foreign good evening today is November the 16th and I'm calling together the economic development Commission meeting I'm joined by Commissioners kupplic lafarv Anderson I am your chair Crystal fitchett and our listening audience oh I'm sorry Laura is joining us virtually hi Laura if you like to watch the meeting you can watch that on Peg TV that's Peg TV on the Roku Channel or you can also watch it um on Comcast channel 16 or 859 or you can join us online at www.burnsvilleminnesota.gov that's b-u-r-n-s-v-i-l-l-e-m-n-g-o-v-e slash meetings we have four items on the agenda and I think we can jump right in the first item is to adopt the agenda minutes are there any commissioner you asked if there are any questions yes I'm sorry I got ahead I was going to make a motion to approve but we'll wait to see if there are any questions yes are there any comments questions there's no changes to the agenda from staff awesome all right can I get a motion to adopt the Meany minutes so moved a second okay we have commissioner lafarb and commissioner Anderson all right moving to the second item on the agenda third item on the agenda is the um so that was the agenda we'll need to approve the minutes from the last meeting and we need to vote on the and we need to do a roll call for this one okay I'm a little anxious today it looks like okay the second item on the agenda is to approve the I'm sorry we have to do a roll call for approval of this agenda oh I'm sorry that's okay the second item on the agenda is to approve the agenda for this evening and it looks like we've got to do a roll call on that because we have a commissioner joining us virtually so commissioner kupley yay commissioner leffard aye commissioner Anderson yes commissioner Schmitz yes thank you and the meeting minutes or the agenda has been approved now we can approve the media minutes and I think we need to start back over about getting an a motion to approve the meeting minutes or okay so I'll second okay so we have commissioner LaFarge and we have commissioner kuplik and um so the meeting minutes have been adopted roll call for that as well please so commissioner Schmitz can we get a motion or can we get a roll call on that yes thank you commissioner couplet yes commissioner LaFarge aye commissioner Anderson yes all right and commissioner for check of course all right item number three is the economic development strategic plan and our very own Beth uh Weber is going to provide us with information thank you Beth thank you for being here tonight Commissioners um we're kind of viewing this as our year-end wrap up since this is our last meeting of the year so we have some really great things to share with you tonight um and then we will also watch a video that we produced um part way through so um as usual our first item is ensuring the sustainability of the Burnsville Shopping Center and County Road 42 corridor there's a lot of exciting things going around the Burnsville Center so uh Panda Express Starbucks and Taco John's have all been approved and are coming to the area so Panda Express will be located on the north side of the Burnsville Center property where garden centers have been previously in a rug and tent sale kind of that long skinny parcel and then um the Starbucks and the Taco John's will be located on the former roasted parasite and those two buildings are currently under construction right now uh we're continuing with the design plans for the Aldrich Avenue Road Extension and the i-35w exit ramp uh the 35W exit is proposed for construction in 2025 and that's a result from a 3.1 million dollar uh grant that we received from mndat um and then you'll see a nice photo here of myself and Regina we had a booth at the Min car Expo so that's the Minnesota commercial Association of Realtors so they have an expo every year this was their Ninth Annual I believe and there were over 750 attendees so that was a record-breaking year for them and Regina and I had some really great conversations with aerial Brokers Realtors and just different people in the industry we view it as a good opportunity to make connections in the community and just really be able to tell our story so understandably the focus was on the Burnsville Center and all of the excitement that's going on there so we were happy to be able to highlight that this year and kind of answer any questions that people might have is that is that a both residential and Commercial Real Estate I mentioned um so it's a commercial real estate event but if you buy a ticket I mean anyone could go so there's title companies there's law firms construction [Music] um all different types of Industries would attend as applicable uh continuing Partnerships between the school district and the city uh I believe it was last week or the week before we hosted in partnership with the chamber the convention and visitors bureau and the school district uh Spar realtor event to showcase the city's strategy and vision for the future so we were pleased to be approved by Spar for three continuing education credits for realtors to register for if they were present at that event and almost 60 people attended so we were able to really tell the story about Burnsville and showcase some great things that were going on at the high school and I think that people walked away with a lot of information that they maybe didn't have previously and so we're hopeful that that will allow people to continue selling the positive message here for Burnsville um additionally we have a new app so in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store if you search my Burnsville all one word uh you can download it on your phone it's free um and it has calendars uh you can report concerns throughout the city so if you see a pothole or if there's a tree down somewhere or if you have a code enforcement complaint any sort of thing that you would report to the city you are able to do that through the app and then it also has Community Resources and my personal favorite is the business resource page when you click on that button it brings you right to the economic development section of our website and so it's just another great tool for our business owners and our residents to be able to connect with us on a different level um and maybe find out information when we're closed or if it's a holiday it's just easy access for for folks um and then additionally October was manufacturing month and we celebrate that we certainly appreciate all the manufacturers that we have here in the city um and so similar to years past we did produce a video so I'll show that here shortly um this year we highlighted Northern Diversified Solutions so you'll get to hear their story um New Look exteriors and then we did a Refresh on showcraft since they are under new ownership so we wanted to make sure that we told their kind of path forward as well so I will pause this and show the video now [Music] never been to a trade show you've seen the boots on the floor that's what we do you're working on a rental with that is on a 20 by 20 because the showcraft is actually what's known as a benefit corporation which means that as a business we measure both our financial performance as well as our social and environmental really key so we take that also in our local community engagement yeah showcraft has been here in Burnsville production doing business in Burnsville has been great assistant partner very early on in my tenure here at showcraft I was invited to join the mayor to see great we learn from those owners as well as learned from the mayor in the city staff themselves everyone who's really up to date on [Music] Burnsville is a great place to do business we've been able to be successful here in Burnsville and create business support and a lot of interest in local companies like ours the city of Birdville was an incredibly supportive to me and I know they will be to you as well [Music] um sheet metal and composite systems for over 50 years we do the majority of the Dairy Queen buildings across the country we do a lot of gas stations hotels Banks dealerships New Look started in 1970 was in the Burnsville in 2003 and we love Burnsville because it's a has a smaller town feel but it's still connected to 35 and the bigger cities easy access really if it's a safe place to conduct our operations and it's a lot of opportunity to skip the benefit to birds though we have around 30 employees we're a small company that drives itself in integrity and honesty and everything we do I think we're a value to wherever we are whatever somebody needs something we'll we'll jump in and do whatever we can to help up excited to see where it takes us Northern Diversified Solutions is a food and beverage ingredient company located in Burnsville we do primary and secondary processing as well as ingredients for the food and beverage industry we process 100 Minnesota grown hemp here and have been in business since 2019. we actually employed two residents in Burnsville and we just believe that the town fully here the diversity is a great asset for this city and we prefer to hire local as much as possible Burnsville has a great thriving local business Community a lot a lot of our partners are located here within a very very small radius so a lot of the business we do stays here I can't say enough about that they put it into kind of two categories one being cooperation and one being located we're located right off I-35 W it's very very convenient and we think a location is great and we have a lot of great supporting business overalls Associated cooperation and the support that we have from the city right from the start definitely made a difference in US selecting Burnsville to locate our facility in they were working with us hand in hand as we're building out our prompt they even went so far as to have the fire department go on a field trip with us to Wisconsin so they could see exactly what type of processing we'd be doing safest and cost-effective way to replicate that operation here on Nicollet Avenue for prospective businesses I'd say you can't go wrong it is a wonderful Community with a diverse population City staff is incredibly helpful and accessible to help you succeed hands down Burnsville has been the most supportive of all the different candidate locations that we explored and couldn't recommend them highly enough [Music] nice endorsements good job yeah thank you very nicely done yeah yeah we're excited to be able to highlight our manufacturers each October and throughout the year but especially in October to celebrate manufacturing month and it was kind of fun this year to see three such different types of manufacturing and really be able to highlight that I know me personally before I started working here those were not manufacturing types that I had thought of previously so it's been really fun to be able to learn about all of them and meet with them and it's been a really engaging process continuing development within Heart of the City bird scooters are coming in Spring of 2023 so this will be kind of our pilot area within Heart of the City um and we'll kind of have a contained area to test it out but we're really excited that they've wanted to come here and that will be kind of a fun addition and in a different Transit option for people that come to visit or that live here so definitely excited for that and then in October we also celebrated with gallery on Nicollet their grand opening to celebrate 172 new units and then 8 000 square feet of commercial space that they have located in Heart of the City right in front of Cub Foods have they released any of their commercial space yet not that I'm aware of we continue to enhance and build awareness around the city's existing housing and Commercial programs so our partnership with the Burnsville chamber continues for our Grow Minnesota visits to date we've completed 21. we do expect to complete our contracted 24 by the end of the year we are still partnering with the Center for Energy and environment we've had seven rebates that have been given out and 69 visits to date so just to refresh that's a partnership that we have with them where residents of Burnsville can have an energy audit done of their home and recommendations can be made and there are low-cost visits for people who are cost burdened and then the city for all of the visits pays half and then the resident pays for half of the visit so we're pleased with the progress that those have been making and then an update to our homework program so you'll recall we spent quite a bit of time on looking at different programming for residents of Burnsville and ways that we could impact them in a positive way for their homes so we uh in collaboration with you and city council came up with three kind of programs the senior deferred loan which had forty five thousand dollars allocated to it two loans have closed so far and one is in process so that's really great news that it's being utilized we have the home improvement loan fund which had a hundred and fifty thousand dollars allocated there have been no funds expended for that but it is still an option for people if they need it and then the code cash Home Improvement Grant was a program that residents could use if they had a code violation and were cost burdened to correct that and so we provided two two thousand dollar grants one for nuisance trees and then another for a roof repair so um please that those funds are being utilized as well oh did um the home improvement loan what happens if we don't if no one accesses those funds does it roll over do we still get to keep it or is it you need to spend it by a certain period of time or we lose it the funds are part of the Eda budget and so I believe they'll we'll still have funding available assuming everything gets approved for 2023 so it won't necessarily roll over but um it'll be like reallocated within within the Eda budget got it okay just want to make sure we don't lose it and what happens if we do it it's still within the Eda budget so we don't like lose it per se it doesn't go to the general fund for example okay commissioner defarb so these programs we did spend a lot of time talking about these programs and to me it feels like they're really good programs and it's kind of in my mind they're still pilot programs but the fact that we've had nobody take us up on the home improvement loan especially this Rising interest rate market and how attractive they are I'm kind of curious going okay let's treat it as a pilot program and it seems like we need to figure out why what's working is working why what's not working is not working and and do we want to expand them does it make sense to do that because it just seems like there's some great programs here but they're just very much in its infancy and we need to get to work it out or we need to modify them or I'd be very curious to hear some initial feedback if you have any from a staff level we're working on some marketing materials that we'll be able to have printed to be available to the community um are like you said it's a pilot program so due to the somewhat limited funds that were available we weren't sure just how hard to push it out um and so it's kind of a balance that we're continuing to work on but certainly grateful for your feedback on that tonight be great if we could get it off the ground and really expand it so that it does have a meaningful impact on Burnsville I know the community is interested these resources so good good yep good feel like are important we've had 14 ribbon cuttings so far for new businesses or expanded businesses or just anniversary celebrations in partnership with the Burnsville chamber and then we also did have one that was in partnership with the Apple Valley Chamber so it's always nice to work with our neighboring cities for collaborative businesses like that and so that was kind of a unique thing that we participated in this year and then as of quarter three open to business has given time or produced hours for 22 Burnsville businesses and 14 residents of Burnsville so another example of quality programming that the city is pleased to be able to offer to the Burnsville residents and businesses and it shows that it's definitely being used and we continue the city's position as a regional destination so we had our third annual Tour de Flavor Restaurant promotion this year we expanded it to include all of our ethnic markets as well so we had 55 restaurants and markets that were featured as part of this promotion to highlight all of the diverse food options that we have here in Burnsville so I'm slowly working my way through the list I think I'm up to 15 so far that I have ordered food from so it's kind of an exciting way to highlight my way through the map um and then again this year for the winter season we'll say uh the city Chamber and Convention and visitors bureau are partnering on each drink and buy local campaign again we're focusing more heavily on a social media presence um and so look for weekly themes to be coming out related to that from each of the partners um one exciting thing to note so the opportunity belongs to your newsletter we've really tried to focus um on diverse businesses as a whole this year but as part of the newsletter we've highlighted a diverse business once per month so we'll have 12 diverse businesses highlighted this year and you'll see we have Paulina she is holding her homemade candy so um it's excellent she has a website so she was featured in one of our newsletters this year for Hispanic Heritage Month um and we've gotten some really good feedback on spotlighting the diverse businesses more we have lots of upcoming events so you'll see a photo we had a chalk artist at one of our party on the Plaza events this year for kind of a place making opportunity for people to check out so the artist was there I think two days ahead of the event to get it all done and it turned out very vibrantly and it was a big hit and then we also have a run now gobleter 5K coming up on Saturday when uh portion of Staff will be participating in that it's going to be cold I'm not excited to elaborate on the portion of staff yeah Regina and myself a couple other members of Community Development as well team building is this going to be after Thanksgiving or before it's this Saturday so I will be running I'm actually participating yeah and then winter lighting is coming up and we have a lot more events uh snowshoeing with Eco Elsa we'll have winter golf again so just keep an eye on the website and social media for those items coming up um and then I won't show this video tonight but we did attend south of the river mayor's event earlier this year so it's a event with all of the Mayors from Dakota County mayor cows spoke and we debuted a video that highlighted all of the development and cool things that we have going on so that's featured on our Economic Development webpage on our city site so if you want to check that out later certainly do so think that brings us to updates I'm going to do my Shameless plug of checking out the development map often we're currently working on a refresh so we hope to have that launched here pretty soon it'll be more user friendly it'll be mobile friendly and you can use it on tablets as well it'll have more search features and you'll just have a fresher look so we're excited to debut that I'm also subscribing to the opportunity belongs here Economic Development newsletter it grew by over 130 subscribers this summer so I'm very proud of that we had an intern this Summer that was helping write a lot of those articles so it's certainly something that she can be proud of as well um and there's just a lot of great information for businesses residents training opportunities grants there's different City events going on our next meeting will be January 11th 2023 and then finally tonight we have our new community development director here Jeff Thompson is joining us just so that he can meet all of you um and just get a feel for what happens at Economic Development Commission um and just say hello well hello hello [Laughter] he promised me that he had a speech it would be if you know not to put him on the spot too terribly bad but because we are meeting him for the first time although I I'm cheating a little bit because I met him this morning but it would be nice to hear a little bit about your background and What attracted you to the job and so forth I personally love to hear that thank you chair Commissioners so yeah I'm Jeff Thompson um super excited to be in Burnsville my most recently I think I shared it earlier but my most recently I was a community development director for the city of Maplewood I was there for about three and a half years and then prior to that um wyzetta and then Minnetonka in the West Metro and a few were to draw a thread between those communities like what's about you know why were you in those communities and what was common about them um it does it it there isn't there is a thread there and the alignment is around my passion about developing kind of existing Community you know existing developed communities that's kind of what I'm interested in um from a professional and personal perspective of communities that are kind of built out and redeveloping and and reinvesting in themselves is something that I enjoy so all those communities have been in that position um so it's not just a haphazard collection of towns so that's really one thing that attracts me about Burnsville is um where you're at today in terms of your position in the in the region uh the Twin Cities region and the the steps you've already taken to kind of reinvest and redevelop and support businesses and support the economy of Burnsville I think are super important uh priorities I think in the newsletter Beth helped me and think about this because it was highlighted in the newsletter and you know one thing that I recognize early on and continue to recognize is really the diversity of the community and and how important that is and and I use that term broadly I mean the community is diverse in terms of age and race and and how long people have been here but the business Community is diverse the the neighborhoods are very diverse you know I've gotten some opportunities to drive around the neighborhood just just a total different mix of types of neighborhoods and communities and housing units and age of structures it just really provides for a diverse Community that's exciting and vibrant and and a cool place to be frankly so um that and the the leadership of the city um the council and the leadership team and the the great work the staff's doing have been early observations of mine of great assets that Burnsville has that I'm excited to be a part of and to help contribute and and move the community towards some of its Economic Development goals so that's me in a very quick not show yeah I'm super excited to be here I'm Mike excited to see what you're going to get started on so how involved were you in the Maplewood Mall yeah um great question you know there are some alignments there um both with obviously Maplewood head Regional mall has a very a hospital a health care center and and part of their their Economic Development strategy was leveraging that Regional Center in the healthcare industry around it um Mayport had done like Burnsville had has done some visioning plans around the mall area um so there are certainly parallels um Sarah touch owns a site up in the former Sears site um in in Maplewood so I had some contact with them um and not to get too nuanced about it I think that I think the malls are in different places frankly you know I um there was actually an article in the Star Tribune about the Maplewood Mall over the weekend that I had really we'd really spearheaded because I think there was actually a better story to tell around Maplewood Mall because it's actually really they're like there's good things happening at Maplewood Mall so um we did a lot of like community outreach and education about like it's a it's still a mall it's just a little bit different and it's labor in its context and and who's going there and the types of businesses that are going there so um you know not to get too far into it but I know a conversation we had a lot in Maplewood was if you look at I think this isn't Universal but if you look at some of the regional malls in the Twin Cities Southdale being the real one to point to I think development has happened I think development on the outside has led has led not the mall proper has not LED and I think that's a model that we should look to is when we look at the success of the mall ink we have to look at the larger area right not just the mall itself and look to how can we um start to drive development that's consistent with that Vision plan on kind of the outside in and the mall will follow in in general but I'm not 100 there on that but I think that the strategy that if you look at Regional malls has been one that's been successful so I know there's more complexity that you probably know more than I do about the history of the Burnsville Mall and and its assets and attributes but I think it's I my quick observations on it you have a really strong retail Market in that mall area surrounding Burnsville Mall that you want to continue to capitalize and ensure that that area is successful because it is and and I think there's ways to to leverage that in future Redevelopment yeah I've I went to um Eden Prairie Mall I think um a weekend ago and I was pretty shocked at how busy that mall is I'd be curious to know what your thoughts are concerning Eden Prairie and why it stays so I'm busy I want to say robust in that Community yeah what makes it that way do you have any thoughts you know it's part of a lot of you know just what there's a lot to it you know the ownership with the investment has gone into it the you know the leasing strategies that have gone into it obviously the the market area and the just that it's serving is a big impact on it and kind of what immediately surrounds it are huge parts of it it's an interesting observation I was it happened to be in Southdale on Monday of this week and you know people point us out though because there I mean if you've been to the Southdale area it is I mean the level of development there is pretty incredible um there was like nobody in Southdale though like I was just picking something up there was it was pretty quiet uh in the actual mall itself but again if you look at the surrounding area of Southdale there's a lot going on there's a lot there's a lot of Housing and and the healthcare industry has expanded a lot there in the in the hospital area so I mean this is not one model applies to Burnsville I think it's nuggets of lessons learned throughout Regional models in the country of of how we ensure that that Burnsville Mall successful but what I think is important is that clear to me that the Burnsville Center area is a very successful retail commercial center for Dakota County and for Burnsville I think that's very true I'd be curious to know first of all I'll welcome and love your energy and we have lots of work to do we've got a lot of great things as you're alluding to but we have a lot of things that we need to work on can you think of a couple projects in your career that you're most proud of that might be applicable to Virgil oh yeah um it's totally fair I know that I just you know I just want to know and I will have to put a caveat that this is I'll give you two um and I I don't have like the full grasp of everything Burnsville yet so you know but um I'm trying to get there um I would first point to let me give you the obvious one when I was in Minnetonka I worked a lot on the Ridgedale mall so we did the you know as part of that that Vision plan um and one of the most projects that I mostly most proud of there is hope you know Ridgedale but one of the very first housing projects that went in after that Vision plan was a six-story apartment building directly across from the street from ridgel and it was actually super controversial right it was like why are you putting housing here you know like this is a retail center it's a very odd spot to put retail so there was a big you know Community engagement and and um kind of advocacies of why that was going to be kind of the future of what that mall would need to be um and it was you know contentious and controversial but it got there and got built and now if you go over there it doesn't stick out as much I mean when it was first built it was like whoa it's it's odd but now a lot of that housing has happened around them all on that kind of higher density housing to because that's the center of Commerce that people like to live in and it's diverse it's senior active it's you know it's senior with services that are um there's affordable housing there's a mix of housing that's kind of been built in the original area but it was started with that Highland Bank project in like 20 14 or 2015. so that's a direct parallel the second one I'll give you if I can get two make sure I get the job um the wyzetta it's now called pan away on Wayzata Bay when I was there it was called Lake Effect and why I think I'm most proud of it is it was entirely public project and Public public facilities so it's you know why is that is on Lake Minnetonka they're they're Center of their downtown sits right on Lake Minnetonka and they had a pretty outdated connection of the development of downtown Wayzata to the lake itself I was tired and so through a lot of Community Vision I wasn't certainly a part of this I was not a leader of it but um it's got the first phases have now gotten build of reinvesting in the public realm right in the streets and the plazas and the parks and the place that people hang out um it's totally different if you go down there now the people are just people are just hanging out along these amenities we built because we created a cool place to be and it was always a cool place to be in terms of the businesses and amenities that were there um but that but you also want people to linger in public places to for places to be thriving and successful and vibrant to use the Burnsville term um and I think that's a project that that really did that so those would be two good thank you you got the job [Laughter] rumor has it that the Burnsville Mall used to be the hangout for our youth our our younger individuals so I didn't know well I guess that kind of would be accurate anyway because if you're spending money if you're engaging in things in the mall it's mostly the younger generation that's doing that so hopefully some ideas around our youth in the mall for sure absolutely but I think the other thing was that I used to be on weekends before the Outlet Mall opened not even so much at Mall of America that buses would come from Iowa oh and drop people off and they would shop that whole area the target Etc but once we got more competition a little bit up the road that changed are you talking about the strip mall the Eagan outlet vegan Outlet yeah I think that in particular the Mall of America probably did some of that both of them did but yeah it really put the nail on the cloth and so to speak when that outlet mall open yeah as a kid they grew up in southern Minnesota it was the big deal at school time to come up to the Burnsville Mall to shop well now you go to the Mall of America or the outlet mall it's a bigger opportunity more stores so it's definitely needs to be re-envisioned but I am old enough to remember when Eden Prairie was the mall that was really struggling and I'm old enough to remember when Rosedale was really struggling and so um it's about putting energy into it and re redefining where demand is and putting product around it that means demand thank you I'm excited to be here and welcome to work with all of you thanks well that concludes my presentation unless there's any other questions comments feedback otherwise we can move forward with the journey I think you guys have done a great job you're really getting into the community and putting Burnsville out there that makes a big difference I think and and I think you're starting to make some minerals with 191. for more positives you know about it then I like I always say we're the best kept secret so yeah continue when you said that a couple times um the marketing um that's an important part of everything we're doing so keep it up thank you both of you doing great job thank you I just have one comment it's a it's a compliment because as I read through the Strategic plan um and just taking in everything that has gone on there has been a lot of movement and so you guys make it seem seamless like it's just so I just wanted to say good good work it's it's a lot that you put into this and so thank you that we can move to adjourn if there are no other questions comments do you want to ask for a motion all right we need a roll call oh yes but uh commissioner Anderson and commissioner lafarb can um commissioner Schmidt would say yes commissioner Copic yes commissioner LaFarge aye commissioner Anderson yes and yes for me so I guess we are adjourned thank you thank you thank you thank you