dozen, several dozen um, special assessments. Um, again, a lot of them for tall grass and weeds, a couple for sewer and water connection fees. And as Mr. Gel said, most of these are voluntary. People ask the city, please come help us, and then assess our taxes. Um, council, this is a public hearing. Should I go ahead and um, open it up and then Okay. Um anyone in the audience this is a public hearing uh that please come forward to address us on the the special assessments this resolution to assess these um again I don't know how many 40 or so um entities um that we talked about Mr. get to introduce. Please come forward. Seeing none, um someone make a motion. Go ahead and um make the entire two bullet motion. >> I'll move to close the public hearing and adopt a resolution approving all special assessments presented in the fall of 2025. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Any further um questions or comments? >> If not, all those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. >> All right. Uh moving on to the payment of claims uh which if uh you're a student in the audience, it's the list of all the checks that were written by the city with between now and the last meeting. It's pages long. Um uh council, any questions of any of those items? I actually did look through them tonight. It was quite interesting. I appreciated all the categorizing that was done that clumped them together. But um anyone have any questions? If not, is there a motion to approve the payment of claims? I'll move to approve the payment of claims as submitted. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. We do this as roll call. We actually individually vote on it because it's that important spending taxpayer money. Please um roll call. >> Council member Friber. >> Hi. >> Council member Nion. >> I. >> Council member Nelson. >> Hi. >> Council member Tumi. >> Hi. >> Mayor Casease. >> I. All right. Um council member report. Uh council member Nion. >> Okay. I was thinking about the next one. I don't think I'm missing. >> Nope, it's all yours. >> What's that? >> It's all yours. Go ahead. >> All good. Okay. So, many of you probably heard this week Diwali. Diwali is a festival of celebration the whole week. Uh mostly Indian but it's not only Indian. So today I'm being in Indian. I just want to explain educate culturally what Diwali is and taking two minutes. So it symbolize the victory of light over darkness, good over evil. That's that's a key. It's even though this came from in a days more religious way but it turned to be now more good versus evil celebration. So people put lights in their house um to celebrate this event and many organizations um celebrate this event as well and Diwali is an official state holiday in California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania means public schools, community college and state employees have specific recognition for the day. Add additionally New York City has public school holiday for the valley and many school districts in state like New Jersey and Texas observe at local level. So I just want to educate our Eden residents. We have around 5,000 Indians um in in Minnesota we have around 6,000 60,000 sorry Indians. So you may see people celebrating Diwali. So if you see an Indian say happy Diwali this week it's a nice thing nice gesture just saying good morning. >> Thank you. >> Is Diwali um a particular day and they expanded to a week or is it from this day to that day and it happens to encompass a week? It >> it is a specific day now I think it was Saturday. So it was Saturday and then for a week >> it's kind of both end it's you know that week >> and do families get together and have dinners together and have celebrations >> desserts and you know celebrations and you know really enjoy you know good versus evil. I mean it's just the ultimate >> we need more of that. >> Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to share. >> All right Mr. Gos should I go right to Mr. Ellis or do you want Okay, Mr. Ellis. Um we have a report from the public works director. Um, this is actually pretty exciting when we get the opportunity to fill in a gap that we had in the past and have it basically fall into our lap. So, take it away. >> Yeah, thank you, Mayor Kasein, City Council. So, for our final business item tonight, I'm back discussing a property purchase for our utility division at 7955 Wallace Road. And so I'll start by discussing the purpose and need which is predominantly driven by inadequate equipment and material storage space that we have for our utility division. We're currently storing our equipment which we have millions of dollars worth of equipment. We're a large operation or in the field so we've got a lot of complex expensive equipment and we're right now storing that either outside at the water treatment plant. We actually tuck this away in our water towers. Uh we're up at the Moss site across from the Flying Cloud Airport. We store a lot of our equipment up there next to the yard waist drop off site. So a lot of it is outdoors and when you have millions of dollars of equipment sitting outside, the lifespan of that equipment goes down. We have issues with mice getting into the electrical eating it. We have winterization uh issues with some of our equipment that um we get burst lines. So, our goal for a number of years has been trying to find a place to store all of this equipment and materials indoor. And uh another thing that we've been working on is trying to consolidate our operations. Our field operations personnel mostly operate out of our m maintenance facility where our parks, fleet, and street staff and our fuel depot is all located right now off Technology Drive. And so this is an opportunity for us to also locate our utility operations next to those other um maintenance facilities that we have. And another thing that's important for us because we operate across the city is having a central location that has good access to our freeway and highway system. So this location is very conducive to our operations. having 212, Highway 5, Technology Drive, Mitchell Road, Baker Road provides easy access efficiently and quickly AC across the city. Um, and then also just having that benefit of working next to our partners in streets and parks and fleet because we do work hand inand, we share equipment, we share materials. Um, so having that more centralized location would be beneficial for the utilities division. So we've discussed this a number of times. Um, frankly, the first time that this item came up was about 10 months ago in December of 2024 with the uh city council adopted our 25 through 20 to through through 2034 CIP. This was a project that was identified in there. We had $1.7 million identified for a future expansion or new garage facility for utilities. And so that CIP was a plan approved in December. In March of this year, uh there was discussion at a council workshop on the Danfos property. So I know our community development director was there talking about potential land uses. Towards the end of that meeting, I was discussing the potential opportunity for the city to acquire one of the Danfos parcels and I believe that there was some support from the city council at that time. Uh during that discussion, more recently at our October 7th meeting, we had the close session where we discussed the purchase agreement. And then I'm here tonight to um ask for the council's approval of the purchase agreement. So there have been a number of touch points here with the city council over the last 10 months. So getting into the details of the building, we're talking building one of the Danfos campus. They've got four buildings currently on their 4050 acre site. I forget exactly how large they are. Building one is the one that's farthest west. It sits on its own lot. It already has a parcel. Um, and it's maintains that industrial zoning, which is the type of zoning we would need for this uh type of use for us. So, it's building number one. And when you take a little bit closer look at that building number one, I've also located where our existing city maintenance facility is on in blue. You can see that highlighted. And then with our purchase agreement comes an access easement that would connect the two buildings together. So, there would be an ability for us to pave a driveway and have a physical connection between the two buildings. A little bit about the building uh itself. It's a class C building. It's zoned industrial. It's 2.16 acres. It has 26,000 over 26,000 square ft of interior storage space. Um the things that are important for us is high clearance ceilings. So, it has a number of 16 ft garage doors. We have large equipment, so that's critical for us. And the other thing is that it's EV charging ready. This building, when Dan Foss owned it, they did a lot of high energy testing of equipment. And so they made several hundred,000 worth of improvements for Excel to bring in high-owered um service line to the building. And that will parlay perfect with what we're trying to do with our 2030 all EV fleet. Um so the building is set up for us. And I can tell you just the the investments we have made at this facility and our maintenance facility to be EV ready. It's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So that's an expense that this building will already have. Closer look at the interior. Again, we're just looking for a heated space for materials and for equipment and to do some indoor work during the winter. The inside of this building is perfect for that. We don't have a lot of walls, column supports. We have big open space for equipment and personnel to work. And as far as the market value of this building, we've taken a look at 13 recently purchased industrial buildings ac across the West Metro from Chanhazen to Plymouth, Eden Prairie, Bloomington is in there, Savage, St. Louis Park, Golden Valley. And I've listed in yellow the building we're interested in, the $7955 Wallace. That has a sale price of about $114 per square foot. If you look at the other 13 buildings that recently sold, none have sold that low. The next lowest is at $119 a square foot and it increases all the way up to 138. So, I feel we're getting below market rate on this building. Um, I think that this would be a great investment for us. These types of facilities and the locations we want them with the type of zoning already built are very rare. So, this is a a prime opportunity to seize upon that. Discussing the funding package a little bit. This is a $3.05 million purchase as far as the purchase agreement is in uh concerned. That includes that access easement that I discussed, which is almost a half an acre in an access easement. We uh I spoke earlier that the uh council approved the CIP in December of last year. In that CIP, we had budgeted 1.77 million, not knowing exactly how much this would cost, but at least planting some money for that. So, we would utilize that money that's already programmed. And we would join that with another 1.28 million in utilities enterprise uh excess reserves that we have on hand right now for the full 3.05 million purchase. I want to emphasize there's no impact on the general fund. There's no impact on the tax levy. This is all being financed out of the utility enterprise. And I also want to point out that it's a willing seller. Not often do you have a willing seller. Most of the right of way or property that I'm in the business of purchasing comes through a condemnation. So the fact that we actually have a friendly agreement for this purchase is actually nice to have. Um and then the last thing I'll add is it's movein ready. this building is ready for us to move in upon closing with very few um improvements other than maybe some security. We need card readers for the doors so we have secured access. So outside of that, we're not looking at many uh any major investments in the property we're ready to use at day one. And I believe that is all the information that I have, but of course any questions I will >> council questions. >> Yeah, it's exciting. >> Just just Yeah, I was just going to make a comment. It's uh I think it's just it's great ready to move in you know the high ceiling all the requirement we really want right it's uh and price-wise you know hit right point um and does not affect the levy right because you already explained um great job >> um I will entertain a motion Um, council member would like to move to approve purchase agreement for 7955 Wallace Road and authorize the city manager to execute any documents necessary to close the transaction and purchase the property on behalf of the city. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. All right. 5-0. Uh right before we adjourn um could I have the camera person just turn the camera and put it out to the audience and show all the students and you can wave and you can prove to your teachers that you are actually here so you're on TV. This is um actually you can watch this tomorrow and see yourselves. So um thank you uh so much and thank you for coming and if any of the students want to come up and chat with us or get a picture you don't have to. It's we're not that important but I mean if you want to please do come up um and we'd love to chat with you. So, um, is there a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? >> I'll move to adjourn tonight's meeting. >> Second. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. This meeting is adjourned. >> Police officers, thank you for being here this evening, too.