you you you you good evening it's Wednesday March 11th and I'll now call this meeting of the Economic Development Commission to order our first order of business is the adoption of the agenda do I have any changes to the agenda I am seeing none so looking for our motion so moved a motion looking for a second second second all in favor say aye opposed say nay motion carries moving on to our second agenda item is approval minutes from January 8 to have any revisions or comments seeing none so looking for adoption our motion to adopt a motion do it down looking for a second I'll second a second all in favor say aye all right I'll pose say nay and the motion carries moving on to our third agenda item MW have properties Lucas for EOF grant funds and presenting today will be Jamie I'll leave it for you good evening commissioners before you tonight is a request for elf grant funds from MWF Properties LLC just a quick recap on elf funding that's environmental legacy grant funding from Dakota County we receive funds from them because we are host landfill community in September of 2018 they awarded us 1.15 million dollars the uses are for redevelopment of outdated or underutilized properties for site acquisition soils contamination and demolition we have until mid-september of 2020 to use this round of funding and next week at City Council we will be requesting additional funding what does that mean how much requesting additional they have they are accepting applications until April 1st for additional funds so we are going to put in an application for more funding for the same purposes who's they Kota County okay yeah CDC the actual County Board accepts the applications I can good evening too much you're requesting the same amount and we have we all we have not okay and we have been promoting the elephants continually since we received the funds over 100 instances including 50 direct conversations with developers and property owners and with the Beck rec newsletter so the words getting out there and we're starting to have more enquiries at this point I'm sorry what were we looking to doing this additional 1.15 million same types of projects we'd be looking for redevelopment demolition site acquisition okay anything are we running into like unseen unforeseen costs or is just we'd be more easily done convenient with another million dollars Oh is there something specific we're looking to put this 1.1 million dollars towards it or is it just would be nice to have it going forward so we have a bigger budget to work with okay I'm sorry I thought we're trying to double what we had did we get any elf funding last in 2019 it's a two-year funding cycle two years thank you development takes time yeah so chair maybe if I can just help clarify just a little bit so in 2018 the county developed this what they called a pilot elf program and so specific cities were awarded funding Burnsville awarded the most and so those cities were Rosemont coats Burnsville gosh there were a couple more and so we were awarded this funding it does expire in September of 2020 however we can request an extension of that original pot of money and then there is a extension of the pilot program where they will allocate three million dollars which was allocated in 20 tene and those same cities can request funding for this new funding grant cycle so it's kind of like a new pot of money has been allocated through the county I don't know if that helps clarify a little bit and so the what we see in the proposal here is 850 some thousand would the remaining go to this same project or a different are you looking for different projects pursuing additional projects and we would try to get an extension if the funds haven't been used and that will be a County Board decision at that time what are these additional projects anything that comes up okay you have had several tell for meetings but nothing no official application at this time yeah so about the site it's at 14 380 burn Haven Drive it's the former national camera exchange building which closed February of 2018 as you can see on the map it's directly across the street from the Burnsville Center project details it would be a complete demolition and new construction of a three-story 82 unit market rate housing development special note that this fits into a priority area Center Village redevelopment vision the property is owned mixed-use and that fits into that vision in that zoning timeline would be demolition July in August new construction beginning in September and taking about a year when would the funds be awarded out of the money at what point in the process so upon EDC City Council and the CDA approval we would assign an agreement and then once demolition is complete we would request the funds from the county just before that deadline and then right now we're pursuing holding the funds until the complete project is done to ensure that development happened okay and the county and the CDA we talked to their staff and they have agreed that this is an eligible use of the fund that was a requirement in the JTA here's the preliminary site plan and preliminary building exterior these are subject to change because they are preliminary know when you look at the site plan there's a there's two entrances into this property one from the shopping center and then one from the street is the one from the street gonna close based upon what we see here and just the entrance from the shopping center open so if I may answer that from the site plan it appears that that one access is closing that has access off of burn Haven that joint access remain which remains today I'm sure there's a cross access agreement in place which spells out how how that would function and then access to the underground garage typically when development occurs one of the things that you look at is are there too many access points onto the property and then just four it looks like the layout of the site because of the need for surface parking perhaps guest parking that they're utilizing that space or for the process of parking and probably some landscaping and other things so it's not moving over to where the underground is that appears to be a new access point okay just shipped it but I think that would probably be discussed in planning Arizona even suchlike versus the funding portion here so I would agree is this um going to be rental owned or mixed the housing market rate rental all right moving on to financing and request details the total project costs is eighteen point five million acquisition 1.3 million demolition up to two hundred thousand because of the acquisition and demolition costs the project is unfeasible but for the use of these funds the initial request was for 1.15 million but after consulting with Ehlers and completing a pro forma analysis we have decided to recommend lowering that amount to eight hundred and eighty five thousand dollars this follows best practices with a 15 year average of a ten percent cash on cash return so staff is comfortable that the but for test for public assistance has been satisfied that's something we need to fulfill in order to grant funds like this to a business because this is a housing project we don't have to follow certain aspects of business subsidy law so we do not have to have a public hearing and we don't have to do yearly reporting to the state of the eight hundred and eighty five thousand six hundred and eighty-five is for sight acquisition and then up to two hundred thousand for demolition and that will be based on actual costs so recommendation is the approval of the request from MWF properties in the amount of eight hundred and eighty five thousand dollars to City Council I'll open up to the Commission for any other additional questions yeah I guess as I look at the project in you know I understand the demolition portion of it what I'm wondering is is there something wrong with the present building that necessitates its removal from the site now maybe if I can answer so the property's been or the the buildings been vacant since like Jamie stated since 2018 we've had some mild interest I would say in the property but no formal applications until MWF showed some interest in the site they were also looking at other properties with in Burnsville and staff directed them back to national camera exchange and let them know that we do have some kind of this gap funding opportunity available we also highlighted that this is within our center village where we would like to see some activity happen and is really zone and guided appropriately for what they are proposing and so the I mean it being sitting vacant for a couple of years I mean there may be other factors but I mean that we didn't have like a series of people coming to us knocking at the door wanting to fill the space the point is that I was thinking is it's just possible that the if there's nothing necessarily wrong with the particular building but for the price that they're attempting to sell it for is there it is is the site not worth as much as the present ownership is just asking for and that that's what I'm struggling with as far as the project is concerned is just subsidizing the present owner of the property by possibly allowing for over payment to the site I understand the demolition if the building is not suited for the property anymore I the acquisition cost is seems strange to me that's all per our development tools policy it has to be market rate the selling price and Ehlers did verify that and confirm that okay but it's been for sale for in excess of two years it's been vacant for been that it's a very tired old building so I don't think it's really marketable and it's a small retail platform so it's just it's a solo retail so you'd have a very specific I I'm kind of happy that there we're looking at alternatives I think it's consistent with our vision for that area that multi-tenant housing because right now it's most let that band if you familiar with it it's mostly retail struggling retail I would say to get the library over there to it was just nice but I'm to add some and I was surprised how low the rents are reasonably priced starting about 1100 going up to 2,000 for a two-bedroom so I was happy to see that it falls on the lower end of average rental cost and it's brand-new so I was surprised so there's a to go along with what he was saying there's a lot of empty building space in Burnsville that's not that great or appealing there's over by a junior family bar that whole area that's an eyesore coming out right off thirteen why why this particular spot have we shopped around looked for better deals or why are we getting involved my question is why we get involved in all are we pushing something on the area that the market doesn't dictate I mean nobody's asking for this in the public outside of this committee these City Council meetings that area seems to be doing just fine with what they've got the red the residents there I'm in that area a lot they seem to be doing just fine with what they've got over there I mean yeah the malls a dying area and we're talking about the center Village thing or whatever but it is a lot of money we're talking this money has to come from somewhere right I mean the grant comes from somewhere which is taxpayer money which is so we spent all this taxpayer money on something that's I don't know that we think is a good idea but the the neighborhood doesn't seem to be asking for it don't like flipside of that is if we do nothing with this site mm-hmm there is no more property taxes increases we don't get back on the tax roll the property sits vacant we continue to going down the slope we potentially might lose elf funding if we don't request it to be extended so there's could be a downside flip to this and why is it as with gee me and Regina been saying there hasn't been much applications or developers or property owners requesting the granting of these of these funds right and the but again why this particular site then is that if you want to introduce your name and where you're from and I'm Keith dal are you probably we're expecting either Stacy or Jason here tonight but I am from elders and the financial consultant of the city and I help Jason do the analysis and review of this project to the point about the land acquisition price point they are paying a premium for it because a user could theoretically purchase the building for what it is valued at 1.3 million dollars to go in there and use it without demo but unfortunately with the project that's proposed we would have to do some demolition well we would have to scrape the entire site so after our review and our analysis generally the apartment was in line with the industry standards that were looking at that the two things that we called out were specifically the land acquisition price point in the demolition land acquisition was high for the area we looked at some other market rate projects and Burnsville and on a per-unit land acquisition price point they ranged from three thousand at the lowest up to fifteen thousand dollars but when you take a look at those same market rate apartments and you compare them to the same exact size of this market rate project it's about seventy five hundred per unit is what the market would be if this property was completely vacant if the building wasn't on top of it so that's what we were looking at for a benchmark when we were writing down the land with the grant to be able to make that a market property for the developer to come in here thinking that's vacant land to build the market rate project you know the benefit to the city is yes the property has been vacant for a few years now but when you look at the tax that that commercial property is generating when you go back to the retail side of things and you based on the current market based on current retail brick-and-mortar is starting to fade off they're coming up with unique ideas to fill these vacant store these vacant storefronts and yes it's probably not ideal for a retail space like this that's probably not the worst in the city but it's in the city and it's vacant we can change that into market rate apartments so now when we're taking a look at the tax value the tax benefit to the city currently the total taxes for this commercial property is about $33,000 annually that's total and about six thousand dollars of that is going directly to the city for the tax levy now once the market rate apartments are constructed there's no tax increment financing so you're not deferring any of the tax taxes that are coming from this property so you're gonna realize that right away and so the tax increase is gonna be a little over six hundred percent so now the total taxes for the property are to be two hundred and three thousand dollars and of that seventy nine thousand almost eighty thousand is going to be going to the city based on a city levy so when you're thinking about the benefit to the city it's that added value in taxes how much did you say it would be per unit estimated you hadn't asked me that estimated 7500 per unit so it'd be about a six hundred and fifteen thousand dollar purchase price for the land if the building wasn't there that's roughly what its assists at right right now yep pretty close and your analysis you to you also mentioned that you thought the demolition cost might be a little high and that you put a condition in place that you actually cover the actual cost of demo correct they would have to verify that this was the actual dollar amount of the demolition and then that's what the grant would be reimbursed for so if it's a hundred thousand dollars they're only going to get a hundred thousand dollars of that two hundred thousand dollars I'm sorry with the with the grant then would that change the per unit price of estimate oh yeah with the grant we're looking at six hundred and eighty five thousand dollars of that going to the land acquisition so right now it's about sixteen thousand per unit based on that 1.3 million dollar purchase price and when we underwrite that land cost it'll bring it down to that 7500 per unit which is the six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars does that does that make sense um so maybe I can I'm easily confused but so we're talking on a per unit at her apartment unit yes determine monthly rent would be 75 hundred dollars no no of the land do you have a a an estimate of what it would cost to rent out a place in in this area after you're done building its eleven hundred sixty-five thousand eleven sixty five to two thousand thank you for studio or two bedrooms mm thank you gonna come out a few things I want to talk about three things I'm going to say talk a little bit here but hopefully this is helpful first of all I'll talk about demand I think first of all I think the project is terrific I think it's awesome I think it's in line with what we're trying to do with Center Village and I think it takes a property that is probably you know I don't think it's terrible functionally it's obsolete just because of the retail market and lack of Windows and so forth that have been in the building the two stories it just it's cumbersome for retail going forward which is why I believe it's still in the market and so I think they're asking about 1.5 this is 1.3 I think it's in line with market conditions I don't think anybody's under or overpay and I think it's probably about right but I think what's going to happen here with that new development the way it fits into the master plan is wonderful I think it's a no-brainer on the incremental tax benefit but I also think it takes that area and puts it to higher and better use with a pond and so forth as far as location you know demand is what demand is and as a city we can try to steer things as much as we want but the reality is the markets gonna steer it based upon demand and we could say we want to put it on you know we all agree that that location you're talking about is very blighted and we'd all love to do something tomorrow but not until we have market demand and there's somebody coming forward to want to do something on that so we we don't always dictate that I think and so we just got to go with that a little bit second I want to talk about the use of funds from my perspective these funds that we have whether it's TIF or abatement or the funds that we're talking about here that we have to be careful as a public entity that we don't give an unfair advantage to somebody in the use of these funds so what does that mean in my opinion means that the developer is having to buy a building that they don't want and so versus buying virgin land that they could develop on they're gonna have the cost of demolition demoing that building and the incremental value of that property over what market rate would be for land and so that an incremental value to me is perfect use of these funds and what those should be and so I think that's it's a good use now the question is is what they're asking for more than the incremental value in my opinion it is is what what has been a greed - more than the incremental value in my opinion it is and I just real quick like to talk about best practices going forward I would always be concerned about a developer that doesn't ask for more than they need that's just the way life is in the world of a developer is that money is always tight you want to do more and so you're always trying to use the lines that little cash as possible it can save cash for the next project so the fact that they're asking for more than the incremental value I don't blame them at all I think that's just good practice for us and making those decisions though I think going forward we should make sure that we have an independent appraisal done on the land value in my opinion the lands probably worth 11 to 13 bucks a foot even on the low mark you're 11 dollars it's worth about eight hundred forty thousand something like that so we always have an incremental appraisal done on what the land would be then we know what the incremental difference is between the building and the demolition which are very fair arguments so I would think about that in the future so you don't have to get into negotiation because it leaves a lot of room for negotiation when we don't do that and then on the actual cost for demolition I would ask that we just get two or three bids and it's open book and we're a part of that decision so that we know that we're getting our money's worth on the demolition costs versus leaving in the hands of the developer and so those are two things going forward I would just say about all that but I'm in support of it my only argument is I think that what they're asking for is probably a little bit more than incremental but I'm ok with it thanks guys yeah I also use that same line of reasoning to your point this developer could go somewhere else to virgin land on Lakeville at Rosemont or something and they could put up units and and then Rosemont or Lakeville gets this incremental oh I'm angry I live in that area I live just on the other side of South Cross and I do think it's an eyesore and I would love to see I love the idea and the vision of this what I'm worried about is that 10 years down the road from now when our kids are grown up the property net didn't work out it wasn't it wasn't looked at well and and it just ended up collapsing and now it's another ugly property 10 not saying your projects gonna fail I'm just saying I'm looking at the potential we have other things look at where the strip mall is by Ace Hardware that's another ugly site where jr. bought juniors family bars is another ugly strip mall I don't see 10 20 years from now we put all this money into more of future failed projects and I I think it's gonna work I don't and I don't think the price tag is outrageous I'm just cautious on all this stuff because of baldies I want to bring up later in the meeting these other properties do okay and I'm just saying I don't want to fix those properties all right I just wanna be it's hard to find a dancer right it's hard to find a dance partner they had 50 people come forward and we got one yeah and it's a new game for us because we haven't played this before we never had these funds mm-hmm I'm so renew so developers are still getting used to us as dance partners so it's our first dance we got to get out there and it's user losing money in terms of we need this some momentum on this and and learn from it and this is good it and I I agree I think it's a little pricey but gosh the incremental tax revenue just Trump's it I think Chris to your to your point back to your other two properties I mean we've broadcast this our actions like we the city staff broadcast is crying out to probably probably those property owners and it's on the onus of the owners to come to us asking for those applications so if they're not willing or they don't want it we cannot as a city or the city cannot do anything about those poppy lands we only can do with what owners or developers come to and I'm be in the city I like these answers and I'm just it seems to be checking the boxes and I like where this is going but another thing that brings you to concern is the price per unit this is gonna be a super unpopular opinion time but I wish it was more I kind of wish you had a projection of a higher cost of living in that area just to bring in an attraction to the exclusivity of living in that area if we're putting all this time and development and do into making this beautiful center Village area that's gonna be a traction for all to come I feel like it should be an area that that costs reflects that that prestige I'd be more comfortable with I think once again it's it's it's our first venue and I hope we have hire more more prestigious properties with more amenities this is a basic no frills unless that releases new property reflects the future and sets a precedence going forward of how much things around it thing it cost now the next building that gets built next door if they tear down the mall ever and rebuild they build the same type of design now those have to be in similar cost lines I mean with the properties next to it you know what this property is a fairly small piece of land and if you look at the other apartments too rug Burnsville they're starting to put clubhouses and add other amenities to their facilities which are going to trump this if the rents get too high people aren't going right just a very basic you in my my view raids but but it hits a dynamic or a group of citizens who can afford this to it I mean it is it's exactly what I said in my interview to get out here what I what I wanted to see happen in this city I just want to make sure it's happening the right way so it doesn't collapse on itself because we overlooked something or did something that felt good at the time but wasn't the right answer or the right way right I think so I think we're looking at you know the funding mechanism for it though and I think planning and such we'll take a look at the rest of the viability of the overall project no further comments are gonna come in from the audience opposed to your name where you're from yeah I'm Chris Stoke I'm with nvf properties I'm the applicant and I'm just here to answer any questions you have I would like to recognize that I appreciate you noticing that we did try and talk the seller actually did succeed in talking the landowner down on price and I can assure you that they we're not willing to go below that and we've looked at a lot of property in Burnsville and Regina can probably back me up some ugly strip malls commercial properties but they they're difficult to redevelop especially in the housing is just the landowner sees a value in the building that's really not we're gonna have to demolish especially with the national camera which it's not a terrible building but it's outdated so you know typically you'll see either some sort of or at least in my experience you see some sort of grant or TIF or some financial assistance to help with that redevelopment or you see really really high density which you know we feel that this is a at 82 units on 1.7 acres is is fairly dense and we didn't you know we wanted a product that the city would be comfortable with as well so from an economic standpoint it's very difficult to make an 82 unit market rate development work just because you don't have the economies of scale especially when there's a redevelopment involved so that's kind of just from the economic side of things that's why this grant is necessary for this specific project how did the rents in this building compared away you've done a lot of new development in the last few years how do they compare to those other developments you've done um so we actually heard a market study consultant to advise us on the marketability and we got the rents from them so we do I mean we have marker rate properties mercury units affordable units and then we're looking in various other suburbs and it really depends on the suburb I mean the $1,100 is you know it's a pretty modest amount of rent but it's also a 500 square foot unit so it's they're pretty small so a per square foot those are actually the highest rents that we have in the mobility in the proposal and the 1,800 is for a two-bedroom so we're exceeding the 2000s 14 bedroom so it's all market driven really why this particular site well quite honestly we just thought that the location is really good we like that it's buy a lot of amenities that are walkable and the Burnsville Center is right there and I know there's a lot of it's not as active as it once was but hopefully some additional renters in the area will help initiative the obviously look at your face no I mean the city they have a list of priorities and the revitalization of the burns yes okay so that did that play in the part of why you picked at this area it did yes right so yeah I mean we it's not like I looked through the whole document and then decided we talked to a city staff about priority areas and we knew that revitalizing the mall as a priority of the city so that kind of helped us narrow our scope a little bit and heart of the city there's also a lot of units going up so we thought you know maybe this could be a new opportunity okay so real quick and I know this is not the Planning Commission that I'm just really curious you know we have said when we open it up to a new multi-family that we wanted upscale product that lend itself well to the you know the retiring professionals and the young professionals and so forth and so that it's in line with really what we're trying to keep within the city and so can you talk about that a little bit I know it's a little bit smaller so you can't have maybe eat a lot of the or that a lot of all the same amenities that a bigger unit can be can you talk about it at a high level yeah I mean within the units they're gonna be pretty similar to other market rate I mean I've looked at the what's the heart of the city under construction in that way maybe mavin mavin I've looked at the amenities within maven and I think you'll find that they're pretty comparable to that I don't know about common area we haven't decided on common area yet but we'll have some sort of fitness maybe a yoga room or something in a community space pretty similar that one's much larger though so they have more opportunity for Sheridan but interior amenities would be pretty comfortable was that is maybe health your standards well I just you know I heard your rates and so that to me kind of aligns with what I would anticipate but I just you know to your to your earlier point as far as you know making sure that it's a good use in a good developer for the future and so forth and are we going after the high-end market high in is you know the high-end here is different than the high-end in Edina right but but are we going after the young professionals or the empty nesters and having a good product yeah is there gonna be some risk there's always a risk but we have a developer that has some history we have and they are because they have their own capital they have all the incentive in the world to keep it in good shape to rent it at maximum rates so I think that's a really good tool as well as far as the future and development like this but more than anything we just want to make sure it's consistent with kind of the level of housing that we're trying to provide on the equity I notice you put about 21% is that usually what you do in terms of your contribution to the equity and the purchase yeah it's all it's all based on cash on cash return but yeah 20 to 25 percent yeah that's I thought yeah therefore that question I don't with your tax estimate that you had it proposed the return earlier was they give plans on commercial on main level no this is just all day for you know the coffee shops in there or no like small 24-hour Fitness some of these new high our fitness for our residents yeah some of the new developments are working into small real small square space commercial into their apartments that ends up making money for both a retailer and the tech tax return for the city and hasn't been a benefit to so just wonder if that was in there yeah I'm not so sure the retail makes money or losses it's a great idea but all those muscles apartment they struggle to keep a vibrant retailer from a smaller unit so that's the jump ball in my mind oh thank you thank you for bringing a project like this forward it looks it looks like a nice building definitely an upgrade to that particular site and it'll be nice to have more market rate and you know higher amenity places for people to live in that section of town I do think it's a really nice site based on kind of how it sits depending on how its landscaped and such I mean it overlooks well it's called a pond I think in Burnsville we've dubbed it a lake it's a nice spot a walkable spot right I think see people walking around that area there's so much doors quit off there's a stairway on the city property right next stair that goes down and walks around them definitely gotten running around there several times so thank you very much I just wanna see here I like the I like the project I think it's great it kind of fits in with the center Village plan okay even a stepping stone to kind of redevelop that area and kickstart the center Village plan going going forward like this and to kind of get us back on Tomic I think city staff has an our comments to bring back to the Planning Commission and City Council on other developments here but topic at hand is the grant of whether we want to recommend approving the grant of $885,000 open it to the floor for any remaining comments before we move to a motion I think if at all possible with the county if we can escrow the money till the project is complete that would be ideal I think it's a reimbursement based on what we saw so yeah that should be they were saying really we might have to pay out just you know with the deadline so we're working out the details of the this specifics on on dispersement but I do you want to explain the the latest that we yeah the idea right now is that we would get the funds from the county prior to the expiration of the JPA and then hold the funds until a CEO is issued mm-hm it's a safest role as long as that gets approved I think that would be ideal I think as we look at this I think we had good discussion on the merits of the amount I think we're doing some good things as far as how we're dispersing the funds I think one of the better things that we could probably do in this process is just making sure that as projects come forward and they do qualify based on what we have listed out previously and we have listed out for use of our tools is to make sure that we're just consistent on if it does qualify we should do what we can to make sure that we are issuing those funds and moving forward I think that sort of stability helps not only this project but the viability of future projects and people coming before us and asking for those funds and and reasonably knowing that if their project fits in the bucket that we created that that we would move forward on that so with that I would motion for the approval of the recommend motion the approval of the recommendation to City Council for this particular grant has described by staff second a motion in a second favor you say aye opposed say nay looks like the motion carries thank you move on to our fourth agenda item the 2040 comprehensive plan Center village and heart of the city overview I'm gonna turn over to Regina it seems to have frozen on me so let me all right Thank You chair members of the Commission so for some of you this will be just a repeat of what you already know as you've been involved as a commission member or a member of the community and some respects for some of these items but thought it would be just a good educational overview of kind of these three big plans that we have in place with the city these are kind of our what I would call our guiding policy documents that we use really on a day-to-day basis staff so to start out this information was in your background there's also links to these documents on our city website so if you want to get into the details and eat some before bedtime reading they're out there for you so to start out a comprehensive plan what is a comprehensive plan so the city of Burnsville is required to update our comprehensive plan every ten years and what the comprehensive plan does is show how a community should grow over a 20-year period so it's kind of this long range outlook and it sets policy and direction on how we do things not only in the city but also other cities that are required to do this as well by the Metropolitan Council our first comprehensive plan was developed in 1965 and then updated along the way along that kind of 10-year cycle so again we are required to adopt a comprehensive plan according to the Metropolitan Council and state law as are the other cities counties and townships within a seven-county metro area we're required to comply with certain statutory requirements those are all spelled out and these are updated updated guides are produced by the Metropolitan Council based off of what occurs through the census so they get their population estimates and information and then the Met Council updates their population estimate information and then that trickles down to the cities we're also required to to have certain components within our comprehensive plan so we're required to have a section that talks about land use transportation water resources parks and trails housing and how we're going to implement these plans you can add additional information within your comp plan or but you have to at bare minimum address these these items the 2040 comprehensive plan it was an update to their 2030 plan and we did include all the required items and then some additional ones so we have an academic development and redevelopment section I specifically attached that to your background reports and then also the community enrichment and city services and facilities and then we wove into this document sustainability goals as part of our plan so the comp plan probably took at least two two and a half years to complete from start to finish and when we were developing kind of the outline for the comp plan we staff reached out to the council to see what are they what are your priorities and so prior to 2016 council had a conversation with staff and determine that our focus areas should be heart of the city because we knew that bus rapid transit was coming and they wanted us to look at that further a lot of the parcels were starting to fill out there was a lot there were at one time a lot of vacant parcels but those were starting to fill out so the thought was should this should this extend other areas should it be broadened the Burnsville Center was another area that Council at the time wanted us to focus on knowing that retail has changing the Burnsville center had a lot of vacancies at the time still do today and then bus rapid transit was coming to these areas so that was a highlighted as we should dig deeper in this area and then the Minnesota River quadrant this was highlighted and really in great detail in our 2030 plan so they wanted us to take another look at that and then we had a lot of concern about what was referred to as our aging industrial areas so our what we call our lark industrial area off of cliff Road and so a lot of people would come to city staff and and we would hear this over and over from prospective warehouse manufacturing industrial developers do you have any properties where I could have high ceiling buildings all you have is these kind of 10-foot 11 foot maybe 14 foot clearance buildings I need something higher gosh we don't have we don't have a lot of vacant lanta to build that and and so you know they look to maybe like fill or Egon or somewhere with more land available and and so the thought is gosh this is this is a concern and maybe we should look at the large industrial areas maybe redeveloping maybe those those buildings was kind of maybe tired thought of as tired aging building should be demoed and that's where our large ceiling industrial building should be so that was kind of the initial the initial thought as where before we dope into the details of the comprehensive plan so I'll go into a little more detail about each one of these focus areas so heart of the city our consultant took a closer look at the boundary area which was originally shown as south of 13 east of 35w north of Burnsville parkway and then is that road just I would say Eagle Ridge Ridge or Ridge just west of look the Cub Foods and west of that area so that's the original heart of the city area and so what happened was we took a closer look at extending heart of the city west of 35w the circles on the screen represent actually the middle of the circle represents future transit areas and then the reach of what a person could potentially walk to a station a half mile radius is outlined on your screen so we thought well let's maybe extend heart of the city that theme of higher density housing to the west of 35w so that's what you see here kind of a change in land use patterns with potentially mixed-use higher density housing on that this west side of 35w and so that that was something new that emerged there's some hotels there that could could maybe use some new life and so that was something that was explored and then working with staff and our Commission's and stakeholders our consultant came up with a more of a sketch plan of how the area could transform in time so some of the areas you know are would be existing no change these shaded areas are areas which were vacant there is now construction on those some of these blue kind of grey shaded properties but we show how for example potentially across Anderson's property which is your low ceiling office could maybe transform to a higher density housing in the future possibly we show how maybe townhouses can line pillsbury we show how again kind of that that housing or mixed-use could be on the west side of the property and just in more detail and this is really high-level concept plans but it gives people an idea of what the city would support as far as change and you saw on their site the burns will set a retail area so you have all kind of seen this transform over time but initially it was all zoned and guided for for business and so one of the things that was highlighted within the comp plan was you should probably study this area a little further you should take a deeper dive look at what's happening at surrounding malls look at what's happening at Ridgedale in South Dale and Rosedale that could be kind of a lesson learned of how you could transform those sea of asphalt areas into other types of uses consider some mixed-use within these areas and so that was just kind of lightly touched on I would say and ultimately we landed in doing the center Village redevelopment vision which went into the more the more detail but this was highlighted and then the Minnesota River quadrant so what we actually did in the 2040 plan was we took a step back so in in 2030 there was a very detailed plan of how this area should develop and and the thought was that the the mining would be done that the landfill would be filled and now this area would be filled with hotel and some housing options and office and and there was a very very very detailed plan so knowing that this isn't quite ending quite as fast as we had imagined it would we took a step back and kind of generalized how the area could be in in larger swath so this large area of a hundred acres could be mixed-use this large area could be more tech office industrial this area be Park open space and not getting it so just so specific and then we also showed how some of the a roadway network could be intertwined as well as changes with it interchange spots and then the East Cliff Road Business Park so after we took a deeper dive into this specific study area it was actually found out that this area is I would call it thriving so although it looks tired and ceiling heights aren't high there's actually very low vacancy rates that the businesses are doing well that they're high-paying jobs within this area and it's an area that we should we should retain like we we shouldn't necessarily encourage people to demo the the sites and and build something new because it's actually a great base for the city and so one of the recommendations is that you know support what's there encourage people to refresh their sites and revitalize their sites maybe that means kind of doing a facade remodel or adding some landscaping to beautify things and maybe adding from a city standpoint things that could be done or doing some Street trees or street lighting improving sidewalks maybe that are missing creating kind of a gateway into the area encouraging people to to enjoy the space but but what there's good what you have is going what you have going on there is good stop calling it the aging industrial center let's give it a different name and so we we coined it the East Cliff Road Business Park doesn't quite roll off the tongue but it sounds better than Asian industrial is there any mini gas coal and in that area that would be available ah because I know they cut back one part of their land use a few years ago but anything can I ask a question on there we talked about trying to encourage owners in that area to provide improvements to the properties and so forth but if we put any tools in place to allow that to happen and what I'm thinking of is why don't we look at creating a fun with a very low interest rate or almost zero or you know one or two percent interest that is paid back in a relatively short period of time but to incent people to have the funds to improve their buildings in that area because it seems like we needs to put some tools in place to address I think we have some sort of a fix up grant is that correct or didn't we open that up and that's something that we're looking into so right one of the things that Jamie will be working on is completing a kind of a matrix of programs that we have available not only from a housing standpoint but also a commercial standpoint and we don't have a specific fund quite ready to go now but we're working towards that and so well I think we'll get there but it's just a matter of aligning staff priorities right now and giving that done but we're close on board and how much of that industrial area is that whether company oh I know what you're talking about but I'm not sure I don't know how many acres they have because I would guess that's the reason why there's not much vacancy rate in there because they like that area they can have their big you know antennas that gather mean information without people thinking that it's an eyesore yeah I being through this area I think we're what it is there's a lot of nice sized spaces for companies and so they they don't have to have you know massive footprints and so they can come in here they can have their office warehouse space it's the rent is the rent is good and buildings are very full from everything that I've been able to see and it's just a it's not it's not for the most part it's not people with 40 or 50,000 or 100,000 square feet it's it's a lot more manageable for some of our some of our good local small businesses they really like this area it's kind of coined as an incubator area for you know people get their start here and they and they grow not only with in Burnsville but but beyond as well so it's a great spot is what we found out just as part of the process and this wasn't completely just staff you know working behind the walls it was we had engagement with the community I don't know if Jeff is in this picture or not myself but I don't want to identify Holly for myself we did have a Citizens Advisory Committee engaged with school districts youth we went out to churches and met with representatives of different faith communities we also engage with Realtors within the area we did some specific engagement at the fire muster at I remember being out at 99 visiting with different neighborhood parties as were other staff members handing out information you know trying to get feedback on and on this plan and so we use different tactics and and ultimately ultimately after all the work that we did not only on those specific study areas we did have consultants that looked at those specific chapters and the requirements to meet Metropolitan Council requirements but ultimately this plan was adopted in 2019 and by our City Council so it was a two and a half year process but it's out there we use it every day I mean I've got the paper document and I've got tabs all over over the place and it's out there for you to view as well on our city website did the rezoning of all those properties that you had worked with the Planning Commission on happen yes yes we there were in the comp plan there are specific areas that are recommended for rezoning and we did go through that process to rezone those properties yeah there were kind of pockets throughout the city and they did recently go through that process that's just a quick overview again it's on our city website if he wanted us through so again part of the comp plan and part of that direction from Council was we need to do something around the Burnsville center around County Road 42 and so ultimately what happened was we came out with this great vision that was adopted in January 2019 was which is actually before the comp plan was finally adopted but because of timing we we just don't and we saw this as a staff I think as the Economic Development Commission and you're a deist strategic plan saw this as our number one high priority in the city from an economic development standpoint so I'm taking that to heart we move forward with this vision the council again seen this as once a thriving place this was opening day but it gives you an idea that you know this this small was once what's the place to be I mean you you talked to people from Iowa that would drive up to Burnsville center or from surrounding you know out state areas and and this was the place to go to go shopping and and again it's it's not that today this is from a couple of years ago but there's a lot of vacancies within the mall and and we're just I feel like we're seeing more and more every day but knowing that that's kind of on the radar Council and and our Commission's said this has got to be a priority area and so that's what the vision looks at not only the Burnsville center because that's not the only property within the area but but the idea was let's let's take a look at a larger identified area so generally speaking it's west of 35e 35w split south and making andrew's north or south cross and east of county road 5 that's kind of the big picture area and then we hone in on the Burnsville center and then north of County Road 42 kind of where targets located and total wine and and so on as we get into some of the plans as you may know Burnsville Center property is complicated so CBL owns the center they're based out of Tennessee Sears the area and the pink owned by Sarah touch their real estate arm JC Penney's the green Macy's the yellow and then CBL also owns a blue area as well as some of the gray parking area and then each building footprint owns the parking fields in front of them so kind of a complex ownership structure but it's not unusual for a mall layout it's pretty typical throughout the country so the plan the consultant that we hired as well as the stakeholder team staff team looked at not only the mall itself that study area but then also precedent examples what are what are other cities doing and why aren't we getting what other cities are getting they also looked at the demographics of comparable centers and found that our demographics are actually quite comparable to some of these other thriving urban areas so we have we have the household income to support some of the fact if 'ti that's going on and the population as well we did want to hear from the public to see what what do you want to see her in the future knowing that it it'll change and so by some of the techniques that we use to get some of that outreach and that feedback was we had an online survey on our city website again we went out to staff we partnered up with fire and pleased to go out to nineteen unite to hit neighborhood parties to provide them information about center village and provided them with a little card with a questionnaire or link to a questionnaire on our city website we held stakeholder meetings with not only property owners in person but on the phone if they were out of state but also with the county staff members MnDOT and VTA the Chamber of Commerce experienced Burnsville all had representatives at these meetings because we want to hear what you know their thoughts as well and we had an open house that was very well attended and got some media attention as well so really people were in support of change like they they clearly the feedback that we got they want to see something happen they want to see a refresh of the area they want to see more entertainment restaurants housing options parks it's kind of a fun place to be a place to tell their friends you know about and and to hang out in and it's not it's not it would be we have vision and we we do have implementation strategies that show us how to get there so this is just a quick snapshot of just a picture that ultimately links with these implementation strategies and then a kind of a high-level plan of how this area could change over time by adding parks and open space more of a walkable pedestrian bikable network where transit could possibly go that bus rapid transit and these are all really guiding documents so that when we're going out to the public when we're attending different trade shows or having conversations with developers and they ask us what does the city want to see we can we have something that we can point to and say this like our council is in support of this city staff is in support of this and they can know that when the table set there they're ready to go that they're not going to have any opposition because they know they have a supportive city as supportive council one of the things that the the plan highlights of the vision highlights is how the area can be more walkable be more bikable I'm just highlighting one of those things which is a underground I'd call it a bridge it's not really a tunnel it's a space where people could connect north of County Road 42 without crossing the the county road multiple lanes we did at a high level highlight some cost associated with these different improvements some of these I would anticipate will be negotiated with the developers as they come in and so the burden wouldn't necessarily be on the city but at least we have an idea of ballpark of what to negotiate on so the city staff city policy makers where we're doing what we can to set the table to make this as I would say shovel ready as possible we're actively marketing the area we're almost completed with the traffic study which will hopefully be adopted by City Council that shows highlights what type of improvements need to happen within the area to support the more intensive meant that we envision where we've changed the zoning within the area and are changing the land use for more of the area to be mixed-use we're working on TIF legislation right now at the state we'll be doing an environmental review within the area again to to make it a shovel ready as possible so that when somebody comes into the door we can say you can either go straight to building permit or yes you do have to go to Planning Commission but it'll only take you 60 to 90 days for example if someone had to do environmental work a you AR it's a it's a requirement based off of a certain amount of development that occurs that could hold somebody up six months to more so if we can get that out of the way if we can do that as a city then it'll it'll speed things up and then the county is also working on some projects within the area the orange line extension we envision will happen likely sometime around development of the area sometime after 2021 and then they're also working on a county road 42 study from Rosemont to the Burnsville savage border so look out for more information on that but we're a lot of eyes on this area kind of the low-hanging fruit we had this awesome back to the 80s food truck rally city kind of joint venture with that Fiero they someone was talking about earlier come to this event but we're looking to try to drive activity to the area so that people can envision how this area could be and in just hopefully a couple of years we're doing what we can from a staff standpoint we don't own the property so a lot will be market driven at this point when they do this better than they did back to eighties do they charge the city for that to use that man um so the the back to the A's folks were charged okay but we were not charged does the city yes of course you know that before we go into the heart of the city um so you said that city staff is doing what they can to promote and and I agree generally that you're doing you know great things by setting the vision which is really what I think city staff should start with and do and you've done a wonderful job of collecting that data I do think that Sarah Tosh is a whole lot major hold up there and it's a domino effect and we need to we need to help tip the Domino's I think I'm wondering that city staff if we're truly doing everything we can to put pressure on Sarah ties to do something with a close seer site under the tools that we have available to us and I would really challenge the staff to look hard at that and figure out how we can get a little bit more teeth into that to make some things happen because without us pushing I don't know that it's gonna happen at a timely fashion yeah and they simply they've got a lot of parking lot too in addition to that building which is land that could be used I don't think really any of it has been developed like some of the other pieces around the outside are they possibly holding out because they I don't know what they make off of renting out their parking lot space to the local car dealerships because they're stored a lot of cars over there it's gotta be paying off for them I don't I don't think that's I don't think that's the driver I think the driver is that there's limited funds they're dealing with these issues all over the country and they're going after the high demand areas to do something first where they're gonna get a more guaranteed return on their investment which is smart but we've got you know what I like about this area is that there is demand there it's not as much retail and which is what our master plan addresses we're going to downsize the retail and put in more multifamily where there is huge demand right now and other alternative use being medical or whatever it may be but but I think as a city we've got to figure out if we're true applying all the pressure we can on Sarah tais and if we're not then I would challenge us to look at that again III think you guys have done a great job setting the table I think the planning process was super I think divisions yeah well no my question to you is a in the city who's the champion of this I mean there's the summit on this idea or is it ambiguous like all the council does or is there someone who has it and then secondly what are the goals like like you you highlighted the previous slide that says when we have a strategy and because you have vision and now you've got to turn it into a plan into a reality and I understand it's very difficult with five different part I go totally understand so does it has anyone laid out here's our goals for this year on to your point to my year from now we're not sitting here and going well that was a January 2019 plan we haven't done we've talked bunch of happy talk but have we actually gone and done something and we haven't goals I think we've got that yeah so I would say we're very team-oriented here at the city as far as you know who does what and we've taken different approaches so we do have I would call it more of a task list and I think that was included in your packet about it goes more into specific about implementation strategies and what we're gonna do what's a like a must do now and then what's more of a long range and so we're we're working towards that I'd say myself Jamie our Community Development Director or city manager mayor City Council people are have been champion between this whether it's speaking at the State Capitol whether it's having conversations with Sarah tidge and and we're we're trying we have a we have a lot of work to do though so you itemize what you hope to have accomplished by 2020 years we I'd say it's more like a short term mid term long term okay I like Jeff's idea concentrating on one and that even if you go find somebody who might be interested in the property and push them you know forget about CBL for now because that's too much almost Sara touch could be or target and just target that say how can we drive somebody to buy that or want to develop it kind of like you did with the apartment for the national camera you know you push them back out there so is there somebody who would do that like the Lifetime Fitness and I'm not saying they would but you know somebody like that has a grand vision for a piece of property that might be you know easily people can easily get to it's my opinion on this particular site here that we've been doing a lot of stuff to learn maybe the past year or so to make sure that we actually had something to offer for this particular site and then now as we start getting into now we have these tools available then they yes if we have tools now then we have incentives and then we can start won't call it necessary pushing but maybe promoting that particular site more and hopefully that's gonna be the plan I can say we've been a lot more proactive than we have let's say three years ago just in general about reaching out to people trying to make those connections building those relationships and a lot of that the drone is sent but set by City Council and then being okay with us and I think is great because I think we kind of missed the mark for a while I think the cities could have done more leaps and bounds and what any other city has done in a visioning plan for the ability debilitating mall I mean creating a villa marking the village and kind of proactively trying to do TIF legislation going to Bloomberg and trying to really rally around getting business engagement and I think you're trying to do a business community kind of forum talks coming up here and in those types of things I think what we're making strides and this is in the infancy and I think over time I think it'll play out I think I'm sorry go ahead I like the I do like what is happening on both ends I think it's you Canadians support the growth of that asking be involved in community especially in that area does get a vibe of what do they want to see happen when we can get ser tag to sellout and I think you're on the right path of what's keeping them afloat there what what's our reasoning for holding out look into it so you're looking at two problems and then hoping they come together for one solution at the end there and III like what your ads are going with us where you're investing a lot and taking your time to figure out what goes in there versus just rushing through the project you put in whatever feels good yeah yeah I agree with all those comments I mean what the city has done is terrific the challenges though that without control of the land and a motivated seller we can't go a whole lot further and so I'm just trying to think what can we do if anything and the answer may be nothing what can we do to get more Sara ties to come to the table and to start to get that domino falling because everything else will start to fall into place and it's very frustrating it's got to be frustrating for staff I think it's frustrating for all of us because it is such a wonderful plan and it's such to create a vision you know I to me I I think of it as centennial lakes south of the river I mean I think it can be that attractive because the demand is there for that kind of product but we've got to figure out how to get to the next level here and we may have to apply some pressure we haven't thought about to get that done in my it could be I think you know as you're talking about you know having them want to do something this isn't the only mall even in the area that they're attempting to get a former seer store to do something I think was that Mall of America has their Sears store as well to deal with and they also have an unmotivated well I don't know exactly sure on that one if it's a seller or the lease holder but it's the same same source situation again the question is how do we get what what's it what's exciting ones who have sold what made them sell looking at the solutions of that and then we have to be ready for when the sell sale happened I mean they could be talking to people right now we don't know it but if they ever loosen up and sell it their portion the dominoes start falling we have to be ready for what's gonna go in place they're what we're looking for our vision and I think that's why I don't I like the hustle that we're picking it up as we go cuz were probably getting closer but I think the we have to be ready for the dominoes falling but you do understand we've got a wonderful vision for that area yeah been created I just don't I don't think it's a complete vision yet oh I think it's all I think it is about completely I mean with all due respect it's just a wonderful vision and it's in line with the market demand it's just that we've got to be able to have control of the size to be able to do something great I'm gonna move on unless anybody else has any other questions or comments I'm so hard of the city I'm just a been a brief overview high-level part of the city for those that don't know began as a streetscape enhancement program back in the 90s so this is a view of what the area Burnsville Parkway and Nicollet look looking north towards Minneapolis looked like before a lot of auto oriented type uses electrical lines overhead does not look like how it looks today um and the goal was to transform this kind of a blighted into something different so the goals were to make this a mixed-use walkable have some high-level quality design not only on the public side but the the streetscape or the like street furniture sidewalks banners street lights but then also on the private side so what those buildings look like and then to have transportation options so not only vehicle traffic but again the walking biking and other their sources like bus as well part of the city is broken up into two zoning districts or kind of subs owning destroys part of the city one part of the city to heart of the city one was envisioned to be more of your town core higher densities and that's what's reflected in this colored schematic here on the right and and then heart of the city to was envisioned to be kind of a transition area shorter buildings not as flexible on the uses more like office type type uses in auto oriented I would say then dense walkable type of feeling this is heart of the city today or whenever this Google image was taken so you see in the city code and in the guiding documents talk about bringing buildings closer to property lines to create kind of more of your downtown Main Street kind of feel new urbanism is a term that's used and so this is how its transformed from that that more blighted look to do what we have today the heart of the city is really transformed over that time and it continues to transition as I talked about earlier with the comprehensive plan changes we're starting to look to the west of 35w as well and then how does bus rapid transit play into this so we're looking at this as a transit oriented development area that kind of compact complete connected type of environment with the mix of uses and and taking that not only from that kind of town core area and heart of the city one but extending that feel West and then even west on the other side of the freeway so it looks like the school district wants to keep Diamond Head I'm not sure the latest on that we the city some city staff has been actively at the table in conversation we certainly as you saw in some of those concepts early in our visioning from the comp plan we have an idea of how that the parking fields could be used with additional housing it's it's a nice spot within part of the city could it develop into something else could the school district be integrated into maybe a future development we've got a lot of ideas but the school district owns it and it's their decision that will will drive the future of that we have under construction a couple of buildings that you're I'm sure familiar with or driven past at least maybe by past walk past bus pass sure we have the chase building 109 units off of Burnsville Parkway and then the roars development with 127 units with the 2,000 square feet of retail which should be open up in both in 2020 and then just again orange lines coming 2021 it's expected to be ready to ride so we should start to see some construction happening soon within our two future areas in heart of the city that's all I have for that again just to kind of a high-level overview details are in your packet or available on our city website thanks for that overview on you I don't just know everybody any questions from the Commission before you move on to them okay agenda item is this time to talk about River centers you have more agenda items all right great we want a fifth agenda item our economic development said reject plan yeah back to regen so we've been highlighting the different items that we've been working towards in the strategic plan so we have this top five items and sure sustainability of the Bernthal sized the number one listed today you recommended approval of the funding for MWF to use Dakota County L funds so we're working with them towards that the traffic study that you have been part of in one of the work sessions that's movie on on city council soon I also had the fun opportunity to work with students at the U of M there's a landscape design studio class and they used the Burnsville Center as an example of how the area had transformed using their own ideas and had their own vision for how the area could change and so it was fun to be there and critique what they had presented to me along with their professor and a couple other professionals I did share that information to the property owners just heritage to Burnsville Center CBL people JC Penney and Macy's as well so they they know where we've got we've got ideas keeping them in the loop as well we had the opportunity Jaime had the opportunity to meet with leg up life skills and new business within the Burnsville Center that provides some consulting services on life skills and so Bernthal Center is thinking about new ways to lease up some of their space that they have that's not your traditional retail so there they're being flexible and if whenever we know of anybody that's kind of a start-up we send them there because they're they're willing to work with people so that's just an example of something unique and a little different and then there is a new staff member at the Burnsville Center that we're working with that's doing specialty leasing so we had the opportunity to meet them and then we're working towards that back to the 80s car show in food truck rally it was a great success and we have the idea of making it bigger and better than than last year so we have some fun fun projects coming I'm to involve the community and I'm sure you'll hear a lot more about what we have in store for that number to improve the image of the school district there was a job fair where we had staff available highlighting the positions that we have here at the city so we had our you belong here brand there and we understand the state of the schools will be on April 8th and this is an opportunity for people to learn about what school district 1 anyone is doing and the programs that they offer and so the public's welcome to it and that I think the that's in conjunction with the chain Burnsville Chamber of Commerce so if you're a member of the chamber that's an opportunity in place of their normal monthly coffee that they do and then we continue to stay engaged with the the different properties that they have highlighted as possible changes and so we stay were staff as staying abreast of that the heart of the city continued development were continuing to work on that transit oriented development ordinance and then we have the two projects that are underway that talked about previously and expect that the other chase project hopefully will be in for a building permit at some point they still are working working towards that so the 172 units next to the Cub Foods property enhance and build awareness around housing and commercial programs so I talked about this briefly earlier Jamie will be working on a matrix of such that talks about what type of housing and commercial programs that we have available through the city and other programs that we have access to at the ready okay coming on that Rosalie so I commented earlier on the commercial side and thinking about some kind of a fun that we create with low interest loans I think we should think about the same thing in the housing side and really put some teeth to that I was recently met a nonprofit who puts together their volunteers the homeowner or the volunteering organization has to provide the funds but that they go in and work on homes that are a lot of times elderly elderly people to help them age in their home as much as possible and I was thinking how cool that would be if we could do something in that in Burnsville where you have maybe retirees that are handy that would love to give back if you will we provide the funds somehow but we're able to fix up a lot of the homes that need fixing up and allow people to stay in their home longer and it'd be really cool if we could put some something in place around all that there's an opportunity I think another one of our top five items is continue the city's position as a regional destination some of these examples are involvement with the state of the city which is on March 19th I think you all have received at least two emails from a staff today or yesterday about that so we really want you to go bring a friend bring your neighbor bring a spouse girlfriend boyfriend whatever and and learn about what's going on here at the city I know you're deeply engaged already but maybe your neighbor is not so bring a friend the bite of Burnsville which was last week that's an opportunity for to showcase some of our local restaurants and we had an opportunity to showcase our you belong here brand they're the it's my understanding I didn't attend but ISD 191 the Burnsville High School had their students there their culinary students there so that's kind of the first time for them kind of cool connection we did a we're starting to do these business partnerships where we're doing some cross promotion with some of our businesses the latest one was Buck Hill the city and then experienced Burnsville so we had a giveaway Buck Hill donated a snowboard and then we put together some of our branded items and Buck Hill led the giveaway they encouraged friends to in order to participate in the giveaway they had to tag like two or three friends and then I think it was share oh no they had to tag hashtag you belong in Beeville and follow experience Burnsville and so experience Burnsville saw an uptick and I think was 350 new followers on their site which is great for some cross promotion there and some increase in social media activity exposure really so that was that was kind of cool joint promotion or the Black Diamond bar and just that whole changeover that's going over there in the summer series sounds like it's a big success and are we looking into more of that too attached to this death City destination and what are we looking to since it's a success we're looking to expand I know there's some turbulence with the residents nearby and stuff like that but it sounds like Buck Hill is really motivated to get behind this regional destination those would be largely profitable for those so what are we doing to work with Emmer so this will be the third year that they do their concert series the first year was in kind of an interim trial and the second year the City Council approved them to have outdoor concerts and so this year they can have outdoor concerts as long they have to meet certain criteria like it can't go on past like 11 or 12 a.m. 11:00 p.m. 12 a.m. but there they're allowed to have these concerts anytime that we can promote and share anytime we have that opportunity without getting into we can't sure I guess every business just because if someone's having like a sale for 10% off clothing at at their place of business it kind of gets a little conflict of interest I would say but if it's a regional activity something that highlights Burnsville as a city as well I think we can we can work on doing some joint larger promotion again if it gets at one of our goals if it's a larger kind of City Connection if we can make that connection I think we can I think we can do it I guess what I'm asking - is are we looking to relax some of the standards though some of the standards that we set on them like the timelines or I don't know what else I haven't looked at heard what what else the restrictions will be set on them that we cut the compromises that came to with the city to set up their summer series but are we looking to revisit some of those restrictions and maybe remove or loosen some of them so they can have more free will to do their total vision of what they want their summer series I'm not aware that they want to do anything different from what they have been approval for yet I we asking them do you want more do you want to do more of this so we as a staff do I mean I talked with the owner often and we have a great relationship as a city with the the ownership so the that line of communication is open if they wanted to request any changes I think that's something that we could revisit and they know that they have that opportunity as well like I said we have a really good working relationship with them as you know we did with this promotion they were happy to donate items it's it's great to be able to pick up the phone and talk with the owner and and they're very well connected with the community they're very giving to the community and like I said we've got it we have a great relationship with them so we worked Jamie worked on our food truck story map with our consultant to get that up and running so you may be may or may not be aware I don't think this much of the economic development commission but a change went to City Council and we've relaxed our food truck mobile food vendor requirements and so to highlight that and to highlight those new regulations which are relaxed regulations and really kind of a removal of a lot of regulations we put together what's called a story map so it's a visual way of explaining a technical ordinance so it puts it in in plain language and more visual aspects so I encourage you to take a look at that we as a city are kind of leaning more towards how can we be less technical and wordy and how can we make things engaging and easy to understand so that that's a great example work that Jamie worked on be are any business retention and expansion so this is something that Jamie's overseen in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce they're going to be doing individual business visits the goal of I believe it's 24 per year that aligned with grow Minnesota and so she's spearheading that with Jennifer harmony NAT the chamber some of that partnership opportunity activity as well as completing a business visits with our ethnically and racially diverse businesses within the community and it has this fun opportunity that will unveil soon leading up into International Festival we hope to have a that hasn't been fully formed but maybe some sort of passport opportunity where people are encouraged to go to a different ethnic and and diverse businesses restaurants visit them and somehow get some sort of maybe it's a prize or a gift card or something if they're if they visit X amount per within this time frame so we're still working out the details of that but a way to maybe have some interaction with businesses that we traditionally haven't in the past and then we have a UB long-hair web page dedicated to this brand maybe along here and we've been working on some digital marketing and it's called geofencing so one of the things that we did was at the home and garden show that was in Minneapolis if you're on your phone and in the background on your phone if you have location services if you don't turn that off you can have advertisers essentially the advertisements pop up on your phone when you're on these different like social media apps for example or news sources and Burnsville had media where if you fall within a certain demographic you would go to our it would direct you to our web page so you can learn more about Burnsville and then maybe it's somebody that lives in a different state or an Oakland County that's visiting the home show and they want to know more about Burnsville maybe they're thinking about moving and and so they you know click on it and learn more so we have some some data on that and and it's kind of a just a new way of marketing then your your traditional so are we asking me to Boehner share out anybody sites or haps um good question I'll have to follow up with you on that some of the stuff I leave term experts [Laughter] [Music] that's all I have on strategic plan update we hope to bring these to you at your future meetings and and Curtis and for any questions well thank you it's fun to see some of these things that were talked about at the beginning of last year and you know get to see them take shape a little bit you belong here lettering in the branding I think is done well I've seen social media posts out there the the large letters are very popular on the Instagram and such and it's it's it's fun to see that so good job on that hey thanks for yeah there's no action item on this one is this an update so we'll move on to our last item here update so I'll turn it over to the city staff Jamie Regina any updates there if Dan you want to go into your question that you're there oh yeah bring up I had a question we've brought this particular property up multiple times I'm looking for some clarity in terms of where it's at the River Center right on cliff and 13 it's a blighted property - one of the first malls of Burnsville and it's mostly vacant there's a three or four different tenants and I wanted to see what she knows about on the negotiations with them and how that's proceeding or if there's any conversation or what the nature of the conversations have been and what the hangouts are I'll answer that so we have over the past probably two years I would say since the elf funding has been available through Dakota County we have been on multiple occasions from a staff standpoint we've approached the property owner to purchase the property they are not interested and the purchase price that we had offered there have been multiple developers with interest as recent as within the past month that have approached the property owner so far negotiations as far as I understand aren't moving forward things can change the site itself it's from a city standpoint I don't know if it's from a state law standpoint I don't know if it is considered blighted under kind of like criteria that one would go through it's from a from a city standpoint it it doesn't have any active code enforcement violations it's I mean I've driven around the property myself it there's no broken windows there's no well right now there's no tall weeds but there's it it it's still I guess functioning maybe not at the level as some community members would like to see it functioned as but it is owned by a private property owner we don't have control of the property we've tried but we don't have any tools to condemn the property to to take the property it's it Pena's taxes he's up keeping his building and it's what in your opinion is is his unwillingness to sell or what what does he have a master plan is he going to roll something out is he got other ideas I don't know I don't know is there rules about lights I've driven by there many times but at night when the lights are off but Jr's is open there's cars there but the parking lot lights are off is there rules that they have to have lighting at night um I mean that's something that we can take a closer look at from a code enforcement standpoint if you if someone wanted to make a formal complaint and have staff look at that they would have to do that but I I know we have minimum standards I don't know if we have requirements for lighting so for example lighting can't spill onto neighboring properties and glare into people's windows but as far as off the top of my head I don't know if they have to have a minimum requirement no it's highway 13 and it's right in the edge of Burnsville I think that America across the street is had one thing um I've been watching the building that they're building on the 35w and 13mm and every time I go by there and I see all of the different outside of it I I reminded that Jeff really pushed to not have a big solid cement building there and it looks really good and I'm glad that you did that no thank you it's um it really is a gateway if you come from the right direction it's definitely a gateway spot I would have liked have seen even a nicer building I appreciate it oh that's how big it was going to be I appreciate all the people all at the City Council level and Planning Commission who pushed to try to get that improve over to the level it is improved so when you think it's basically an industrial building it looks pretty good yeah alright with that there's no other items to come before us tonight so looking for a motion to adjourn so moved second Bush all in favor say aye I say nay motion carries thanks for tuning in tonight Thank You chair