This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context of the Lakeville City Council meeting and the officials provided. [0:02] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll move on to item number two, citizens comments. An opportunity for folks to address council for up to three minutes. typically reserve a time for issues and items that are not on. [0:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay, moving on. Um, our first item is item A. Oh, are you here Jill? I was saying uh citizens comments for items not on the agenda. [0:49] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. Um Okay, moving on. Uh item A, sketch plan review for Warwick property. I believe Miss Goodroad will tee this up for us. [0:55] **Community Development Director Tina Goodroad**: You may members of the council. Um staff received a sketch plan application from North Companies. Um we got Jeff Cook here along with his consultant Josh McKini um for the 25 acre property formerly part of the Warwick estate which is south of Kenwood Trail and east of Ipava. The property is currently under contract and as a sketch plan we are just seeking some preliminary information and feedback. Um we share it with the planning commission. Most of the time um sketch plans are only reviewed by staff but we shared it with the planning commission and then back in front of you. So this is not considered a formal application. They haven't submitted a preliminary plat or any type of actual formal application um yet. The site is currently split, guided, and zoned, meaning the 25 acres has two land use classifications with two corresponding um and similar zoning classifications. [2:00] **Tina Goodroad**: One of those on the west portion is OP or office park. In office park, the only other location for office park is adjacent to the industrial park. And OP zoning has been changed over time and is now very similar to the I1 or light industrial zoning designation. As such, it allows manufacturing, warehouse, distribution, those types of leases up to six stories. So that's currently what half the zoning district currently allows. The other half of that property is or a little over half is C3 general commercial allowing for just that a wide range of commercial uses um due to site constraints and we talked about this back in February with limited visibility with the rail cars restricted access points into the site lack of good traffic circulation um in future uh resulting in what we feel the future sure development of an entirely commercial site would be challenging. So if you recall the applicant and he'll share that plan um submitted an initial concept plan to the council that was for all residential. It included a multifamily building as well as town homes up to 365 units in total with a much higher density than was being proposed today. [3:25] **Tina Goodroad**: The applicant has revised that plan after hearing um really what the council was looking towards and the direction at that time was preserving as much commercial as feasible understanding there are site constraints and then also looking for retail uses that would support um that park. So, they have responded and I'll allow Jeff to do a deeper dive into the plan. Um, but they did revise it um meeting those um requests and then they have trimmed down the multifamily to market retail homes um with a much less dense type of development. The planning commission did have a conversation at their work session last week. They um I'm just going to share kind of a summary of their comments. They agree the OP or office park zoning is not a correct land use and zoning um or it um understanding all the different uses that would be allowed. Acknowledge that development of all nonresidential so either all commercial or the combination as it is today is really not feasible due to the access site constraints. They like the entertainment and retail additions that this plan offers. um they agree it needs additional traffic and parking analysis and they did like the medium density type of proposed housing as it brings another type of housing option to our housing stock. So I'm going to turn it over to Jeff. Hopefully the mouse works over there and he has a presentation for you. [5:00] **Jeff Cook (Developer, North Companies)**: So again for those who entered my name is Jeff Cook. I'm one of the North Companies. Uh we're a company based in Twin Cities here. Uh been in real estate development for right around 15 years. Um and excited to kind of talk through this with you. Um so again, what we have today is just kind of a site concept approval. So uh this is the site that we're talking about. Uh the Warwick site. Um it's 25 acres currently used as agricultural. So, it's tax assessed as such. So, it's uh impact to the city of $1,700 in taxes. Future land use, as Tina mentioned, 9.94 acres is zoned for commercial and 15.96 is zoned for office park. Um so our our proposal actually gives you slightly more commercial um and instead of the office park use which planning commission agreed was not the highest and best use we're proposing 15.67 acres of medium density residential. [6:15] **Jeff Cook**: Um as Tina mentioned this is the first uh site plan that many of you that worked here in February saw. Um it was a more dense product. So, we had a four-story multi-family building um right here that was approximately 200 units. Um there was 165 town homes and then there's a daycare/strip retail type use in the northwest corner here. So preliminary feedback we got was most of you were opposed to the high density residential the apartment building because of the height um four stories u right next to park and some of the the single family residential um we did hear a lot of your feedback the public's feedback specifically being more experiential retail um one of you actually mentioned the pickle ball court concept brewery um ancillary are uses that are supportive of the Antlers park and so we took that to heart and basically eliminated the entire apartment building. Um so it's a lot less dense in terms of residential component. So we took it from 365 uh units down to 165 town home units um with the centralized clubhouse here. [7:41] **Jeff Cook**: Obviously, not a ton of change to the the medium density residential. The the main change, as Tina mentioned, was this kind of mixed use, entertainment, experiential detail piece that we're talking about here. Um so, the site in general is overparked. Um across all all these different work sessions, we've heard traffic is a concern uh specifically with Antlers Park. Um, and that is, you know, attributive to the success of the the park that the public really loves it. Um, you know, I think one thing to keep in mind is that, uh, that traffic is usually 3 months to four months out of the year. So, call it a quarter of the year there's traffic concerns. The other three quarters of the year, um, there's not not as much traffic. [8:38] **Jeff Cook**: Um, so this is this is kind of again the current land use um showing kind of what what was proposed in the 2040 comp plan that the city of Lakeville created um and what we're proposing in terms of commercial location and medium density. So the one thing to note here is that we slipped this red component up to the the north side because it's a much better traffic flow. Uh there's a traffic signal here as well from that perspective. Um so this just kind of shows you why we we change it. Just kind of shows the like ease of access to the site. Down here you see there's a lot more turns. Um and you know not a signalized intersection right here. This is the commercial component. Um so this is the what we mainly revised with our last plan. So, building A is kind of that experiential retail kind of pickle ball type use. Building B is is more kind of strip retail along with a restaurant um user. We do have an active restaurant user and a user for building A that we've been talking to at length. [9:51] **Jeff Cook**: Um but obviously we don't have anything under contract with them. Um, the other thing to note is that there's a centralized plaza here, kind of a green space, turf space. The other piece is to, you know, potentially put some sort of a stage on here for live music to mainly kind of have the public engage in enjoy these open space here. Here's some of the designs. um kind of goes with the the Scandinavian architecture that is prevalent in uh my designs um but also kind of mimics the Antlers Park design and concept, the use of some of the whites and blacks and natural woods. Here just some visiting images that we pulled from various locations just kind of showing how that could look or the public could interact with it um as a nice benefit kind of again driving that experiential retail kind of piece. [11:00] **Jeff Cook**: Um here's some of the the concept images. This is the project uh that that is completed up in Maple Grove, Minnesota. So, this community is 28 town homes. Just kind of shows how it's laid out. We have a lot of nice finishes. It's not, you know, builder grade. It's nicer quality materials. Um, a nice pool pickle ball court playground turf. So, a lot of amenities. There's a gym. There's a golf simulator. Um, you know, really, as Tina mentioned, we're seeing this kind of use as a as a diversifier to your housing stock. So, City of Lakeville had a housing study done in 2023. And one of the prevalent issues is or one of the highlights that they suggested, Maxfield suggested was the build to rent concept being a nice diversifier for the community, providing a a different housing option that isn't currently available to the residents of Lakeville being a rental product that um you know the cost of home ownership right now is actually a lot more than what it is to rent. Um, and we're seeing a price differential of $500 to $1,000 per month as a benefit to uh Lakeville residents to have a different type of housing option. [12:24] **Jeff Cook**: Here's some of the interior finishes of what the product look like um in terms of the town home. some nice interior finishes um that you can see and kind of a standard home too um yeah just a a quick snapshot as Tina mentioned and I mentioned a little bit earlier traffic has been a concern um from planning commission as well as a lot of the residents understandably um we did initially reach out to TC2 who's a traffic consultant they haven't obviously done a full traffic study that would be something we do as part of the full application. Uh they did run a couple scenarios. I'm looking at current state what office park um and commercial daily trips um generator would be. Um and it's anywhere from 11 to 31% more traffic if we just developed the the product as you see in the 2040 comp plan um versus our residential component. It would drive less traffic. And so obviously you guys would see a lot more detail to that. Um but from a high level we've asked our consultants and and that's what they're telling us is that with your product it's anywhere from 11 to 31% less traffic per day than you know if we just developed it as a City of Lakeville. [13:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So that's under the current zoning. It might not be changed. Okay. I went back. Yeah. I don't know if we open up for public comments. [14:06] **Jeff Cook**: No problem. Thank you. [14:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. Um, thank you for for that. A couple things I want to note just about traffic. I think um just for reference, if you look at Ipava already, it's a disaster. um as is 202nd and that little frontage road by Speedway. So I and that's not seasonal. It's morning and afternoon for school traffic and coming home. I wouldn't say that it's that's year round. So just as a as an aside, so this area already has a lot of traffic pressures. Um which is why we have a lot of conversations with the county about how we we work on on County Road 50. Um, you know, my perspective, I think, you know, rethinking the commercial makes a lot of sense. I don't I know we don't really want to get into the specifics today. I don't think it's got enough parking stalls. If you think about if you really are going to make it a destination place, the amount of overflow parking is already having to deal with it in the neighborhood in Lakeview Elementary. And if it's anything like music venue that Casperson draws, it's just too many. It's just it's just never going to work. Um then the other thing I just want to share is my opinion on the amount of units here has not changed since we emailed back in July. So this is I mean to me this part of the city can't support 165 units. So that's that's why that people ask a question for us. Could you explain to us the exception parcel? Is that that that's not under contract? [15:52] **Jeff Cook**: Correct. Correct. Yeah. So, good clarification. So, uh Tim Milan owns this parcel. I have spoken with him. Um his daughter currently lives in this house. Um she's looking for purchasing option. Um so, he's we've discussed he's open to selling, but his daughter's not really. [16:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah John. [16:21] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Um, so I like the mix. Um, but I have to agree with the traffic stuff. Um, and the other thing is is that I just get a real sense that that commercial area. I think that's good use. I think it's appropriate, especially to be a mix, but I just have a sense that that's going to turn into overflow parking. Um, so I think that really needs to be thought about in terms of size and parking and no, I don't think anybody's going to treat that as just its own thing. Anyway, going to go there. I think you're going to see some vice versa. Um, I support housing on this. I you know in my mind the problem is this is a difficult area because of the railroad tracks because you have really two points of access that are really harmed but I think 160 something units is high. I kind of envisioned housing along 202nd and housing along 50. Um and then you know you have a clubhouse there and stuff but maybe more green space maybe more parking. Um, so I I've always said I think the housing we have housing here along 202nd and 50. Um, the middle is is where there's a lot, but I just the other piece is I'd really be interested in seeing a traffic study because Ipava is um and 202nd are they're at a burden now. So I I like the concept. I like the design. I like especially with the uh the community area. I just really get hung up on the traffic piece and I just think there's a reality that a lot of I think commercial area could end up being... [18:15] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Uh I won't argue with what's previously been said. I think we're in the right direction with the retail piece here. Um but you know like that feels like it's still too dense. I mean labs looking at the elevations of the Maple Grove properties recently build a similar product. Um part of why the apartment complex was was not ideal was the elevation and density and this just feels like apartments in a different style. Um, so I guess that that would be my my feedback to at least the three-story uh units. I know it would be amazing there was two story and three story ones. Um, but the the tall peaks on a three-story uh condo, you know, pretty much look like an apartment from the surrounding neighborhood. [19:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah Dan. [19:25] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: And I'm probably on far end of the spectrum about this. I'm not convinced that that residential should go here. Um I had persistent concerns about taking commercial land and and putting housing there, which is what we've done. And I think we're going to have a long-term problem of having the services to support the population uh here. Um I do I do agree however with the planning commission's observation on the OP designation. I think that's probably outdated and kind of a was a placeholder. Um you know the I'm I'm also just not convinced on the commercial argument that um I mean this is really this property's been in play for what a couple months now just a few months even though everybody's looked at it for generations going to go there. So I I'm I'm not in the place where I would move out. So that's that's kind of what I had. [20:16] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Any other comments? Okay, with all that in mind and we're all here. This is going to be a very long process as we continue to talk about the property. I'm happy to now open it up to public comments. Please come up to the podium and state your name and address. [20:41] **Scott Newman (Public)**: Scott Newman and I live on the south side of Lake Marion. Um, do the the 165 units that are proposed here, what is the driveway space if there's only one guest stall there? Okay, if there's two, but there's still only 30 additional parking spots in the whole on that original drawing. So, I don't think that's even enough to accommodate people that live there. If they have people and guests, where are they going to park? Out on the street. Uh, it... [21:10] **Jeff Cook**: says 669 stalls is what it says. [21:15] **Scott Newman**: Okay. But the additional ones that were blank for people to come in and just park. I thought there was... [21:20] **Jeff Cook**: 330 visitor. Yeah, these right here and right here. I'm just looking at the number on the map. [21:23] **Scott Newman**: All right. Um there you guys already mentioned there's only three exits out. Um 202nd and Ipava is such a nightmare already on the weekends. You actually have to go south in order to go north. You got to turn around. Um, Antlers Park that goes out into the uh, turnaround. That's going to be a very complex area. Um, one of the things about Ipava and 50 with the daycare. Okay. The railroad track already goes across up there. Is there not a possibility of putting a road out to here and have it going east only? Then people want to go north... [22:12] **City Engineer Zach Johnson**: The city can't control access on the county road. That's the challenge. [22:15] **Scott Newman**: I mean, that would be a solution. Um the I think the entertainment area and the daycare and that I think those are going to become Hey, I don't want to walk all the way from the school. Let's go park in the daycare lot cuz it's right across the street from the park. So, let's just park there and walk across. And I think anything you put over there is going to wind up having people park there just because they don't want to walk all the way from the school. Um um and I I think I guess in my view that I think they should put more parking there for Antlers Park so that they can use it and then try to find places or businesses like maybe a bowling alley. Uh um other things that relate to entertainment that people can use that parking space for that. A restaurant is a good idea. I think it's more of a commercial type plot than a residential type plot. That's just my opinion. [23:25] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: others. I guess maybe just for efficiency if you do want to speak maybe just line up at this corner here and then we'll just kind of take care. [23:45] **Public Speaker (Female)**: 9715 20th Street West. You may recall that many of us were in the same room on February 24th, 2025. We were here to discuss this very same Warwick outlot F. I would like to refer you back to the minutes from that meeting under section B, third paragraph, which states, "Good Road and McKenna gave a presentation regarding potential development on a 25 acre lot for sale by Antlers Park. Good road emphasized that nothing had been presented to the city and everything being presented tonight is what a proposal could look like." Actually, in listening to the audio today from the work session, and I am paraphrasing here, Mr. McKenna stated that he basically just made it up. He had nothing to go from. It was just his ideas. Ms. Goodroad stated that unlike the 210th property which had a developer or potential buyer, she knew this property would be up for sale and would experience similar zoning requests. So she just thought it was a good idea to include it. [25:02] It seems amazing that that almost same proposal minus the apartment building but adding a focal retail space is before us and the remaining 165 market rate two and three-story town homes are almost unchanged now. I'd like to refer to the memorandum to the planning commission from Tina Goodroad dated September 10th, 2025, sketch plan review, paragraph 3. In February, the applicant presented an initial concept plan to the city council during a work session which included apartments and town homes. At that time, the council directed the applicant to preserve as much commercial area as feasible while recognizing the site limitations. The council also expressed support for retail uses that would complement Antlers Park. So my first question of the night, were we being lied to in February or was the planning committee being lied to on September 10th? Was the city working with this applicant in February as the applicant's own filings indicate? [26:23] And did the city council know there was an applicant because you all seemed as surprised as we were. The only thing that's changed from that meeting to this is that outlot D, which is the property behind me, has been sold. That's medium density. Um, and all likelihood that is what was being built there. It's already possible we're adding 112 units to the area. The impact on Ipava and the park is substantial or you have to make a right turn to go left and your studies are useless because 31% increase over an entire day doesn't take into account time banks of when already it's impassible. My second question is what's the plan to fix the problem? We know that the traffic pattern is a problem. This particular parcel, which hasn't been up for sale very long, I'm encouraging you take your time, picture issues, seek out other ideas, other uses. The city has no timeline here. [27:55] We have over 3,000 I believe units currently either plotted or under um development. Um, take your time and don't be pushed into rezoning an issue that doesn't in an area that doesn't come. Wait for somebody that wants to put in low density. A developer will come. You haven't had to beg developers. You guys are in an inevitable position here of being the fastest growing city. Wait for the developer that wants to develop this land in the use that best suits it. In the meantime, fix the traffic problems. Thank you. [28:56] **Kim Nubbie (Public)**: Um I'm Kim Nubbie. I live at um at the four-way stop by Antlers. Um I wasn't planning on talking or anything, but I agree with everything that's been said. And another concern that no one has brought up on 202nd Street West since I live right on that street is there's no sidewalks. Um potentially for a developer, people are walking in the field. People are walking or biking just on that tiny gravel and it's very unsafe. And then we see through Ipava and 202nd like emergency vehicles just fly. So that's something to think about for the future with more with it being developed than just having like a wider, you know, you're not touching it at all. It's very unsafe. I'm surprised there's not been any accidents. It's scary watching them fly through. So just something else. Thank you. [30:01] **Patty McDonald (Public)**: Patty McDonald, I live on Lake Marion. Um, and then I have McDonald Eye Care on 50. So, I I have questions because I've sat for many planning sessions. What do we envision Lakeville to be like in the next 10 years? I think I've done three of them. What's the age demographic that you guys see having that need for those units? [30:25] **Jeff Cook**: I'd say the primary need right now is the barbell being, you know, both young families with kids and 55 plus that are looking to downsize out of their 4,000sqft house that want to live in a maintenance-free community. [30:45] **Patty McDonald**: 55 and plus isn't going to want two and three stories. They aren't. It's not. And that was a demographic that on the last time or two times ago that we felt we needed more housing that would fit that niche because what is your rent going to go for? What is your market study right now that your investors said this looks good? [31:11] **Jeff Cook**: I like the two stories. Obviously, the three stories is a lot. So, I I'm totally with you there, but um 55 plus are pretty active still. Um and they're able to they like the benefit of the the two-story product. Um, specifically to your question on rental price, it's 2,600 for the two beds and around 3,000 for three beds, which again is if you put that into I know it sounds like a lot, but if you put it into a 30-year amortization schedule and and look at the median household value in the City of Lakeville, it's anywhere from $500 to $1,500 cheaper per month to rent here than to buy right now in today's environment. [32:00] **Patty McDonald**: I I just am concerned about the land use or the lack of green space. That was one of the things that was disheartening when we found when I looked the first time at Antlers and went the grass is all gone. To me, there's not much green space and I'm not going to support high density or and medium density. To me, this is high. So, [32:30] **Rick Ringisen (Public)**: My name is Rick Ringisen. I live at 20085 Italy Avenue on the first house north of Antlers Park. Um, I was one of the last employees when Antlers Park was a private industry and hosted company picnics and things like that. Actually met my wife there. So, um, I've watched the park. My family's owned the property since the 40s. Um, so I'm very intimate with all of it. Uh, I know where George was at. But for me, it's not just about this piece of land. It's about this land over here that's going to be developed that's already in touch. So, we're talking bodies and people that are going into here. And we have space across the Kenwood Trail, too, as well. We have a traffic circle, which is great. This is a four-way stop and it goes right into a neighborhood and it goes around the lake. And this is and then we we also have pedestrian pathway here too. Um kids come off the top of the hill and through that light. They're going pretty fast. Joe already talked about the fact that this has become a right turn only for us in at certain times of the day. [33:45] **Rick Ringisen**: In the morning when school's happening and and we're going and we don't have like an hour of school our I'm a district employee our our school in the morning we have staggered start times all morning long and the way our boundaries are set up everything south of Highway 50 and west of 35W goes to South so a lot of people from the north side of town have to get to the south. According to our director of transportation, this is the number two road in our community for bus traffic. All right? I mean, it's buses all day long going on here and and it's and it's really busy. In fact, if you go here, you'll find buses parked in here because that's a nice lot for them to sit in before between their runs to do those kind of things. So it it is super busy and um yes the park is busy in you know the 3 months in the summer and then the other nine months we're dealing with the school traffic and that that's a real thing. [35:07] **Rick Ringisen**: So if there was another way out of there you know like you're looking at this but you're going right into a business here. Now, on this end, you got trucks moving. And like I said with the people here, um, if you're going to put an exit here, you're going to have to make that right turn only. As people come, I can't I have a hard time taking a right-hand turn if the light is green because people come so fast and they're coming around the corner. It is a nice road, so they are moving at a pretty good speed. So, so that's really an issue. Um, to me this is high density. When you start looking at two and three stories, you're talking about kids and I see not a single bike path in here. And that's what we're best known for in our community. There should be a bike path through here so people can move and get this thing. And I don't know if you've had any experience with pedestrians at roundabouts. It's not a good mix. All right. It's it there there's everybody says roundabouts are safer not for pedestrians. Okay? Because if I'm going into a roundabout, I'm looking left and where's the pedestrian on the right. Okay? So, we got to slow that down. [36:00] **Rick Ringisen**: And if anybody's been around schools when kids are out, we have a large number of kids. Buses don't transport the majority of our kids anymore. Most of our kids are driven or they're driving themselves for those kind of things. So that's that's a problem. I look over here and I see the Milan property and if you know somebody must have talked to the Milans because if that was my property and you were having this meeting tonight I'd be here. How dare you draw a plan including my land on those type of things. I mean and it's a daycare. Oh it's a strip retail. That's better. I like that. All right. But it's still land that it's easier to make a plan when you have the whole the whole tract to do those kind of things. [37:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Wrap it up. [37:05] **Rick Ringisen**: Exactly. I just want you to know that I think the city should look into instead of looking at park fees, look into trading land for park fees here so that we can maybe get some green space in here. There's there's going to be kids and there's no place for kids to play other than the street. I mean, there's not a front yard. It's just parking. And there's only there's like 30 spots like Scott said. That's enough room for 16 or 17% of the people to have a visitor there. And you're right. I like what you said. Parking is going to go back and forth. People from the park are going to go over here and park and vice versa. They're going to have to do those things. And I'm very concerned about Antlers Park because Antlers Park is a jewel right now. It's beautiful. People use the park well. But if we start throwing 600, 700 people, 1,000 people, including over here, and these people are going to use it because they're going to see that as an attraction to live there, we are going to take what is really our our best park and turn it into a park that people aren't going to want to be there, right? Because it's too crowded. So, thank you. [38:11] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Um, okay. Any others? Again, I'm just I'm trying not to cut you off at three minutes, but I really like to keep it at three minutes. [38:29] **Peter Zeland (Public)**: Hi, Peter Zeland live at 12119 Lucerne Trail. Um just to on that on that piece of property. I think that piece of property, it'd be a good piece of property for the city to own and to have a nice community center there to go in conjunction with the park and you know that that that other property that they're talking about behind the Lawrencees there is already being just about ground broke there. But um to have a nice community center right there to accent town, you know, our downtown area, beautiful area with all the restaurants and stuff. Now, if we had a community center there for kids and whatnot, you know, whether it be uh an an ice skating rink, pickle ball courts, just anything in that order, you know, that property there would suit that, you know for a 1,000 and 2,000 people in and out of there in a day or something. Uh using ice rinks, pickle ball courts, stuff like that along with the traffic concerns that everybody's talking about. But um I don't like changing this to the residential. I think it should stay stay the the business and I think that the uh a community center would be perfect right there. [39:54] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I don't want to be glib, but if you find me $50 million, I'll build a community center. Let's work on it. Anybody else? Okay. [40:13] **Jim Stafford (Public)**: You already answered one of my questions. I wasn't sure if it was a rental name or Jim Stafford. Sorry, Southside Lake Marion. Um you answered my question. It's rental. I didn't realize that. Is there any reason that this can't be higher end single family homes instead? [40:35] **Jeff Cook**: Uh you can convince the land seller to lower the land price. [40:40] **Jim Stafford**: Well, I'm just asking for an alternative to everybody's concerns. You know, traffic, volume, high density, all that sort of stuff. [40:45] **Jeff Cook**: When it was raised to the planning commission, they they had mentioned it's not the right fit for single family homes. Um, you know, meaning since it's so high traffic on all the different roads. Um, I mean, lots around here are selling for I don't know what 150 200,000 somewhere in there. Um, and if these were higher end homes, it just seems like because of the lake and the attraction to the lake in that area of town, there's a lot of higher end homes around North High School and and South High School. Uh, just seems like economically it might work out to put higher end homes. Million-dollar homes are not a big deal these days. Put million-dollar homes in there and you probably have a third maybe or a quarter of the people that you're proposing. That's all. [41:54] **Bob Ericson (Public)**: Bob Ericson, 1908 Enale Drive. Mayor, Councilmembers, staff, thank you for this opportunity. Um I think most of the concerns have been expressed um not in a context of not in my backyard but more about uh the meaningful use of the property considering the challenges that the city council is well aware of regarding uh the transportation aspects. Rick, you're right. It's the number two route for school buses from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. every day for the entire district uses Ipava which is often times referred to as school road. [43:00] **Bob Ericson**: Um, some of the things that came to my attention was the and I had residents call me that talked to me, the Stoies, uh, the Rang Eisens, people that have lived here a long time who've adjusted to change, I think, appropriately, and who've uh, appreciated the challenges that have been shared with regard like to Antlers. To the mayor's credit, uh the restaurant that was expressed concerns about on this site have worked out quite well. So, and there was concerns about that at the beginning as well. Um I'd like to know what and um community development director could respond to this at the end here. Um what mix what's a mixed use PUD definition for this property? what's the the the multitude of uses that can occur under a mixed use PUD and would that be a precedent that could impact the land use on the property immediately north of 202nd Street um which is a concern of residents uh as you've heard this evening. [44:15] **Bob Ericson**: George Warwick told me 35 years ago that he believed uh and he wasn't in uh at that moment in history wasn't particularly excited about the uh Ipava being upgraded. U and we had some challenges including a special assessment that he didn't particularly appreciate. But he he had a vision for commercial office park and was active when the comprehensive plan was adopted. And if he were standing here today, of course, that development wouldn't occur because he'd continue to farm the property. [44:55] **Bob Ericson**: To me it's the first step in this process has to be the transportation challenge and the county has to be brought into this conversation and there has to be meaningful view of what to be what needs to be done as was demonstrated by Whites and the eye care demonstrated how you can effectively effectively make something work in the form of new ingress and egress which needs to happen on this property just like it happened effectively by the city staff and the city council planning commission when that was done and I think everybody would agree how well that's worked and something of that magnitude that focus can occur here as well but it has to go first not chasing an opportunity uh that is evolved from the estate of George Warwick. [45:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: We've we've gone about 15 minutes longer than we planned on this item. I'll give you 90 seconds. [45:50] **Scott Newman**: When you mention the railroad, what do you have to do to possibly put an exit going east? [46:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: It's not the railroad, it's the county. Maybe that's a solution, but to help on 202nd I would say I think we always have conversations. I think the bigger conversation with them has been to get in on Heritage and they've been very hesitant. [46:18] **Public Speaker (Jeff)**: Jeff, 19371 Jersey Avenue. Um somebody pointed out the property that's just south of Highway 50. There's also the north one across from Arena. That's going to be developed too and that's going to bring more traffic to that area. So that needs to be considered as well. Number two, we've added a ton of rental properties. The one that's going up in 35W in the corner by Target that's being developed right now. I don't know how many units that is, but that's a tremendous more amount of apartments as well as we approved the Aeros apartments up by Fleet Farm. So again, more apartment opportunities there for people to live in. And number three, um someone mentioned the estate. I know they're not going to get as much money, but it's not zoned for what they want to get money for. So yeah, they might get money from this party, and I, you know, I agree with what they want to do, but this is not the right spot for it. And if we just say, "Hey, sorry. It's is zoned this way." Eventually, they're going to find a buyer for that property the way it's currently zoned. We can't keep on rezoning stuff because somebody wants us to rezone stuff. That's it. [47:24] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Thank you. [47:32] **Scott Danielson (Public)**: Scott Danielson, 20347 Indiopat. Um, relatively new resident, been here 5 years. So, I appreciate all of you that have been here for 20, 30, and 40 years welcoming us into it. Um, this was kind of a destination spot for us. Jeez, getting emotional. Um, so I I can appreciate trying to find affordable housing and being diverse in housing needs. Um, I think we have plenty of like you just made the point, we have plenty of rental if it's needed. We have for the 55 plus I I still, you know, this doesn't cut it. I like I agree with the statements on that. Um, being in the station in life where I am, we have two school age kids and they're active. I drive by Ipava 20 times a day. So if you do a traffic study, 20 of them are me. Um they're in hockey. So I am at arenas all day long. [48:45] **Scott Danielson**: Um, so when it comes to that, I just think being in other towns with hockey tournaments, sport tournaments, sporting events, I think we should use this as a commercial avenue. It's close. It's right across the street from Ames. It's close enough to Heritage from a hockey parent that you could put something there for teams to go to. We have no place in town for tournament for tournament. I mean, you can go to Baldi's for a little bit. It's okay. But when you got 15, 20, 30 teams in town, there's no place for them to go to do anything. And bring outside money in. I know this is a tax thing. We all know cities function on taxes. Property tax is a huge part of that, but bring in money from Woodbury. Bring in money from Eden Prairie and Edina. Let's take their money instead of just milking the residents for it. Um, thank you. [49:41] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Appreciate it. Council, any other comments or questions? I think you got some feedback from us today. I don't doesn't sound like consensus to for the zoning and happy to have further conversation, but I think that's kind of where we're at. So, all right. With that, we'll move on to our next item. East Community Park survey results and preferred master plan concept. I'll turn over our Parks Director, Mr. Masiarchin. [50:30] **Parks & Recreation Director Joe Masiarchin**: You don't want to talk about green space? We're going to talk about green space. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Um I'm excited to share uh East Community Park uh the latest draft of the master plan for the development. Um so as a quick reminder, East Community Park is the last park project tied to the 2021 park bond referendum. Uh so this park is in design currently this year. Uh will be completed here uh or is scheduled for construction in 2026. Uh so the park was um went through a planning process with ISG and the consultants. Uh they developed three different master planning concepts uh based off of uh previous community feedback um from previous designs and that was tailored down to two ultimate designs which went out for public comment. [52:10] **Joe Masiarchin**: Those were available for public survey uh both through um signs that were located in the parks on the northeast side of town and then also through over a thousand postcards that went out to residents. Uh ISG did a presentation for our direct commission um and through that the design has been uh final to one concept um one preferred concept and kind of blending together the best pieces of those designs. So, the area that's outlined here is uh truly the park that we're talking about for East Community Park. As a quick reminder, we already have an existing access to East on the southern portion of the park uh where we've got parking lot, playground, uh and um the diamond. [53:05] **Joe Masiarchin**: over 200 uh comments were received on the park design um between the two concepts, concept A, concept B. um the the concepts were were kind of similar as far as layouts but in meeting with park commission ultimately the concept B is the one that uh is going to be moving forward or is recommended to go forward. Um reviewing some of the important components and this is where I would say we took really the best components from concept A and concept B and blended them together into this design. So that includes uh overlook in the park. there was a lot of importance placed on trails and connectivity. Um the four season restroom building um was an important concept as well and that is tied to the part of the development that we're doing with county. Um so we'll be receiving approximately $400,000 from the county towards the project to help fund that as part of the North Creek Greenway. Uh but aside from that, natural play, dog park areas, and then one of the other big components that was focused on was access to the water. [54:30] **Joe Masiarchin**: The concept that they were leaning towards really leaned a lot into um they called it heritage, but really leaning into kind of the farming aspect or farming um history of the property. And so leaning into that also uh tying in the Brandt farm and some of those ideas is really where this final plan came together. [54:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Joe, was there any conversation to at any point like to mimic Whitetail Woods a little bit with like camper cabins in this area? Is that like a little bit more than we want to fight off or chew or... [55:00] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah. So we uh one of the concepts and in fact one of the concepts that didn't go out was that community cabin thought process and what we were finding and we we noted it through um some of the public engagements that we did. Uh we also did a pop-up event at Panrog where we took feedback from the public. It is leaning a lot towards a Ritter Farm aspect. um and it was heading down the road of environmental learning and it was going down kind of that route and we've got Ritter kind in that that aspect. [55:25] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So that's where I think this plan makes sense. [55:27] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah. Um so you can see some of their inspiration pieces here. Uh the master plan itself um shifts parking um and access into the park uh into the uh south portion of this part of the property. Um, part of the reason why that was important through public feedback was to have this park function not as two separate facilities, but truly as one park and to increase access to the restrooms on the more active side of the facility where we've got the athletic deck and and those items. Um, we added then uh a large dog park area, so over two acres for that as well as the small dog park area. Again, based off of public feedback, where I would say this is potentially going to be different than what we have at uh Ritter Park is that it'll have more of the play structures. Some of the agility pieces, some of those uh dog playground type pieces. [56:51] **Joe Masiarchin**: the other area then down here is so area 7 would be Lakeville's first community gardens. Uh which we're excited about. We designed this in a way in which uh we're trying to minimize maintenance while maximizing access for the public to be able to have garden plots. The proposal is for 30 plots at this point. It's designed so that it could be doubled. We could potentially have 60 if it's uh if there's a need down the road. Uh and again, I was referencing that connectivity to have the park function kind of as as one cohesive part. So, two boardwalks are proposed to connect uh to the diamond. Uh so one's the diamond and then one by the playground area again increasing access to the four season restrooms. And then a new playground area is proposed right around 2,000 square ft. That's about half the size of what a standard playground would be for us. adding that feature on both sides of the creek made a lot of sense. [58:15] **Joe Masiarchin**: one of the other components I wanted to highlight aside from the shelter is a larger plaza area. So a larger space for gatherings as well as tiered seating um step seating that is going to help to create a really nice view of the lake. Uh so that was taken from concept A. Before I move on, outlook proposed for the northeast portion. So there's a nice null on top of the hill where environmental services have been doing some work. So an outlook area there with some seating. And then there's uh three proposed fishing areas and a paddle launch. [59:13] **Joe Masiarchin**: examples some of the inspiration that they were pulling from. So um play areas, play structures, the seating areas, an example of the community garden. So raised bed community garden is what we're looking at with that. We're also going to be exploring um higher raised beds for accessibility needs. Um, so a combination of both that tiered seating that I was referencing towards the lake. the thought process was this would be a great space for, for example, puppet wagon. [1:00:00] **Joe Masiarchin**: The water amenities or water access. kayak launch um would be this is an example of that. And then a shade structure and fishing area is what we're looking at for some of those other improvements which I think would make a really nice gathering spot if you're walking the trail in the day sunset. Great spot to hang out. Otherwise, there's not a lot of shade on some areas of that lake. So, having shade structure, I think will work in really well and add something a little bit different than what we've got in other locations. um the play structures that I was referencing, some of those farm food structures, this leans more into that concept. So, not a traditional playground, um but leaning into animal structures and those types of things was really the concept. [1:00:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: What's the size comparison to uh the Ritter Farm Dog Park? [1:00:50] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yep. So, Ritter Farm Dog Park is right around 7 acres total. Um, it's around an acre and a half of that is small dog. The rest is large dog. So, smaller, but this is a this is a generous size dog park. Bigger than we originally proposed. That is correct. Yep. Based off the feedback. Uh, beyond that I can stand for any questions. [1:01:32] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Council questions the community garden work. [1:01:35] **Joe Masiarchin**: Sure. Uh so there's a couple different ways community gardens can work. Um this is intended well so in the same way that we would release uh reservations for our kayaks which we do in February. Uh so kayak launches we would do the same thing with community garden. Uh the difference with this versus what we do with kayaks, you get essentially first rights of refusal. People tend to do different types of soil amenities for their plots. So, if you had it last year and you've amended your soil specifically, we're going to give you first crack at having access to that. Beyond that, it opens back up to the public. Uh, but from staff, it would require um little maintenance on the front end seasonally. Um, but we would help with getting it uh cleaned up at the end of season. [1:02:45] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I just I love the design. The dog park I think is good especially considering... I saw the plaza and it's just a word of encouragement. The first thing I saw when I looked at that was skateboarders. That's the very first thing I thought so but I I know that there are designs and materials that you can use that will limit the ability. I just wanted to make sure that we consider that. [1:03:15] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: Do you do rental? [1:03:25] **Joe Masiarchin**: We don't rent canoes. We rent the launches... We rent the space on the racks. Right. We do that. We will do that here. Yep. Yep. So this would be a new site. We typically with the amount of available kayak storage locations we have, they're typically rented within the first day or two that we release them. They're gone incredibly fast. [1:04:00] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: So, would could you technically have a paddle board? Could you have a paddle board there if you wanted that instead? Like, does it matter? [1:04:05] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah. So, you could with the way that this is being designed, you could bring in and we see that at Antlers, for example, where people will bring in their own kayak. Um, so you could do you could paddle board here then. Yes. Um, East is not designed for any uh motor, not even trolling motor. [1:04:30] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: So, is East going for big goldfish? [1:04:35] **Joe Masiarchin**: Big goldfish. Uh, East is a lake that environmental is doing a lot of work on to eliminate carp and goldfish. Um, there are there are valuable fish in the lake, especially on that northern portion where it's deeper. [1:04:50] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: Is there any resources like long-term thinking that we could to make it swimmable or is it just not everything? [1:04:55] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah, East is really not designed as a swimmable lake partly because it's it takes a lot of water coming from the neighborhoods. Um the depth is part of that and it wasn't it's not a historic, you know, it's man-made lake. [1:05:06] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: what does the shoreline look like and is thinking about changing that viewpoint at all from where it is right now? [1:05:15] **Joe Masiarchin**: Yeah, so the area that's actually outlined in orange um is an area that is being designated for shoreline restoration um which would help to install native plants um but also above and beyond that will help to increase the use of the lake. Uh that's something that in our talks with Dakota County they're very interested in because of the the greenway connection and something we talked to environmental about as well. [1:05:45] **Joe Masiarchin**: The intention though, part of the reason why the shelter was positioned on the property in this way is to get that kind of scenic view of the lake. So, [1:06:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: uh I like the concept. I think it's great. I think it really adds a lot of different amenities we don't have in other places. The one thing I don't really have an answer, but just for you to think about, we were interviewing some students tonight for youth commission. One of them goes to Farmington. Just think about how we try to continually like make the people who go to Farmington schools feel very included in the city. Um, I'm just throwing that out. So maybe the ultimate frisbee team at Farmington wants to play in the open line or something like that. [1:06:47] **Joe Masiarchin**: Great. Thanks, Jeff. It's great. Looking forward to what what's the timeline? Uh, we'll take this back, tweak a couple of things. Our intention is to get the master plan to 100% by December. Uh, go out to the January, February, um, spring-ish construction timeline. Um but '26 would be start of construction. So [1:07:16] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: okay and then opening '27. Very good. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. All right. Let's move on to Fire Department ITM solution spec contain. I know you're this. I'll tee it up, Mayor. [1:07:45] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer**: Okay. Uh and then I'm gonna turn it over to Reid, our Fire Inspector. So, uh we brought this forward to the public safety committee back in July. Uh what the ITM is, and he'll go into more detail. It's just a self-reporting uh tool that we can use that integrates into our current records management system. By code, right now, any business that has fire protection in their building has to have that completed annually depending on the system. Um, but they don't, it's not self-reporting. So, it's just the company doing that or the business doing that and then they have a tag on their systems saying yes inspected. We necessarily don't visit every building every year. [1:08:25] **Fire Inspector**: uh so the big pitfall right now is that there's no requirement for those contractors to do annual inspection to submit their reports to us. They're only required to submit them by code to the building owner. And those reports include deficiencies, stuff that doesn't meet code currently, and stuff that necessarily wouldn't red tag the system, but puts a system at risk for non-compliance down the road. So when we go into a business, say in every third-year business, and I say it was due in July, didn't get inspected, I reach out to the building owner. I say, "Hey, you know, you're you're behind 3 months, whatever on your annual inspection for your sprinkler system." They're like, "Oh, yeah, they did it. I'll get you the report." So, we set up our reinspections for 30 days. Go back out there 30 days later. I haven't received anything. Call them again. Hey, oh yeah, they did it. They were supposed to email it to you. Okay. Well, they didn't email it to me. So, we start the cycle. [1:10:00] **Fire Inspector**: This closes the loop on everything and gives us a opportunity to get every inspection report submitted to the department for review, for approval, including a list of deficiencies. So, we know our buildings that are falling behind on 5-year hydro tests and 10-year hydro tests and FDC tests. Uh anyways, in August of last year, I started researching vendors that offer this service. The biggest one is Bryer. They compliance engine is the one that they put out. Uh Liv is one that spun off from people that left Bryer to do their own thing. Uh, and then the third solution was through FirstDue, who is a first party RMS provider. They do our record management for fire calls, everything else. Um, they saw this as an opportunity to bring it in-house, stop leaving money out to a third party to do the same thing that they can do and integrate with their system. [1:11:15] **Fire Inspector**: Uh anyways, we went through demos and trials with all three of them. Uh FirstDue new to the ITM realm but they brought people in from both LIV and Bryer to help them develop the backend. Uh the huge benefit for us is it directly integrates that ITM reporting, deficiency reporting, contact updates, everything directly into our pre-plans. So um we're getting that live feed of information. So when a contractor goes in to enter a annual report and they've got a new building owner, a new building owner contact and they put it in the system, it'll automatically bring that into our pre-plans so that when we go out on a 3 a.m. fire alarm call and we're looking at a keyholder sheet that hasn't been updated in 3 years we have live updates. [1:12:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: How do the three compare from a cost? [1:12:40] **Fire Inspector**: Uh so internally there's no cost to the departments. Uh Bryer is the most expensive outwardly to the contractor. So, the way these are funded is the contractors that do the inspections have to pay to submit their reports. They pay $5 for extinguishers. They pay $10 for alarms. FirstDue charge you for the submission. So if I go out to a business as say Summit and I do the fire alarm, I do the sprinklers and I do the extinguishers and I do a kitchen hood because I do all of them, I only pay for that visit to be submitted as a piece. [1:13:56] **Mike Meyer**: And we're not necessarily looking for guidance on a specific vendor tonight. Um, we're more just looking at is this a concept that you're okay with because it would be a cost to the businesses. [1:14:11] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: And now that was my question because it would require an ordinance change to implement that cost. [1:14:20] **Fire Inspector**: Uh the ordinance change is just to ensure that the vendors working in the city know that they're bound by ordinance to submit through our portal. Currently there's no requirement at the state or municipal level for them to submit. [1:14:30] **Councilmember John Bermel**: My only concern on I I mean I think it makes sense because I think at the end of the day the businesses are going to want to have that peace of mind but I get nervous if we don't control the fee. We go down this road and then all of a sudden three five seven years from now the contractors are ton for. Do we have recourse to reel that back in? [1:14:50] **Fire Inspector**: and we're talking about $25 is like the submission fee there. It's not hundreds of dollars for their submission. So when you said like by the device, I'm thinking like, oh, Amazon might have to pay... No, no. So if I if I go out to Amazon and I do their 600 extinguishers, their sprinkler system, their pump, everything I may have a submission cost of $45. Got it. [1:15:35] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I mean public safety committee review this was a good idea to move forward especially with the amount of businesses we have having compliance and then the pre-planning piece was a huge part for me having access to that information that's huge for our firefighters. So the keyholder information alone, that's huge. [1:16:10] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Does this software help us at all with when we do building mapping by having better context? I'm just wondering if there's like an added benefit because we've done a critical incident mapping in schools for instance for doing that for other buildings. [1:16:25] **Fire Inspector**: Not necessarily the mapping piece. It just gives us a context. [1:17:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. So, the next step would be that we bring this forward as a draft piece of ordinance and then bring that to council for approval. Sounds good. Thanks everybody. Thank you. [1:17:30] **Assistant City Administrator Allyn Kuennen**: Uh, Mayor, Council, thank you. Uh, tonight we're going to take a look at where we're at. The new fire station that's been called Fire Station 5, Fire Station 24... we're just calling it New Fire Station, I think, for now. Um, but we've brought in Quinn Hudson and Brooke Jacobson with CNH Architects. They've been working with staff for the past 20-some plus weeks or more and refined the design a little bit. I'm just going to turn it over to them to kind of show where we started from back in 2023 when we did the initial study and how we've got to today. [1:18:19] **Quinn Hudson (Architect)**: Okay. So, good evening. I'm going to start by going back a little bit and talking just where we came from in this process. But as he mentioned we completed the Lakeville Fire Department facility study back two years ago this month. from that study we had identified some best practice for modern fire station goals that we would typically see. First of all focus on physical and mental health. Uh secondly, we look at carcinogen reduction. toxins and removal um and that's through hot-cold zone design. We also looked at on-site training providing for regular what we call firefighter one everyday type training. And then designing for the future. Of course, you know, this needs to be flexible for changes that come down the road. [1:21:00] **Quinn Hudson**: so with that we started the design process our one of our first meetings. throughout that process the guiding principles were: fiscally responsible, future focused, multifunctional, sustainable, organizational health and wellness, mental health focused, history and community centered. [1:22:20] **Quinn Hudson**: So and that will have some impact on what we'll be showing you at the build. So with that as Allyn mentioned we've had 20 design meetings staff have been very involved. Throughout that process we've had 14 different floor plan diagrams that each kind of refined look at different options and refined down to where we'll be showing you tonight. [1:24:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Does the public safety committee review the most recent? [1:24:40] **Quinn Hudson**: Okay. And then our last most recent step is looking at what it might look like you know some of the materials and images and we'll be showing some of that today as well. Through that process we looked at six different versions and refined from there. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Brooke to kind of walk you through past and present a little bit on actual plans. [1:25:20] **Brooke Jacobson (Architect)**: Great. Well, I'm going to start off just as Quinn was just touching a little bit on the initial study. So right what you're seeing on the screen is the site plan that we used in the study for the combined station. the kind of right side of the building is the public administration office side. The left side is where our you see from the red the warmer colors where our apparatus and support spaces are. Then our firefighters would enter the site um you know kind of from this main drive they park in the back side of the station and then our apparatus would spawn directly straight up out up out onto the main road. [1:27:00] **Brooke Jacobson**: Just delving in a little bit more on floor plans. The front entrance, main entry is up here. The public areas are coded in green. As we move further into the station, our gray areas are a lot of our common spaces, and the lighter blue is station office. Everything that you're seeing in white then is what we would typically see in the modern fire station to meet best practices that was mentioning before um in regards to health health and wellness and safety and training. [1:28:51] **Councilmember John Bermel**: Brooke, just a little bit. So that original study just so they can have a compare and contrast. That original study assumed seven full-time firefighters stationed there? [1:29:09] **Brooke Jacobson**: We have eight. [1:29:17] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I just want to get a feel for that. Get a feel for what we had proposed at 26 million versus when we got to today. [1:29:32] **Brooke Jacobson**: within each suite is a small hallway we call the locker hallway that has their shift different shifts. each have their own locker and then off of that hallway is accessed a single use restroom with shower and then the dorm room. And so we do that so that when shift change happens and somebody was out on a call and they needed to catch up on some sleep the next shift can pump in, drop their stuff off in the locker, use the restroom without disturbing the person in the room. [1:30:50] **Brooke Jacobson**: On the sites, what you're seeing is the overall complete site owned by the city. The fire station is using about 3.84 acres of the site. The main public access is located off of Dodd. The main entrance of the building is up here. We have our fitness entrance over here. And then the firefighter parking occurs on the back side of the apparatus space. [1:32:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: In that first floor the 39,000 ft. How much is that this green public classroom area? [1:32:20] **Brooke Jacobson**: Roughly that looks like 10 to 15%. So I guess I'm looking at 3500 to 4500 sqft. [1:34:25] **Brooke Jacobson**: then lastly on the site we have our apparatus space through here. They respond directly out to Brandy. To the south of the station is the area that we are allowing for the storm water retention on site situated between the station and the water tower. moving into the current floor plan design for the station. [1:35:45] **Brooke Jacobson**: another kind of main entrance we touched on is the fitness area that utilized not only for the fire department but for other city staff as well. As a part of that fitness we also have tornado shelter to protect the fire department as required by a code. To the right of that we have our seven apparatus bays. turnout gear room here size right now for the current operations. in the center area here, we have our kitchen, dining, and day room areas. [1:38:46] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Kind of TVs do you have? [1:39:32] **Brooke Jacobson**: We are planning for a couple. so one more for on that relaxation side and then there's typically another one kind of in the day dining area that can you know show their cat screens station alerting things so that they can kind of multi-purpose in there. Throughout that kind of residence area, we will have low level lighting as well to help with startle response as they get woken up in the middle of the night. On the other side, the mezzanine area. we provided a mezzanine area for training. It's a very low cost item for us. Um, so you just put a floor in and provide usable space up here. [1:42:05] **Brooke Jacobson**: Moving to the exterior. We are planning for in the entire building a very durable building. Our goal is that a building that'll last 40 to 50 years. What you're seeing here is that north perspective off of Dodd. You can see the main entrance off to the right is the apparatus display as part of the lobby. Off to the left is one of the conference rooms on the public side of things. Uh then the far right is the admin wings, the offices over there. And then you're starting to see that second floor. These are the the dorm suites on the sides and then that wellness room on the corner. [1:43:25] **Brooke Jacobson**: turning the corner and walking along Brandy, you see the back of that apparatus display again using that mixture of materials. Uh we're bringing in a historic nod to fire stations with having some arches over the apparatus bays. First grouping of bays again with that arch to historic side. The last two images just give you kind of a walk around the backside on the east side of the station. We haven't started looking at the colors yet. That's kind of next on our list, which is why you're seeing them in black and white. [1:45:39] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I do have a couple questions. So from the fire department standpoint what what's the vision for the public space area? Do we really need it? I bring that up because we're trying to get us to this smaller number from where we were originally. Is it specifically just open to whatever or is it more of a fire department need? [1:46:19] **Fire Chief Mike Meyer**: Some of the needs or requests that we get is kind of the youth groups Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Snow Trackers. I'll say the classroom piece is that but it's also for us when we're going to hold a department meeting or we're bringing outside training inside training. So next month as example when Allina comes in house to do EMS training with us, this is a space that we do it in. Right now we do it upstairs at Station One. So this just offers us a better place to do that. [1:47:28] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I would be confused. Are you thinking of using this for all the stations to do their training? [1:47:35] **Mike Meyer**: So stations will do individuals there but when we do medical training we have to do at one fixed site. So each station has their Monday night and we we don't have a training room currently in our system to do that other than Station One. [1:48:03] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Was I confusing myself? There's not 4,000 ft of second floor training in this one. [1:48:25] **Brooke Jacobson**: Everything on the second floor is that mezzanine. [1:49:37] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. Can we talk about future ambulance? Is there potential to streamline the amount of bays on this project knowing that we're going to have to renovate others and we would potentially have ambulance at those? Can we have this conversation three years from now at Station Three renovation instead? Maybe we save a little bit on on this project by eliminating the bay? [1:50:04] **Mike Meyer**: so from a size standpoint I'll say when I looked at our fleet that we currently have and then I drew that even further and said well if we we use this station kind of as the pinpoint what can we look at stations one and three in the future and say can we reduce bay sizes or bays down in those stations? Uh from that analysis I shrunk each station down by at least a bay. [1:51:07] **Mike Meyer**: The one piece that you have to look at is right now we house Allina at Station Two. So if we go this route and we eliminate Station Two, we want a bay space for them. [1:52:22] **Councilmember John Bermel**: we also have them at Three. Correct. And Four. [1:52:39] **Mike Meyer**: Uh they're not at Four anymore. They're at One and Three. [1:53:12] **Councilmember John Bermel**: How often are they at our facilities versus hanging out at senior center buildings? [1:53:32] **Mike Meyer**: Great question. [1:55:06] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: what changed or where did that $5 million come from? [1:55:42] **Quinn Hudson**: additional baying up for that there were six bays in the study. identified just some of the growth I I guess one of the ones would be like the historic truck being in the original study. [1:56:00] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I think the historical truck should be at Station Four when we're remodeling that. I'm struggling with this tower thing because if we needed a wet tower, I don't know why we didn't put that in the First Center. [1:57:17] **Quinn Hudson**: whether it's a wet tower or dry tower you still would be hanging the hoses to dry. We recommend a wet tower so you can practice some things that you can't in other locations. [1:58:32] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Seems like a large structure. [1:58:35] **Brooke Jacobson**: the hoses are quite long. um, also they're drying many of them at one time. So, when they come back from a fire, it's not just one, they're drying several. [1:59:19] **Quinn Hudson**: in the 30 million how much is for contingency? we would typically um have at this point we would have 5% of contingency during the design process and we would typically also have a 5% during construction contingency in an all new build. [2:00:34] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I would like to have a little further discussion about the ambulance thing and try to see some numbers on today versus future renovations. My other question, can we talk about the public area if it's really needed? [2:01:02] **Quinn Hudson**: if we're not so concerned about the access for the public to be in a classroom, can that training be in... do you understand what I'm saying? [2:02:22] **Mike Meyer**: the mezzanine area is more kind of the dirty zone where we're going to decon any gear. The green area that classroom is more we're sitting down we're going through medical training. [2:03:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: So then apples to apples for them. The green area would be if we have enough square footage of the First Center. [2:03:24] **City Administrator Justin Miller**: once you get on the inside of things, it starts to get a little bit harder to to make any substantial changes. But, but you're right, Mayor. I mean, there's a lot of classroom slash conference space in this plan that I think if we were looking for areas to to make some savings, that could be some possibilities. [2:04:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Yeah, I don't want to impact the fitness area. that's a big fitness area. [2:05:33] **Mike Meyer**: some of the equipment that's currently at Station Four can move to here and then we would add and then that's a discussion we'd have to have with the foundation as far as supporting that. [2:06:10] **Councilmember John Bermel**: when we took tours of the different fire stations around the metro, majority of those fitness areas are like 900 to 1,000 ft. We've had this one at 2,000 with the anticipation that other city staff may use this. I think it's an easy way to cut some cost by reducing that. [2:06:55] **Mike Meyer**: I think it's easier to look down the road and say, can we shave space at the stations one and three versus here. [2:07:37] **City Administrator Justin Miller**: we decided to dedicate 20 years of franchise fees to make these projects happen. If we're getting down to the road five, six, seven years from now, our hands are going to be pretty tied. unless we have tremendous growth in business and people paying into the franchise fee. Can this be right sized a little bit so that we have a little bit on the back end? [2:08:19] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: well, that's my question to the council. we have 26 million in the proforma for franchise fees for this project. How comfortable are you going over that knowing that we will have, if you want to stay within that same budget, to take stuff off of stations one and three renovations? [2:09:19] **Councilmember John Bermel**: the way I look at it, we're 20% more expensive than we were anticipating, 20% larger than what we were planning and we're saying we're going to put off the tough decisions till the next two projects and that concerns me. in my mind when I think of spending priorities I look at this and right off the bat, I'm going, we have one, two, three conference rooms. I've been through public safety facility construction and what I learned there was when you start compromising on the interior in terms of what you're using for materials, that's when it really starts affect you. I don't think we need the most attractive fire station in the metro. I think we need something that's functional for our taxpayers. [2:12:16] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: I'm willing to compromise on the public area for this one if it brings costs down, too. [2:12:41] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: have some feedback from us? our intent is still to break ground spring or summer? [2:13:10] **City Administrator Justin Miller**: Spring. We design and bid over the winter. So, we need to get moving. We'll come back to you yet this fall with hopefully kind of our last and best proposal and see what you think. [2:13:26] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: Okay. Have some better numbers. All right. Good. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. moving on to items um for future discussion. any committee or city administrator update? [2:13:51] **City Administrator Justin Miller**: No, the Dakota 911 board met uh last I think. public safety. [2:14:06] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: take a motion to adjourn. [2:14:10] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: Second. [2:14:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: All in favor say I. I. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody.