foreign thank you foreign foreign foreign good evening I am calling the Monday October 3rd 2022 parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting to order at 6 35 pm tonight's Parks natural resources meeting will be held in person and virtually by using Zoom as chair I will be leading the parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting in the public is welcome to participate when invited throughout the meeting members of the public May attend the meeting in person or join online via Zoom if you experience any audio problems we recommend you leave leave the meeting and then rejoin this usually fixes the issue additional instructions on how to participate are posted online at Burnsville mn.gov and the public meeting calendar as usual tonight's meeting is available for viewing on bctv in the city's website if you are unable to participate this evening and would like to submit public testimony I encourage you to email your comments to City staff or mail your comments directly to City Hall now on to the agenda the first item on tonight's agenda is the adoption of the agenda do any members of the commission have any changes to the agenda staff do you have any changes nothing from staff all right may have a motion to adopt the agenda all right so move um and is there a second second all in favor say aye aye aye anybody opposed and the motion passes second um let's move to the approval of minutes um but we'll consider approval of the July 18th 2022 marks parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting minutes any changes from commissioners staff are there any changes to the meeting minutes nothing for staff I have a motion to approve the minutes please um is there a second all in favor aye anybody a post that passes at this time are there any members on Pub on the public on the zoo meeting who wish to speak I'm not seeing anyone all right no one is on Zoom anybody present who wishes to speak nobody there um so let's move on to the sustainability program report and um we're inviting the sustainability coordinator Caroline McFadden to come present thanks for having me um so for those of you on the commission who may have been on the committee for a while I am not Sue Bast uh you're probably used to getting your annual update from her Sue retired in May and I am now the sustainability coordinator for the city and I was fortunate enough to overlap with Sue because she really was a leader in sustainability and recycling not just in Burnsville but in the state so hopefully um I'll give this update and we can kind of carry forward the work that Sue uh started into the the next years but if it sounds like this update is being given by someone who's only been with the city for four months now you know the reason uh so let's get into it this is what we'll talk about tonight uh just briefly I'll go over some of the new programs for 2022 we'll talk about some of the ongoing programs and just what the impacts of them have been and then we'll talk about our next steps going forward but before I get into that I just want to give everybody a reminder of how sustainability is planned and implemented within the city of Burnsville we have a sustainability plan that was adopted in 2020 and this plan really guides all of the work that we do within sustainability the plan has these 10 different Focus areas that you can see on your screen each of these Focus areas has their own separate goals and then corresponding actions and strategies that we can take to meet those goals um but even though each of these has their own goals all of the goals within the sustainability plan all work together to meet this overarching goal that we have that was adopted in 2011 of reducing greenhouse gas emissions so we have a greenhouse gas emission reduction goal of 15 by 2015 30 percent by 2025 and 80 by 2050. So the plan and all of the actions and the strategies work towards achieving those greenhouse gas emission reduction goals so to measure our progress towards Meeting those goals we complete a greenhouse gas emission inventory every other year so this inventory looks at City operations and what we do within the city that causes greenhouse gas emissions so we look at things like our energy use so our lighting of our buildings the heating and cooling of our buildings the fuel that we use in our vehicles and solid waste generation and some sanitary sewer emissions so we completed the most recent one we've been doing these since 2009 we completed the most recent one for emissions related to 2021 and we have achieved a 34 reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2005. so you can see on your screen uh the yellow line is our goal line the blue line is where you know the actual greenhouse gas emission reductions that we have realized every year um so so far we have met the 2025 goal of a 30 reduction a few years early which is very exciting but as you can see with the blue line our emissions change every year you know it depends on if it's a really cold winter we might be heating our buildings a little bit more which gives us more greenhouse gas emissions so it's important to continue to conduct these greenhouse gas emission inventories every other year so we can see how we're tracking and our progress towards our goals and then the ultimate goal of an 80 reduction by 2050. so here's what it looks like our greenhouse gas emissions by City function um potable water so this is the pumping the treating and the supply and everybody with drinking water is the majority of our greenhouse gas emissions the next biggest slice is buildings and Facilities so again this is the electricity that powers the lights and our cooling system sometimes and then the natural gas that powers our heating and cooling systems as well transportation is the third biggest chunk but then I also want to call out street lights and Street signals at nine percent so I don't have a laser but if I did you'll see that potable water buildings and facilities and street lights and Street signals those three things are Just Energy so that's just electricity and natural gas and that's 87 of our greenhouse gas emissions so those three things are definitely the biggest piece of where we're where our missions are coming from and then Transportation with 11 so that's you know City staff driving around this is the same information but over time and what I like about this presentation is in the last side you saw that potable water was the biggest chunk of our greenhouse gas emissions and it still is but in 2005 it was an even bigger piece of the pie so potable water although it is our biggest emitter has decreased greenhouse gas emissions by over 60 percent since 2005. um street lights and Street signals has also decreased and those those are the biggest hitters [Music] and buildings and facilities and I just want to touch on this really briefly because although it doesn't look like the emissions have changed over time we're Heating and Cooling more space so in 2005 we didn't have the AIM Center and we weren't you know supplying lights to the parking ramps in the Heart of the City so even though the emissions for that chunk haven't changed our efficiency per square foot that we manage as a city has gotten better um so these are the two main reasons for our greenhouse gas emission reductions the first is we're using less electricity so a few sides ago we saw that 87 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions was from energy most of that is from electricity so we're using less electricity now compared to 2005 and that's going to drive our greenhouse gas emissions down the second reason is we have a lower electricity utility emission Factor so what this is this is assigned to each utility company so each utility company that supplies us with electricity generates that electricity in a different way whether that's using coal or natural gas or renewable sources so this electricity electric utility emission factor is assigned to each utility company based on how they're sourcing their energy so the more Renewables and the less coal that they have in the grid to make electricity the lower their electric utility emission factor is going to be so because some of the utility companies that Supply us with electricity have greened their grid and are using more Renewables within their grid that's helping us achieve some of our greenhouse gas emission reductions so you don't just measure greenhouse gas emissions you measure the activities that cause greenhouse gas emissions so when we do this biennial greenhouse gas emission inventory we're able to see the different activities that as a city we're doing that caused these greenhouse gas emissions and it lets us see if there are different areas that we can um Target to reduce our emissions so other achievements we've had since 2005 that we get to see when we do these inventories is we're using less fuel in our fleet vehicles so this might be partially because the inventory was from 2021 so maybe there was some you know less travel because of the pandemic but a lot of that is because our vehicles have gotten more efficient so we're using less fuel in them we've also reduced our energy use by eight percent we're generating five percent less trash and our street lights and signals are using 26 electricity and that's mostly just from switching out from the old light bulbs to more energy efficient LEDs so LEDs are like 75 percent more efficient but also they require they last a lot longer so we don't have Crews going out and replacing light bulbs as frequently and they hold up to the extreme weather that as minnesotans were familiar with um so they hand up they handle extreme weather a lot better uh so that's it for the inventory does anybody have any questions on that well then in terms of trash um we've been doing a lot more with things like the food truck programs does that generate more trash significantly or not like different events yeah no and they're pretty consistent over time in a lot of those events sometimes we've been trying to Target increasing recycling at them or doing different types of Organics diversion but in general those events besides maybe the Burnsville Festival the the few weekend events generally don't generate enough trash to make a huge impact overall relative to how much we're generating as you know in our city operations every day foreign in the graph one of the graphs that showed a bump up in in energy usage in 2015 and it looks like it was tied to potable water was that dealing with with flood issues or or a switch out from one system to another for for the water treatments facilities no it it's not attributed to anything like that it is uh because of a larger supply of potable water in 2015 it seems like there was some sort of an error happening at the water treatment facility that then our folks caught um which is why it's really important to track and look at the data um and then they caught it and corrected it after 2015. thanks yeah any other questions all right if something comes up let me know otherwise we'll keep uh moving on so you know if 87 of our emissions are coming from energy and we want to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions one of the best places to start is to reduce our energy use so some of the programs that we've started recently really focus on Energy Efficiency within City operations so in order to really understand where to start to Target your efforts for Energy Efficiency the best best place to start is by conducting an energy audit so right now we recently conducted one at the Ice Center and we have one scheduled for the water treatment plant so energy audits are where you know an expert comes into your facility looks at your operations they look at your heating and cooling system they look at your lighting they look at how you use the facility and how visitors interact with the facility and they provide you with recommendations for how you can make your building more energy efficient usually with this they provide those recommendations they provide costs for their recommendations and then they provide the savings as well both the financial savings and the Energy savings so you can make informed decisions when you're kind of planning these Energy Efficiency projects so like I said we have two of them we just completed one with the Minnesota technical assistance program at the Ice Center two of their Engineers came in we'll get the report in about a month or so and then we have one planned at the water treatment plant with Excel Energy and then also in terms of Energy Efficiency we recently completed a lighting upgrade at the Ice Center so they went in and replaced all of the light bulbs with LED light bulbs it was about 200 of them this should save the Ice Center over 11 000 each year and the project will pay for itself within six years and I mean that's from like a city operations side so that makes me really happy and it makes the you know the Ice Center folks really happy but as visitors the LED lights also provide a brighter ice surface so that the folks who are skating on the ice also have a better experience as well so we can do these energy audits internally with City operations but y'all can do them yourself too um so Burnsville is partnering with the home energy Squad to conduct energy audits Burnsville residents get a reduced cost energy audit from the home energy Squad to date 60 audits have been completed in 2022 and I think in 2021 we had 55 completed so we're already above where we were last year which is great and then if other folks decide to do it um we'll be crushing last year so and then this little pie chart that I have off to the side you know we talked about the city-wide operations greenhouse gas emissions this is what the community-wide greenhouse gas emissions looked like in 2020. so this is uh residents and businesses within Burnsville what their emissions looked like looks slightly different than it does for um internal operations energy is a lot less travel is higher because folks drive around a lot more than Burnsville staff does but this is why Energy Efficiency is generally always so important because it really is where the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions come from so you can make your building you can button it up as much as possible make it as energy efficient uh change out the LEDs get new windows do all of that but we're still going to use energy right we're still going to have meetings at night that need to be lit up um we're still going to heat our space in the winter so if you want to continue to offset your greenhouse gas emissions the next place you look is renewable energy so Burnsville this year participated in a solar group buy so this was available to Burnsville residents and businesses where they could participate in the grow solar program this is a program where Burnsville and other municipalities around the Twin Cities got together worked with Midwest Midwest renewable energy selected one solar installer after a request for proposals and then anybody who chose to work with that solar installer got in on this group by so the solar installer could buy their materials in bulk so the more people who participated in the program the more of a discount each person who is participating would get on their solar panels um so that program actually just wrapped up last week so I don't have the numbers for how many people participated but this program has been going on since 2018 and about 170 homes have installed solar through this program so hopefully it continues again next year because it's a really good opportunity for people who you know are solar curious to learn a little bit more about solar and maybe get a discount on installing panels um as a city sometimes we can't install solar so we look for other ways to help support the renewable energy Market one of those is through offsets so as as a city city buildings in Dakota Electric service area we are offsetting our electric use through Dakota Electric's wall spring program these are wind farms that are being tied to their grid and we are saying that we want our energy to come from that and then also in Excel Energy service area we are subscribed to community solar so we are supporting the renewable and renewable energy industry in both of those ways any questions on Renewables or Energy Efficiency so for people who we just had an assessment done in our home and we have too much tree cover for solar yeah is there available options for other community members such as myself that could do other renewable programming yeah so it depends on who supplies your electricity but you can participate in um the Wellspring program if you get your electricity through Dakota Electric and if you so the wall spray program is it is called a green power purchasing program so that's one of the programs where you pay a little bit extra on your utility bill but you're saying I am offsetting my electricity use with this wind farm um if you're supplied by Excel Energy you have a similar option they have a wind farm um as well that you can pay a little bit more on your bill but Excel Energy has these things has Community solar Gardens so Community solar Gardens are a little different instead of paying extra you actually generally get a reduced rate on your electricity bill so it depends on what your goal is if you just want to support the renewable energy industry I would generally say do a community solar garden because you'll save money um but then you can't claim you don't own that the renewable energy like you do through one of the Green Power purchasing programs and then It's Complicated by who your provider is awesome perfect thank you any other questions so I just I love data so you will just have to like entertain me for a second while we go through some of the old programs um not the old programs the ongoing programs and just seeing what their impacts are because I think we you know start these programs and then kind of just let them do their thing but it's really important to like revisit what they look like so here's a community solar garden so this is just Excel territory because excel in Burnsville is the only electricity provider that offers Community solar garden but over the last four years Community solar Gardens have increased in use both residentially and commercially I I mean the electricity folks have subscribed to has over doubled and the number of people has gone up substantially uh waist everybody loves talking about waste so Burnsville is part of Burnsville has a organic drop site through Dakota County um it's located right down the street across from the Ice Center almost 900 households in Burnsville have signed up for the County's drop site program and the drop site here in Burnsville is diverting over a hundred tons of Organics per year so it's just your food scraps and other compostable products this isn't yard waste um so it's pretty significant the city or Dakota Valley Recycling specifically also holds different collection events so whatever you have to get rid of whether it's pumpkins or holiday lights or mattresses there might be an event for you and lots of Burnsville residents are participating in them we have electric vehicle chart electric vehicle charging stations so this is we have three stations at the Heart of the City this graph shows the use just in 2020 what I like about this graph is it shows frequent and pretty regular use and already in 2022 people have charged 16 megawatt hours of electricity at the charging stations and in 2021 it was only 12. so that signals that these charging stations are getting used more often for longer periods of time maybe and maybe that means more folks are adopting electric vehicles within the city the girl Burnsville program so this is I think something that Sue talked to you all about um and so I just wanted to give a quick update on it the girl Burnsville program has three different components of food Forest a Market Garden and a community um Garden the Food Forest was happened this year lots of raspberries and service berries and currants that's something folks can just stroll through it take fruit as it's fresh and eat it the market Garden is more planned it's managed by the parks and rec um folks but this year they had almost 5 000 pounds of produce grown and donated to 360 communities so that's going directly back into the Burnsville community and it also gives job experience to eight interns who are working there over the summer and then the community garden on like a solar garden this is for food almost you know not all but most of the plots were assigned so next steps what we're looking at for next year and some of the years to come we are hoping to get something uh you know there's so much data related to sustainability so we're hoping to get a hub site so this is a more interactive site that can have real-time data in charts um available to the public whenever it's pretty much taking the sustainability plan digitizing it and making it as an interactive model with all of this data and many more in it we are also looking to get more EV charging stations so like I mentioned we have some at the Heart of the City we're looking to get them at our parks and other popular parking areas around the city um so folks can charge where it's convenient um we're looking at doing multi-family building energy assessments or more more so promoting the opportunities that folks have you know residents have the home energy Squad that I talked about but that's only you know they would just come into one unit in a multi-family building this home this multi-family building energy assessments would come and look at the building as a whole and hopefully provide some Energy Efficiency recommendations and then we're looking at different ways to reduce wasted food so food that is edible that could go to someone who needs it looking at ways to capture that out of the waste stream and give it to those who need it so that is it sustainability in a nutshell right there so if anybody has any questions have they looked at all at Burnsville Center and how much greenhouse gas missions are coming out of that location and anything to do to reduce that I don't know if anyone has looked at you know specifically doing an assessment of that I'm I'm not sure but that is definitely captured in the community-wide greenhouse gas emissions that I pulled up as a city staff utility companies do not give that information to us that is their customers information they can give community-wide data but um we would not be allowed to see that but I think that's a really good suggestion that maybe some sort of other type of assessment gets conducted there so there's a lot we could do with that area yeah I think you'll learn more in a few minutes [Laughter] Commissioners there's no formal action on uh the information that was just presented to you other than a accepting of that information and thank you thank you thank you thank you all right and now we'll move on to Center Village and County Road 42 update if the assistant community development director Regina Dean would like to join us welcome thank you for having me this evening and thank you for team this up um probably the number one question I get is what's going on at the Burnsville Center what's happening when people here I work for the city um so thank you for allowing me to have this update I think that three of you were on the commission at the time when the center Village Vision was put together so Mark Dana and Carrie are all responsible for what's in here I'm just kidding they were all active contributors so thank you um so Burnsville Center why are we here today talking about the Burnsville Center so um once thriving the Burnsville Center uh was filled with retail shops and from what I'm told people would drive up from Iowa and make their way up to Burnsville Center and do their shopping certainly bustling the photo in the black and white is from opening day a lot of activity and then we have a very empty Burnsville Center in the photos to the right so our city council could see that the Burnsville Center was starting to lose leases a lot of vacancies were starting to occur but there was also an overall concern about retail in general and people moving to a lot of online shopping we have a large retail Corridor around County Road 42 so there was concern about what's going to happen around the Burnsville Center County Road 42 Corridor so knowing that the council wanted to make at the time wanted to make sure that we highlighted a couple of focus areas in our comprehensive plan so every 10 years we're required to do a comprehensive Plan update with the Metropolitan Council a couple of those topics kind of cross over to to what we ultimately did with the center Village but looking at Redevelopment land use and economic development opportunities so those are Focus areas there were also other Focus areas is like Heart of the City our aging industrial area the bus Rapid Transit what that looked like for the future but the Burnsville Center was a high priority area so Burnsville Center retail again Focus area at one time when the comprehensive plan was going through this 24 or 2030 to 2040 comprehensive plan transition the entire area around the Burnsville Center was in this red color Zone business and with business zoning there there's limited that you can do as far as other types of uses other than commercial and Retail some office but would not allow for multi-family housing for example or any housing type again we knew the orange line was coming we knew that two stations were going to be located in Heart of the City connecting people to Bloomington Richfield Minneapolis and there was talk about okay a future location being located somewhere on or around the Burnsville Center um talked about the challenges facing retail in general and so we dove into the creation of the center Village Vision which I showed all of you the actual product of a lot of the Outreach and study and stakeholder involvement that was done so with the center Village Vision there was a specific area that was identified for further study and that was south of McAndrews north of Southcross east of County Road 5 and generally west of what is that street um Nicollet um Portland Portland and then that was the general area identified to look at okay where where are we drawing from the Medical Campus poor part Park Nicolas located Fairview that was encompassing the larger area as well as some of the housing and then even kind of off this map the Industrial Area Industrial office Corridor that's just to the to the west of this area bordering Savage so that was a general scope and then we narrowed in further in a lot of the detailed work in the center Village vision is around the red circled area which is north of County Road 42 and and south of County Road 42 so the Burnsville Center proper property and then just north of that where Costco Target Total Wine and some of the other big box stores are located so our consultant Damon Farber looked at precedent examples you know what are other Regional malls doing not only locally but within the United States so Ridgedale and Minnetonka Southdale and then a mall within the state of Colorado was looked at as a president but um what could be done with Redevelopment efforts and who's doing things and who's doing things well so we look to these other sites as examples they're all regional malls or Regional destinations large parking Fields what are they turning into housing entertainment type uses hotel and if if they're getting that you know what are some of those lessons learned that we can learn from them we did a lot of public Outreach through and development of the this Vision or this plan online surveys we were at night two night handing out information engaging with the public hearing what people wanted around the Burnsville Center stakeholder meetings open houses did a Wordle with our questionnaire to see what do people want to see there as you can see parks and restaurants are entertainment are are really some top top vote Getters there and then people want a walkable destination and certainly want to refresh from what's there so we we took that information and ultimately Damon Farber came up with this this plan after taking all of that information the precedent examples and spelled out what in a visual format what how the area could look in time and this is just a a graphic that shows how that parking field can be transformed into um into more density and a more walkable Urban environment creating a grid-like pattern incorporating a park and open space a tree-lined streets walkable connected area the area north of County Road 42. that is I would say a long range Vision so this is where targets located Total Wine really I think this is probably my guess is probably a 20 to 40 year plan north of County Road 42 those businesses are doing very well very successful but it does show the opportunity for housing north of County Road 42 and then south of County Road 42 again the mall parking lot really filling up and and what we see is that the area could transform over time and kind of a zero to five year five to ten ten plus year going from I don't probably can't see that oh can you see my arrow so this is to orient yourself i-35w County Road 42 this is a location of the vacant Sears the mall property this is May species and then JCPenney somewhere around here so really you're talking about this area on the Eastern portion it's kind of our zero to five year plan we think development activity is going to occur there first and then transition As you move west and and start to to kind of fill in and populate the reason for that is because the Sears is vacant so we think more activity will happen there with growing Partners um I'll go back to this oh um some things I want to point out from a Parks natural resources lens one of the things that was highlighted was early Lake south of South Cross south of the mall property and um it's it's great if you know about it but if you don't know about it it's like it's like this little Hidden Gem and the consultants and and I think some of the staff and and the people that were around the table said I think it'd be great to connect a linkage so the vision shows how the area from the north could be connected to early Lake to to Really enhance that amenity we also show on the southern portion of the mall property opportunity for park space this isn't something that I should step back we don't own any of them all property it's all owned by private property owners and so anything that happened ends will likely be negotiation with the property owners at the time to seek out some of these cool features that we have highlighted in concept here you know looking back to precedent examples Minnetonka is a great example of negotiation negotiating with one of the department stores to do a a part have a park space within the mall property so that was part of their negotiation with the property owner you know perhaps we can do something similar here the beautiful views looking to the South and that's something that if you know we'd like to take advantage of So the plan goes into detail more details of how Park and open space could be integrated pedestrian and bike Network and then Transit locations for future orange line bus Rapid Transit um it's it's very conceptual but it is a great guide to help us communicate with the property owners and future developers of expectations um one thing I have not pointed out yet is a pedestrian and bike connection that was highlighted um either under or over County Road 42 one of the things that we've we heard through our surveys and through observation uh through development of the center Village's um one County Route 42's just very difficult to cross it's hazardous and there's a lot of people that that work north of County Road 42 or work south of County Road 42 and are trying to make that transition and so one of the things that was highlighted was you should think about doing some sort of safe pedestrian or multimodal type connection so this shows this example shows going under County Road 42 but we've been in a lot of discussion with Dakota County and um and with stakeholders at Property Owners on how to make a safe connection it may not um be in the location that you see here on the graphic on on your screen but somewhere in the area kind of maybe a Midway point or alongside Aldrich Avenue so um there's as you can see from the uh one of the conceptual plans there's a lot of Street grids and talk about pedestrian multimodal underpass and bringing in new streets brings in more Street lighting and perhaps bike lanes while there's a a price tag to that so these are like 2019 cost um of course I'm sure that's uh jumped significantly but with this implementation guide it was great that the consultant did show us okay if you want to do these the improvements enhancements in the area here's where it might cost you and which is great when we're applying for things like Grant applications so we've done a lot behind the scenes to bring some tools to the table to help facilitate development um again you'll drive by the site and you may think nothing's happening it looks the same as it did you know 10 years ago but we're doing all that we can behind the scenes to help make the area what we would call shovel ready we also at the time the center Village Vision was going through we had our Economic Development strategic plan which highlighted the Burnsville Center Center Village area as a high priority area um we were able to um complete what's called an alternative Urban area-wide review for the center Village area what that does it um if a developer were to come in with a look I'll just use one example if a developer were to come in with a large scale multi-family housing project that was let's say 400 units they would be required to complete an eaw environmental assessment worksheets required by the state by doing an auar alternative Urban area-wide review now that developer doesn't have to go through that eaw process which adds their timeline but we've completed that essentially for them as long as they come in with the development that's aligned with um the center Village vision then they can basically just plug and play and and it's shovel ready for them um it's that that environmental work is done for them and what this auar does it um highlights things like air quality traffic noise um historic preservation and provides mitigation strategies to um to any issue that may have come up and then also it it shows you different Redevelopment scenarios and you're supposed to build to those or change your auar amend it we also completed a traffic study that encompassed the that larger area that was highlighted in that that first black and white photo that Ariel that I had showed you just to get an idea of are there any improvements that need to be made with signals crosswalks you need to widen your roads if we do shrink a road like what will that do what does how does Transit play into that so that was completed um the auar and the traffic study were both partially funded through grants so that again it's great to have this guy to show that we're like we're investing in this we're um we're making changes behind the scenes and and we we're committed to this so that was great we also changed the zoning from business to mixed use to help facilitate additional housing within that the Burnsville Center Center Village area um we've worked as a staff with Dakota County and their multimodal study again taking a closer look at um walkable bikeable options we also have our own City multimodal study that also takes a look at this area as well so this is just a highlight of again the traffic study area and the zoning that was changed from that bright red to the pink which is mixed use I should also highlight there is a parcel within this area it's former fire station number one in the center Village Vision we do show it as an opportunity for future park space what that will look like I'm not sure yet but the site the building's been demolished we don't have Council Direction on where to take that but it is shown again in the center Village Vision as Park and it's been rezoned as Park so more to come on that and how we does that get activated what um or what what does the future hold I'm not sure another tool we brought to the table was special legislation for Tiff tax increment financing this helps um it can help developers and help incentivize them to come and and build within an area if an area is blighted um and they proposed to redevelop it can be an attractor to developer but then also if we have a tax increment financing District we can use What's called the increment towards public improvements things like parking structures roadways um sidewalks and Street lighting so the area the mall property while it may look tired inside there may be a lot of vacancies the bones of the building are still good and it did not meet the qualifier for being a blighted structure so we went to the state legislature three years and received approval to consider the Burnsville Center property as tax increment financing eligible we also um identified the areas around County Road 42 the right-of-way adjacent to the Burnsville Center as eligible so that we could have a funding source to do a underground tunnel or bridge to make that pedestrian connection across County Road 42. some of you may be aware of auction that took place I don't know if you are or not the Burnsville Center when the center Village vision went through was owned by one two five five different Property Owners um at the time it was um oh gosh I'm blanking on their name um a company out of Tennessee oh and the mall proper and then the anchor stores were owned by individual property owners and the parking fields in front of them were owned by the individual anchor property owners in 2020 the mall the mall itself went to auction and a property owner took ownership 40 properties of the site and began once they obtained the property they subdivided each of the Lots into multiple lots to pay down debt and they mentioned to reinvest in the mall itself in the mall property so we haven't they've sold some of those additional properties that they've parceled off and now we have many more owners that are part of the Burnsville Center um mix so it does add to some complexity on Redevelopment and Redevelopment efforts this is just a highlight of the subdivision or the Platt that I was talking about creating a lot of different Lots so um lot one lot two um the slot up here pretty much all of these Lots were carved off this Outlet probably the most significant thing that I want to talk about on this slide is the future Aldrich Avenue extension so as part of the center Village Vision one of the the items that was highlighted was to extend Aldrich Avenue into the mall property itself cutting off the Sears building creating kind of a Main Street kind of feel and a spine that stretches through the mall and connects with Buck Hill Road so that was in our vision that was in the traffic study that was in the auar I believe and when we were approached by the developer that wanted to subdivide this property we said we've got a plan that says Aldrich Avenue needs to be extended and so they dedicated it to the city as right-of-way for Aldridge Avenue Extension in the future now we have north of the Sears building and we have south of the Sears building but we don't have that Gap where the Sears building is located so that's something that we're working on behind the scenes to work with Sears or saritage is the the real estate arm to work with them to obtain that there has been some reinvestment in the area you may have heard about a new grocery store coming to town so one of those Property Owners was Pacific retail they purchased the Gorman space dicks Panera noodles that strip of retail and their plan is to transform the former Gordon's Gorman space into a food Hall grocery store and Brazilian steak restaurant so they're not quite in for building permit yet but we think soon and once that happens it'll be a great facelift for the Burnsville Center and hopefully bring more traffic more head counts just more energy and life into the area and hopefully spur some additional activity within the area we also have a Panda Express coming that was recently approved by city council that's on one of the very Northern Parcels of the Burnsville Center I think there's usually like a rug sales plant sales within that parcel so it's a very Northern portion and then Raising Canes is within the area kind of on the cusp and then there have been some big box stores that have moved into town or filled vacancies within the Burnsville Marketplace which is just on the east side of Aldrich Avenue and where Best Buy is located so Five Below Sierra Trading TJ Maxx Old Navy went from the inside the mall to outside the mall but there are some a lot of those vacancies it's nice to have those shopping centers full can assure you there is a team working with the Burnsville Center Caspian Realty they're working hard to try to fill the vacancies within the mall they're working on Creative strategies to hopefully get people to sign some unique leases and get some more foot traffic in the mall they're active they're talking with people last time I was out there I saw one of their Brokers walk in and she had just showed one of the the sites so hopefully there's a you know an uptick on on uh activity there um so what's on the horizon um what do we see next a couple of big things are happening right now um the city was awarded 3.1 million dollars uh for uh development of I an i-35w exit ramp this would provide direct access into the mall property itself uh connecting to Buck Hill that's expected to be constructed in 2025 and then we're also exploring Aldrich Avenue Extension we're doing a pre-design for that we don't have funding to construct that but we were at least have some of the pre-designed work that that's being worked on right now by a consultant in our engineering team they're doing a lot of stakeholder Outreach and the if you want to add your comments and want to review this in Greater detail it is live and active on our City website um with you know we were able to get grants a grant Ted Grant a Economic Development grant for i-35w and also for the pre-designed work on Aldrich Avenue again a lot because of this implementation plan that we have we're also looking at ways to integrate the ideas that came about from the city's multimodal study of course the sustainability plan there are elements of sustainability within the center Village Vision but as we you know dive deeper and are talking to developers and Property Owners there's opportunity to bring up some of the city's vision and and work that's been done through previous plans or other plans and integrate them um we are still planning for an orange line extension Dakota county is the entity that would locate and build a station somewhere around the Burnsville Center it's dependent on Redevelopment so they won't build it until the development comes so we're just continuing to have conversations with them and I think as we get closer those conversations will continue to ramp up um Minnesota Valley Transit Authority they provide Local transportation and connection with other nearby communities and into Minneapolis they're looking at improvements within the area to they're looking at a East-West bus Rapid Transit connection as well so there may be more engagement opportunities surrounding that in the future um so we just from a city staff standpoint we're continuously uh implementing ideas from the center Village vision and that'll continue I'm sure for for years to come whenever we have the opportunity we do seek out public private partnership opportunities and negotiate all that we can with developers to align with the community's expectations the saritage site that's the site that Sears owns on the east side we're in conversations with them about future development opportunities we don't have a formal application but we think we might get something soon they are also engaged with that i-35w work and The Aldrich Avenue Extension work so they're we're working together we're talking and they're engaged and then there is a couple of vacant Parcels available that were created as created as part of the subdivision plot work that was done by the newer Burnsville Center property owner so those are marketed and time will tell and what those become but they're well aware again of the center Village Vision it wasn't created when they were owners but they're aware of the vision the receptive and we just continue to to work with them and um hopefully hopefully you'll see some activity and some of the large asphalt parking Fields shrink in size bring more green space right to the area and that's it any questions any details that you want explain further there's lots of links in your background to different studies if you really want to dig in well just going back to early late how much of that does the city own and how much of it is privately owned good question I don't have that answer for you um I don't know if JJ if you know much about the park and I was just uh trying to think that through uh commissioner Donaldson and I don't have that answer but it is something that uh we can include in the next month's packet of information okay because I see lots of town homes and stuff down in that area so question um you have a number of stakeholders with the Burnsville Center have any of them submitted their Vision their ideas of what they would like to see not formally no we have not received anything specifically from the stakeholders during development of the center Village Vision Macy's JCPenney Sears at the time and the mall property owner as well as other partners were at the table but they never submitted anything like here's my here's my plan here's my vision there's also been a lot of Staff turnover at those different companies um so that's that's been interesting just trying to okay who's the latest person that can make decisions um and connecting with them but I have not seen anything formal okay follow-up question uh on the one slide you showed Southdale Ridgedale and um you know Ridgedale always seemed to be fairly vibrant you know Southdale was in trouble um how did their vacancy levels compared to what we're experiencing at the Burnsville Center um good question yeah are we actually comparing Apples to Apples or you know I don't have the specific numbers with me um last I checked Edina did have a lot of vacancies Southdale had a lot of vacancies Ridgedale and I know Rosedale did not I have a lot a lot of vacancies Eden Prairie has a lot of vacancies Burnsville Center has 62 spaces that are available for Elise right now um it's it's a lot um I can say just from my own experience Burnsville Center does not show well inside compared to Southdale Ridgedale and Rosedale are you aware of what the strategy that Ridgedale and what Southdale is doing to try to you know rejuvenate their malls we um I guess I follow what's going on through like the Minnesota Commercial Real Estate Association and different Avenues Southdale did use tax Implement financing to do some improvements within their area that area Ridgedale again they did some roadway improvements within the area with i i 494 they're also actively working with they had actively worked with JCPenney and dicks to locate there but um I guess I kind of keep tabs from afar um and others do as well here at the city there's different Property Owners different mall owners which have different level of interest and of course you know they each have their different portfolios across the country and um and so that's also unique you know so you have to have a willing sure with the stakeholders at Burnsville Center because you have so many um are they in alignment with each other or they each kind of have I want to do this I want to do that um is there any type of unity I guess or common voice I'm not sure how much they talk to each other I don't know that um but no one has submitted any Vision or ideas what they want to do I have not seen that no okay um Regina I've you hit on it right right towards the tail end it was showing that map of or that aerial photograph of uh of the mall area and the incredible high percentage of hard surface looks like looks like this could be some sort of Redevelopment where this you know sounds like that would be something that would we'd want we'd want to see targeted both for public space and especially if they include if they include housing there would be a requirement for adding public park spaces so this could really there's there's a there's a lot of good additive things that could happen with the with this Redevelopment um and I'm assuming also from the natural resources perspective Water Management you know by removing some of that excess parking capacity uh green roofs solar on roofs I mean there's it looks like there's a lot of places where the they could tie in very nicely with the sustainability things we heard earlier as well as making this more livable and you know more vibrant space so how much has has that come has it's clear it sounds like that's been something that's been addressed or at least brought up and is part of the vision it is so um you're right uh with Redevelopment um you are going to see you know removal of a lot of the the Sea of asphalt um and there will be green space added um there and I'm not an expert in this but there is a stormwater that I believe gets redirected to a regional stormwater Pond already that accommodates for a large portion of the Burnsville Center but with Redevelopment you will be we will have requirements that talk about you know added Green Space and open space for some of the the uses so you it will green up as far as Landscaping um I'm not sure how much storm water and infiltration will be required because that may already be taken care of through a regional system again I'm not an expert in that field but um I'm not sure how much they'll like be required to do from that lens but they will be required from a zoning standpoint to add some more green space and trees and things like that yeah it strikes me that the Aesthetics could definitely be a significant enhancement and also like that the we I know the neighborhoods that have fewer trees less Green Space are warmer require more cooling during during hot summer months and that seems to be a trend um so it's kind of exciting to actually see that there's this great opportunity as opposed to just something that's kind of gone South a little bit and branching off what commissioner Cleveland was saying have they looked at all I'd be curious to see if they looked at the Maplewood Mall at all with their they have this beauty like a bunch of rain Gardens but then like a water holding tank that then filters through the rain garden and so I'd be really curious if that's something that'd be possible to integrate into the planning as well it's not something that we've looked at specifically what I can say our next community development director is the current community development director for the city of Maplewood he starts in a week so maybe he can share some of those ideas uh with us I took a bunch of pictures I can send it to you too because I was like this is so cool I'm sure he'll have some lessons learned from from that story I think they were awarded a metropolitan Council livable communities demonstration account Grant to do some of that work so it was really really neat and it would be really cool to see something like that here which fits in perfect with our city vision and where we're going but then also just to have it's that additional attraction piece so even if you're not intending to shop it kind of makes that multi-use property of here's an attractive thing that's unique and we might as well go shopping while we're at and get some nice dinner great well thank you it's a definitely a work in progress again we've done a lot behind the scenes and we'll continue to to work and it's a high priority area not only for the city but the community at large like I said it's the number one question I get what's happening at the Burnsville Center so more to come well thank you thank you all right well our next meeting is November 21st 2022. um anything else from staff this evening um Commissioners um please begin your thought process on what you would like to hear about uh from staff in 2023 the information that Regina just provided is an example of um an idea that came from you at our last planning session in December about what it is you wanted an update on of something that was happening in the city that had an impact on Parks and natural resources so please begin to formulate those thoughts and ideas so that when we get to our December planning session we can generate that list of ideas for 2023. it at this time I'm going to request a call for adjournment of the October 3rd 2022 parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting do we have a motion so move um do we have a second second all in favor say aye aye anybody opposed all right have a lovely evening everyone enjoy the last bit of our warm weather and we'll see you in November foreign foreign foreign