Planning Commission August 11, 2025
Regular meeting of Planning Commission, Hastings Minnesota
Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker names identified.
**Note on Identifications:**
* **Gino Messina:** Identified as "Chair Msina" in the dialogue. While listed under Public Safety in your notes, he is acting as the Chair for this meeting (likely the Planning Commission).
* **Justin Forney:** Identified as City Staff/Associate Planner (not on your provided list, but introduced by name).
* **Bryce Lebron:** Identified by name in the "Other Business" section as a departing commissioner.
* **Commissioner Halberg:** Identified by name in the dialogue (not on your provided list, but a regular participant in the session).
* **Missy McGrath:** Identified as the member seconding the final motion.
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[0:00] **Gino Messina:** Okay, we'll consider those to be approved. Next is public hearings. Our first uh public hearing actually was the applicant removed the application. So, no action was needed on that. Are we still having a public hearing? No. Okay.
[0:16] **Gino Messina:** So, that's been cancelled. So, we'll move on to other actions and it'll be Chase Bank site plan 2025-26 Bank building 1720 Market Boulevard. Justin Forney with the staff report.
[0:37] **Justin Forney:** Thank you very much, Chair Messina. Um, this uh applicant is proposing to construct a Chase Bank on leased land in the Hastings Marketplace West commercial development as an outlot. It does not need to be uh plated that it's not an outlot and doesn't need to be create uh platted as one because it's going to be uh just built on the lease rather than being uh purchased outright. The applicant intends to seek lead cert lead certification and incorporate solar panels in the construction of the nearly 3500 square foot building. The site is um currently an underutilized parking lot. The location is zoned guided and used for retail sales and services along [1:22] with the surrounding area. The setbacks in commercial districts are not prescribed um but rather they're determined during the site plan review process. Currently the um buildings in the area are fairly distant from their uh adjacent from the property lines. The proposed chase building would be 57 feet from the north property line which is similar to the existing Arby's and Dvita dialysis um buildings. The red outline is generally the area of improvements.
[1:59] **Justin Forney:** Um and then the orange box on this aerial picture is the location of the building approximately. These are several pictures of the area with the blue um arrow generally showing the location of the building. [2:21] This is looking uh from the access driveway that circles the site. This is kind of looking to the northwest. And you can see this is the access drive looking to the southwest. [2:39] And this is looking to the northeast. And this is a view from Highway 55, generally looking south. [2:55] The area circled in red is the area of general improvements and there's some temporary uh disturbance to the south of that for hooking up the storm sewer and sanitary sewer.
[3:16] **Justin Forney:** The site is adjacent to the access drive which is on the the right in the top of this picture um which is the general uh service road to the site. There is a one lane drive-thru with a bypass lane which is specifically for an ATM with an after hours dropbox. [3:36] There is room for a total of about three vehicles. The applicant states that this amount of stacking has been adequate at their other locations. The original uh development was constructed with more parking spaces than required. Based on floor area and uses, there's 414 parking spaces required. And after this development is constructed, there'll be 506 existing on the entire site. [4:06] Um, there'll be 55 spaces less than there are today and there'll be a reduction of 4,162 square feet of imperous surface. Uh, the landscaping plan is shown here. [4:22] Uh there's 16 proposed trees out of the required 16 and 19 shrubs are proposed out of a required 16. In addition to landscape rock around uh uh there's electrical box on the north west corner of the site and um some mulch around the landscape islands on the south and on the sides of the parking lot. And then uh turf grass around the building and the trash enclosure landscaping areas.
[5:02] **Justin Forney:** The proposed phototric plan shows uh lighting levels that are mostly controlled by the existing uh land parking lot lighting that's on site. Um some area light poles will be uh protected during construction and um at least one I believe will be temporarily removed during construction. There'll be some LED building lighting um also on site. [5:34] I've got some elevation uh colored drawings here showing the the look of the building. This is the south elevation. Um the primary front of the building facing south facing Cub um be the front of their building. [5:50] I'll talk about these materials in a in a minute. Um this is the north um side of the building facing Highway 55 and this is west facing um well actually this is probably east. Um, I think this is facing the Arby's because this is uh this is the true west elevation um with a drive-thru on it facing uh west. [6:25] Um this is a picture I found online um of a different location. Um I re I mirrored the image so the sign's backwards because this building was designed um the opposite direction but this is the way that this one's proposed to look. Um so some of these materials that are proposed for the building um uh primarily it's uh two different colors of a cement uh board uh material and there is also uh cultured stone that is on uh quite a bit of it in addition to glass. The architectural standards for uh retail uses require 65 per class percent class one and two with at least [7:10] 25% of that being uh class one and class one is includes glass and um masonry products I mean stone and brick and then class two would include um materials that kind of mimi mimic those uh uh stone and and brick materials including um this cultured stone which is usually a cement product. Um this this uh product that's proposed on this building is I think a higher end of the uh cultured stone. It uh looks very very real. Um, which is why, uh, one reason [7:56] why the side that's west, although it doesn't have very much glass, it does have a lot of that, uh, cultured stone material on it, and it is 100% class one and two on this side. So, um, staff is recommending approval of the materials on the building. Um there's also the trash enclosure uh shown with that material. [8:25] And uh this is a floor plan of the building. Um you can see the drive-thru is on the left side. Um equipment room and then um different aspects of the of the floor plan there. Staff is recommending approval of the site plan um subject to the conditions in the staff report. the applicant's representative is um attending electronically. Um if you have any questions for them or if they have any comments um uh we can ask or the chair can open that up to them to uh make any statements if they wish.
[9:08] **Gino Messina:** Thank you. All right. Thanks, Justin. Anyone else excited to see brick and mortar come back? I am. So, all right, commissioners, any uh comments, questions for our applicant who's online. Go ahead, Commissioner.
[9:25] **Commissioner Halberg:** Uh, twofold that. Yep. I was going to ask you actually to go back to that picture. I thought I had which way the building was situated down, but now I think I've confused myself. So, that front entrance is going to be across from the dialysis center basically? Cub foods.
[9:42] **Justin Forney:** So that the the pretty part will be facing Cub.
[9:45] **Commissioner Halberg:** Okay. The drive-thru will be closest to... no.
[9:47] **Justin Forney:** To dialysis.
[9:50] **Commissioner Halberg:** To dialysis and then... Okay. Um thank you for that's what I thought at first and then I got myself all turned around. Uh second question is in regards to the um recommended actions in the report clause number six. Um this is more of a general question but certainly pertains to this. Is there a definition of significant progress? Like how do we determine significant progress? Is it that the they've done a groundbreaking or they have full construction documents or—
[10:08] **Justin Forney:** Yeah, as long as they uh begin the—just begin the project.
[10:24] **Commissioner Halberg:** Okay. Okay. Um those are my questions. Thank you.
[10:30] **Gino Messina:** That was a good question for a significant progress that we've—I've seen that come up multiple times over the years and so great question. Yep. Commissioners, any other questions, comments? All right. Commissioner Halberg?
[10:51] **Commissioner Halberg:** Did the uh gentleman have any comments he'd like to make on Zoom at all?
[10:55] **Nate (Applicant Representative):** Nate, do you have any comments he'd like to make? Uh, not on the civil side. I know that Terron from TAP was the architect uh that were contracted with, it looks like he's in the attendees section of the meeting and isn't able to speak. Um, but I will turn it over to him if he had anything else. But there's nothing on the civil end.
[11:13] **Gino Messina:** Okay. Terron, do you have any comments?
[11:27] **Terron (Applicant Representative):** No comments at this time.
[11:29] **Gino Messina:** All right. Thank you.
[11:31] **Commissioner Halberg:** All right. Mr. Chair, then I'd make a motion to approve site plan 2025-26 Chase Bank at 1720 Market Boulevard with the staff recommendations.
[11:42] **Gino Messina:** All right, a motion to approve by Commissioner Halberg. Second?
[11:46] **Bryce Lebron:** Second.
[11:48] **Gino Messina:** All right, Commissioner Lebron second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I.
[11:54] **Commissioners:** I.
[11:55] **Gino Messina:** Opposed? All right, that motion carries and next up will be other business, and we'll let Justin speak for a little bit here.
[12:03] **Justin Forney:** Thank you. The August 4th city council meeting um discussed the two special use permits that were forwarded to them with a recommendation for approval. Um the permit application for 1304 Vermillion Street was denied after it was reviewed by the planning commission. It came to the attention of being within 500 ft of residential treatment facility. So that one was denied because that is a requirement for um approval. [12:46] Uh the request for 2324 Vermillion Street was approved and at that same meeting there was a discussion about um the cannabis registration uh cap for retail sales being one um and that was changed to two. So there will be allowed uh two of these special use permit approvals to gain approval to have uh registration for a license in the city. [13:20] Um then the last item was just to thank uh Bryce Lebron uh for his uh service here and um we wish him the best on his uh his future endeavors.
[13:35] **Gino Messina:** Thank you. Bryce, would you like to say anything?
[13:38] **Bryce Lebron:** Yeah. No, it's been a pleasure to serve with everyone on the commission. Um, I've greatly enjoyed my time here. It's not leaving to leave. It's leaving for a a new opportunity for for myself and my family. So, um, I will miss this place. I'll miss these people. Uh, got a lot of good people here. And, um, yeah, thank you for your kind words, Justin. I appreciate it.
[13:54] **Justin Forney:** You're welcome. Thank you.
[13:56] **Gino Messina:** Well, I didn't have much time to prepare a speech because I just found out this afternoon. However, I I do appreciate your service to the city and over the—my term ends this year as well. And so over the years, we have had such a wide variety of backgrounds with commissioners and you definitely filled a a niche that we don't have right now in engineering. So, um, we appreciate that and we're going to miss you a lot, but good luck in your new endeavors. I think that's going to be a great opportunity for you. So, Commissioner Halberg?
[14:39] **Commissioner Halberg:** Yeah, I'll second what Gino has to say. Your insight and your thoughtfulness and just your way of making people think about the the whole picture will definitely be missed. But all the best to you and your family. This is a fantastic opportunity and you will be sorely missed, but we'll be thinking of you.
[14:54] **Missy McGrath:** Thanks. Thank you, Commissioner. Good luck and thank you.
[14:58] **Gino Messina:** All right. Thank you. All right. Commissioners, any other business? Seeing none, I have a motion to adjourn.
[15:10] **Bryce Lebron:** Motion to adjourn.
[15:11] **Gino Messina:** Commissioner Lebron, motion to adjourn. Second?
[15:13] **Missy McGrath:** Second.
[15:15] **Gino Messina:** Commissioner McGrath. All in favor say I.
[15:17] **Commissioners:** I.
[15:19] **Gino Messina:** Opposed? And we are adjourned.