Planning Commission - workshop

Recording has been started.

I'm going to reboot because my camera's not working.

Oh, dear. Okay. We'll give you a couple minutes.

All right. Thank you. And just a reminder, I think we have two items for tonight, right?

Correct.

Right.

And we are hoping that each of you will stick to 15, 20 minutes and then leave us plenty of time to ask questions, please. The person you are trying...

leave a message after the tone when you have finished please hang up or press the pound key not sure who that might be okay i see melvin see as soon as

Mike comes on, I think we're gonna roll here in just a couple minutes. Our first item will be APS Green Valley Ranch East, pre-K through eighth grade in one school.

Hello, Ms. Gale.

Becky, have you heard from Garrett?

I have not. I know he's in town, so I imagine he'll be getting on as soon as he can.

Thank you.

Come on. All right. Everybody else? I don't see Mike yet.

But I am going to start. He will be here shortly. Welcome to Planning Commission. It is Wednesday, the 29th of July. We have two items in our study session this evening. The first up is APS Green Valley Ranch, East Pre-K through 8th grade. And we've got Case Manager Connor Bailey.

Connor Bailey here. I'm one of the senior planners on staff and I will be presenting for staff tonight for the Aurora Public Schools Green Valley Ranch East P through 8 project. So let me share my screen real quick. And just to make sure everyone is able to see my screen.

Yes, we can. Thank you.

Awesome. Okay. So getting into the requests, the applicant.

Connor, we are seeing your notes pages and stuff too. Gotcha. Thank you on that.

That's well, we're getting there. One second here. Stop sharing and then try again. Okay, this should work now okay.

Sorry about that so getting into the request the applicant aurora public schools is requesting a advisory site plan for a proposed new pre pre K through eighth grade school. The subject site has a current zoning designation of medium density residential district, which is our two and now we're a comprehensive place type of emerging neighborhood. The subject site is located within Ward 2, the City of Aurora. As seen here in the vicinity map, the subject site is located within the emerging neighborhood of Green Valley Ranch East at the northwest corner of the intersection between North Bet Road and East 42nd Avenue. Per the aerial of early February of this year, you can see the existing conditions for the subject site wherein the subject site is vacant. The approximately 17-acre subject site is part of the larger Green Valley Ranch East neighborhood and master plan, which single-family residential has been constructed to the west and south of the subject site, and there is more single-family residential associated with the Green Valley Ranch master plan That is planned to the east across North Tibet Road. To the north of the subject site is the Homestead Clubhouse associated with the neighborhood and the Wendy Plumes Park, which further connects to the 1881 Park at Wendler to the north. As previously mentioned, the subject site has a zoning designation of medium density residential R2. As seen on the zoning map, all the adjacent properties to the north, east, south, and west have the same zoning designation of medium density residential R2. As shown in this site photo, you can see the subject site looking to the north along East 42nd Avenue and kind of included a key map just to kind of show where it's located. And in this site photo, you can see the view from the subject site towards the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood looking south along East 42nd Avenue. So let's get into the Advisory Site Plan. So as you see here in the proposed Advisory Site Plan, this is for a new P-8 school. The letter of introduction provided by the applicant indicates that the new school will accommodate 1,000 students. The project proposes a new 2 story school building internal to the subject site with the building fronting towards East 42nd Avenue. The new P through 8 school building has a gross floor area of 127,000 square feet. The proposed site plan. Fides a bus drop off loop at the Northeast portion of the subject site with access onto North Tibet road and a car drop off pickup lane is proposed in front of the school building, which has access from East 42nd Avenue. Please note that a separate drive aisle and parking area. is provided for pre-K along East 42nd Avenue as well. The parking lots associated with the proposed bus and car drop-off lanes, they provide a total of 265 parking spaces, which exceeds the parking requirement for the school. The service area is proposed on the northern portion of the school building, buffered by a screen wall and planting beds from the play areas to the north. The proposed site plan also provides a multi-use play field at the northwest portion of the subject site close to the homestead clubhouse. Both softscape and hardscape play areas are proposed on the north side of the new school. And in addition, planter beds with seating walls are proposed in front of the school on the south side of the building. Pedestrian connections are provided from all sidewalks along the public right of way to the building entrances, bus and car drop-off lanes, and play areas. I do want to note that a pedestrian connection is provided at the northern portion of the subject site connecting the main school building to the Wendy Plumes Park to the north. So I want to get into this slide, which is showing the architectural elevations for the new P through 8 school building. The front elevation, which is the south side facing East 42nd Avenue, is seen on top. The east elevation facing along North Bett Road is seen in the middle. And then the bottom elevation shows the west side elevation facing west along East 42nd Avenue. The elevations note that some of the materials include brick, wood look, metal panel, and metal panel. Staff wanted to touch upon the community outreach for the proposed school project. Per the city's intergovernmental agreement, the IGA, with public schools in Aurora, notifications of the application in the Planning Commission review are not required by the City of Aurora. However, the school district is encouraged to notify all impacted properties and community organizations independently. During that no comments were received from the public or neighborhood groups during the advisory site plan review and the applicant held no community meetings based on no public comments. During the initial advisory review, three main items were discussed for the proposed advisory site plan. The first being the coordination of early design and pedestrian connectivity. Planning staff did coordinate with the applicant's team regarding the architectural design and pedestrian connectivity for the school during early design advisory group meetings. These meetings did happen before the project was submitted for its pre-application. So the participation in these meetings, they led to the school's integration with the neighborhood's design through sidewalk connections and how it related to the park to the north and surrounding streets. Also through that early coordination, we were able to have minimal planning comments on the building's design and architecture. So based on that, planning staff appreciates the collaboration in those design advisory group meetings. Uh, 2nd, is these, uh, city of Aurora's, uh, civil engineering and fire life safety departments provided comments on the fire lane easements, uh, a fire lane easement of a minimum of 26 feet and with needed to, uh, at least 1 entire building elevation, or close to 1 quarter of the perimeter as possible should be located within that minimum minimum of 15 feet to a maximum of 30 feet. Uh, and then, in addition, a compliant, uh. Turnaround is required for the dead end of that preschool drive aisle. So, when we met for our advisory site plan review meeting to discuss comments, it was coordinated with fire life safety and civil engineering that those comments will resolve with the applicant. And then those revisions provided at the civil plan submittal. Third, the City of Aurora's Traffic Engineering Department coordinated with the applicant that the traffic impact study needed to be revised, which will be provided at the time of civil plan. Primarily, the TIS needs to be revised to better reflect data collection for the afternoon closing bell. Moving on to the approval criteria for the Advisory Site Plan application, please note that all planning comments are advisory in relation to the criteria in Section 146-5.4.3.B.2.C of the Unified Development Ordinance. The proposed Advisory Site Plan does comply with the applicable standards in this UDO. It does comply with other adopted city regulations. It does comply with any approved master plan that includes the subject site and complies with any conditions specifically applied to development of the property by the Planning and Zoning Commission or City Council in the prior decision affecting the property. Based on the review of the proposed Advisory Site Plan and the approval criteria, staff finds the Aurora Public Schools Green Valley Ranch East P-8 project to be consistent with the UDO development standards and external impacts have been appropriately mitigated. With that, staff advises that the application may proceed with the next steps in the advisory review process and that the Planning Commission does not need to request a meeting with the Board of Education as outlined in Statute 22-32-124 of the Colorado Revised State Statutes. That concludes staff's presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any. If not, we can move on to the applicant's presentation.

Commissioners, do you have any questions for staff? Seeing none, let's move on to the applicant presentation, please. And if you would be so kind when you present is to give your name and whether or not you live in the city of Aurora. That is optional to you.

I'm Danielle. I'm with MRA Architecture, the design team for the project, and I do not live in Aurora. Um, kind of did a pretty good job covering a lot of the stats, so go fairly quickly here, but as he did indicate. On the overall area plan, our location, we are looking at about a 1000 students attending the Pre K through 8th grade. We'll have about 42 classrooms with some specials classrooms for music are exploratory. Our building height is about 32 foot 8 and we do have some taller screen walls for mechanical units. and we are looking to open in June of 2028 for that 2028 school year. Our main drop off is located on 42nd Street. We did want to try to stay away from Tibet Road as much as we could. As Connor mentioned, our priority is the connection to the landscape for the adjacent communities, having play areas that can be accessible, We do have a northern fence that's more of a visual fence, but it has openings throughout the fence because we do want to encourage the community access and create a nice environment with about 265 stalls. Not in the advisory plan, but has been developed since, is we do have some pedestrian crossings. And so there'll be flashing beacons and crossings at 40th, Sicily, and Tibet on both sides for safety. Um, covered and then here's some of our extra materials that we're proposing. So, as you mentioned, it's a lot of use of brick, the wood, metal panel, the metal panel with scoring, really trying to define spaces with large canopies, canopies in the back and then, you know, break up big masses with change of materials.

And that's all I have. Thank you very, very much.

All right, questions for the applicant. Commissioner Riley, thank you kindly.

I got multiple questions. I'm a little concerned that we're hearing there's no community feedback. I live right up the street here. There's a 6700 homes there. A lot of these schools kids are probably going to Aurora Highlands right now. They're probably going to relocate from Aurora Highlands. K through 8 to this school. And Wendy Plumes is there, which is drawing a lot of kids right now. How can we say there's been no community input? I just, I'm beside myself. I don't know who we're reaching out to over there. But if I had a school coming in, and here's the other impact, Shamrock Foods. When 38th opens up to I-470, because 48th is already open to I-470, it's a racetrack. So you're putting a school bike to bat. It's a racetrack. And big trucks are there. And we look at the TIS and it says, you know, there's still some requirements that have to be done. I just can't, I'm beside myself thinking that parents are not saying, what are you going to do about these big trucks? And what are you going to do about all this access to I-470? And then another question I had was, you're getting a thousand students, but the dining hall, holds what, 300 to 600? So how are you going to feed all these kids? You're going to rotate them through? I'm just trying to question some of these planning requirements that are in there, specifically with safety because of the roadway. So those are some of my questions. The other one I had was you're putting a play field in. Is it going to be designed as like a football field or a soccer field or have some baseball requirements on it? Or is it just going to be a big field that will have no structure on. I'm just curious because, again, I live north of the community. There's kids all over the place here. I'm just trying to figure out if there's going to be more activities where the school can take advantage of putting a big field out there. So those are my questions.

Okay, three-part question. We can start with the community input, and Renee, you're welcome to start with that one, or I can take it.

Hi, I'm Renee Verspoor. I'm a project manager for Aurora Public Schools and I do not live in Aurora. For the community engagement, we had what we call a design advisory group that was created where we brought in both educators from Aurora Public Schools and community members. We had about five members who were lived in the neighborhood and we had gotten in touch with them through the homeowners association and oakwood homes and so we had multiple meetings to develop the site their priorities were connections to the community and hat where parking lot locations would be because of the concerns of the traffic around the site

Okay, thank you.

Sounded like part 1 for the play field. Typically we do use like a multi play field that can be used for a variety of reasons. So, the striping of it hasn't been fully developed, but. You know, we want the flexibility, but it is a North South facing play field. So it could be used for more competitive sports. For the cafeteria correct that is. does fit about 300 students, and there are 1,000 students in the school. So that is typical. And you can also chime into that for the Aurora K-8s of, you know, they have it kind of down to a T of the lunch periods that need to happen to get all those kids kind of in and out of that cafeteria. And you can also feed a ton of kids at the same time. 300 is like a good amount that you can properly feed and not just house in a space.

And then I guess your last question was about safety with the truck. So maybe we can elaborate a little bit more on that one.

I guess, where are you seeing a lot of trucks coming through?

Are you asking me? Because I live here. So I just live north of that community. And I'm an avid bike rider. I run through the community. I ran through the site the other day. And It's not that the trucks are speeding. It's just there's a lot of trucks. And when 38th Avenue opens up to I-470, right now we're seeing all the trucks on 48th where our community is. And they are up and down Tibet. Again, you know, you talk about how kids are going to cross from the other side, which is the new Windler development that's not up yet. There are pedestrian crosswalks right now. And I'm sure that the trucks will be safe, but there's a lot of traffic. And that community is not even built out yet. So I'm just concerned, you know, because I look at the thing was page eight, no, seven of our packet about the traffic impact study. And there's several outstanding comments that need to be addressed. So I just want to make sure they get addressed. And because we have a lot of these school discussions and we're This commission is always asking, so what about the traffic? What are you doing? These are major intersections. How are we going to ensure that kids are going to cross the street and we're not going to have fatalities? That's my biggest concern.

Definitely. So we did avoid a mid-block crossing at Tibet Street. That's something we talked about internally. Those can be really dangerous. The speed limit in Tibet, especially with this development not being built out, is dangerous. There is a potential escrow for a traffic signal at this intersection, which I think would help that crossing for those flashing beacons. Because this side of East Tibet, like you said, is planning on being built out here in the next year. And so that was 1 of the reasons we did locate the project on 42nd, which is a little bit less busy than Tibet and trying to keep a lot of the pedestrian traffic on Shawnee. The people coming from the neighborhood trying to capitalize on all the East Tibet really going to this intersection. and then trying to keep it a little quieter. So the main things from the report were regarding a Piccadilly intersection that also will be signaled as part of a different scope through Adams County. And then this intersection, which is kind of still being discussed as part of our advisory plan too.

And so are we going to get feedback on this once it's eventually done? I realize this is a courtesy for you all to present to us, but one of the things that we are Well, I am. I can't speak for the rest of the commission. But all to be concerned with is, I mean, that's a four-lane road right there. And there's a lot of traffic. And we talk about, you know, they're all collector roads there. I mean, there's traffic all the time in and out. And you're putting a school there. And again, I know the safety factors are considered. It's just that, you know, I see a traffic impact study that's not complete yet. So for us, I mean, we... are just getting this as a courtesy. But for us, we look at the impacts of children and major roadways. And I just want to make sure that that is part of our dialogue today.

Absolutely. Connor, do we have a traffic engineer from the city on this call?

I do believe we have Dean on.

I thought I might have seen him. Dean, can you give us a little update on where you are with the review, recognizing where this is in the process?

So we got to do our first review of the traffic impact study. Obviously, you heard Connor explain that there was just some data collection efforts that needed to be updated. we actually asked for. They did the opening bell. They did the closing bell. They had not done the PM peak rush hour, which we still want to see, even though obviously the school operation isn't really fully during PM peak rush hour. But, you know, this is a site, you know, it's adjacent to obviously our public roads and, you know, PM peak hour rush hour is a is a concern within every community. And there are some trips that are generated by the site during that time period. So we wanted to see that. We do have, and I don't know if anybody had told you, we have a new process in our system, our intake of different plans and things like that. We actually call it the DTI. And it's actually a separate traffic impact study, traffic informants letter, um, uh, portal that all applicants can, you know, put their impact studies, their, uh, letters, whatever into that, we can start doing reviews more independently than just with the, the DA process, uh, the, the, the cursory site plan, obviously for, uh, for schools and things like that. So we have the opportunity now to get, um, Reviews done a little quicker, a little more as needed. Obviously, I did the review on this, submitted it back through that portal. They actually just resubmitted an update literally, I forget if it was late last week or early this week. So we have it in our system. I just haven't had a chance to look at it yet. But that's basically the next thing on my list. The PM peak hour was counted. They did add that information in there. I will let you know the study did indicate that a traffic signal is warranted in the future at 42nd and Tibet. It wasn't warranted in any of the other studies that we have around there. But what I did figure out was the composition of the school was different in those other reports. It was originally considered as an elementary school. The site to the east was only an elementary school, so it never showed a warrant. With the change in composition, a P-8 is actually part elementary, part middle school. One of the comments I made, and I'm hoping to see that in the revised impact study, is what that composition of children are going to be. It wasn't indicated. They still only gave us basically all elementary school kids coming in as part of the impact study. So hopefully I'm going to see that they now give us a sort of a mix of Almost every other school that we've had, we've had a different percentage, usually a little bit higher percentage of the middle school kids, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders versus the elementary school kids. So that has an impact. That actually adds more traffic to the roadway network around the facility. So hopefully we'll see that. We'll be able to get a better definition of what how much traffic is going to be coming to and from the school on a daily basis, and we'll see how it impacts everything else. Tibet Road is basically a three-lane collector. Yes, we're sort of hoping the same thing, that, you know, We'll still see trucks on the roadway, but they better not be going high speed. We may try to see if we can do some other things. That intersection of 42nd and Tibet, I'm hoping for a traffic signal because I think the traffic signal itself is going to help with student crossings, anybody coming from the east side of Tibet needing to come over. Obviously, that's That's going to be their major crossing right there. So if we can get a traffic signal in there, that is going to support helping get the kids and the parents across the ones that can and will walk to school instead of driving. So that's where we're at in the grand scheme of things. I do have a new study. I can get that reviewed pretty quickly. We'll probably have that reviewed even before the first set of civil plans come in. The process was always let's get a new report in by the time we get civils. Now that we have the separate portal, we can get things moving a little bit quicker and hopefully get a better review. recommendation and a look at what's the impact definitely going to be with the site and we can report on that as soon as we finish that review.

Other questions by the commissioners?

Does anyone wish to see this again once the traffic study has been done again as a courtesy by the school bringing this back to us?

Commissioner Bush, is that a yes?

You would like to see it again?

And even if it's just a report, I mean, I always go to the Dean of Traffic, Dean Kaiser, and I mean, I want to make sure these kids are safe. And I see the traffic because I run here, I ride here, and I just want to make sure that we're looking at that.

So, Danielle and Renee, do we have a commitment from APS to bring this back for a report on the traffic study?

Yes.

Who said yes? I can't. Renee, did you say yes? I just wanted to make sure. There you are. I think my final comment, and then we do need to move on, so I appreciate your presentation tonight. We have talked to the school board, to APS school board members, about public notification. And I'm not sure how that is getting missed. I appreciate the fact that you have like five people from the neighborhood along with the developer to address this. That's not a lot of people, not in comparison to the size of this school and particularly in the size of this neighborhood. So we will continue that discussion with APS on that level because I am concerned, as is Commissioner Riley, with frankly the lack of Public notification. I mean, it would be easy just to literally stick a sign out there to let people know that you are going to be in study session, which indicates that there is discussion on this site.

I see a hand up. Is it Frederick?

Yeah, hi, Frederick Baining. Go ahead, Frederick. manager of design and construction here at APS, and I am not an Aurora resident. I mean, just to speak to the public information, as Renee said, we reached out to the homeowners association and they communicated to all of their members that we were open to them attending the design advisory group meetings. And the five that showed up are who showed up. I mean, we also try to do as much communication as we can, like with coal Creek, we had, a community engagement session or event with Horizon Uptown out there when the school, we're open to doing something like that with Green Valley Ranch East and Oakwood Homes. I mean, typically we invite folks to like back to school nights to provide information. We work with the contractors. Once construction nears, they typically put together like door hangs with contact information if they have any questions or concerns who they can reach out to. I mean, we do do quite a bit of community outreach and engagement, so I'm not sure where your concern comes from.

Well, thank you very, very much from that. You said you did that at Aurora Highlands. Did you do this for this development as well?

We haven't yet, but it's something that we're open to looking at doing with Oakwood Homes. It's about this timeframe that we did it with Horizon Uptown.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. We will continue to pursue that with APS. And thank you very much, Renee and Danielle, for agreeing to come back and just brief us on the traffic study. Brandon, you have your hand up as well.

That was an error.

Oh, all right. Well, thank you again, APS and supporters of APS. We will move on now.

to our retail update.

Thank you all.

Good evening.

Let me see if I can figure out technology and get my screen shared here.

Could be popping up just about now.

Can you all see that?

Awesome.

All right. Well, thank you so much for inviting us here tonight. My name is Cindy Perry, and I am the business development manager in planning and business development. I am relatively new at the city. I've been here since January. I am not an Aurora resident, but my two kids are. They both live kind of in Northeast Aurora. I have our small but mighty team with us here today, Tom Oldenburg and Brenda Kenny. And I'd also like to recognize that Robin Fleischman, our manager of Aurora Urban Renewal and Redevelopment, is also on tonight's call. So very quickly, just kind of where is Aurora in terms of retail and vacancy? The bottom line is that we're tracking with the metro and national rates in terms of vacancies. This is an unusually tight market, and we haven't seen a lot of new development, which I'll touch on in a minute, but we're seeing a lot of aggressive backfilling of those big box spaces, which is helping to temper those vacancy rates. So Aurora has grown through the years and is continuing to grow. We're currently, I think, at 414,000. Planning is updating that number estimate in terms of our population. Much of the growth has been through annexation over the years. We have more total land area than Denver. So in terms of land mass, we are the second largest in Colorado. And we have a lot of undeveloped areas. So when I see that, I say that screams opportunity. So we know retail's changed. Shopping behavior, consumer behavior has definitely changed. So back in the day, we had all of the malls. We had many, many malls, and there's some listed here in the area. Now the trend is more open air, multi-tenant. You've got Southlands. Garden on Havana has turned into a thriving shopping destination. The big boxes from the 90s are changing. A lot of that have transitioned online. So today we're repurposing those big boxes and subdividing them. Best Buy just relocated, and that's a big space on Mississippi. That's a potential subdivide. So we're seeing a lot of those trends. Retail, you know, we used to say retail follows rooftops. It still does. I mean, that hasn't changed, but it's the type of retail destinations that we're seeing. Gone really are the strip centers of old where you stop in and then leave. Consumers are looking for restaurants, service, entertainment. They want to stay a while. They want it to be experiential. So one of the things that our team does to engage with potential retailers, brokers, developers, really all the things at once is ICSE, which is the International Council of Shopping Centers. They have an annual convention in Vegas every year. And this year we went and attending these types of conventions is using that theory of one to many. I mean, we've got everybody under one roof. The crowds are well over 25,000 people there. So we can really leverage two days worth of work very well. So what we do there, we share our story. We go around, we proactively will walk up to booths and talk to brokers and retailers and tell them about Aurora. There could be some misconceptions about who we are. So that's part of what we do. We have pre-scheduled meetings. Some are prospects, some are existing partners here in Aurora, and we problem solve. We bring key decision makers to those meetings and try to come to resolution and come away with a plan. Obviously, there's tons of networking. We meet lots of new people. We renew relationships. And of course, there's prospecting. There's a lot of retailers that may not already be in Aurora. So this is our team that was at ICSC 2026. We had 10 members there. We had two council members, Deputy City Manager Laura Perry. Our team, we brought the Office of Development Assistance as well. We had a very strong team this year. So what we're doing this year that I don't know if this was done in the past since it wasn't here, but it's really important for me to follow up and follow through. So the team this year is tracking every single engagement that we had at ICSD. And this is kind of a recap. We had booked 27 meetings. The booth visitors that we were able to capture because there was a lot of activity was 112. We have 32 of those in active follow up. Aside from that, we had other meetings scheduled. So we have 49 companies in active follow up. And then obviously we participated in a number of networking. So there's a lot of momentum that comes out of ICSE, which illustrates why it's so important for the follow through. You can see how it could potentially get lost in the barrage of daily emails. So we have a tracking system now that we are using and we are able to report on that. So we made some really good connections. We met the new ownership at Town Center Mall. We have re-engaged with their newly retained broker and are in active conversations with them. We had conversations with Lucky Strike and they are on... a renovation and acquisition for their Bolero sites and Lucky Strike centers. We have the King Soopers that's coming at 56 and Piccadilly. We met with them again at ICSD, even though they are here, but we're, you know, we're really focused at ICSD on, you know, coming to problem solving. I'll go back to that. We have a lot, we had a lot of undeveloped or redevelopment interest. One of the teams said, you know, at this year's ICSE, the vultures were circling. You know, they're really interested. We're getting to the right point for new investment here in Aurora. So that was a common theme that we heard. So some other trends coming out of ICSE. Some of this, you know, I think we know and we've heard. but this also was restated by Colliers who attended ICSC and they, every year they put out a trend report. So value-driven franchises are expanding and I'll just, I won't leave each one of these in the interest of time, but I do want to highlight a couple of them. It was interesting grocery anchored and well-located neighborhood centers. And I know that grocery, since I have been here is, um, there's a lot of interest in grocery in certain parts of the city. So this is good news. As I said before, experiences and services continue to drive leasing activity. Some hot new services are spa-like services where it's very health forward. So that's kind of a new trend that we're seeing. I think something that's worth noting because we haven't seen a lot of greenfield or ground up development in terms of retail, but I think we've all kind of felt it that construction costs, the financial markets continue to be a barrier to that spec development, which is why we're seeing so much investment in existing inventory. And that, you know, I think the last bullet kind of reiterates that, that retailers are, because of the lack of new class A space, they're getting creative about how do we reuse those big boxes or how do we combine spaces or how do we reprogram those older strip centers versus building brand new. So we took this map, I apologize. I know it's really hard to read. I'm happy to email it to the commission after the fact, but I just wanted to put it on here. This is just a tool that we're using to visualize for prospective retailers or developers, the different types of retail that we have here in Aurora and to help visualize it with respect to highways, arterials, and then key points like Denver International Airport. So we have it segmented by category, essentially. So this was something that we used as a tool at ICSC and we continue to use in all of our meetings. So we're often asked, well, what does the future look like for retail in Aurora? And I will say that Aurora is fortunate because we have exceptionally strong data analysts on staff. So we have long range planning staff that is data rich. Within our team, we have a data analyst that can run a report like that. So we have a lot of data, but we also don't know what we don't know. So oftentimes, a city will do a retail demand study. We do not have a retail demand study as of yet. It's something that I would like to explore in the future. And what that helps us do is to really focus on the right retailers in the right places. So we think we know, but do we know? So a retail demand study would look at all of that household and employment growth, Retail leakage surplus, where are the gaps? Are people coming from Denver? So industrial logistics competition. We have high growth industrial off the 470 corridor. So how do we plan for future retail there from an attraction standpoint? So we're kind of the sales team, if you will. So we want to make sure that we're chasing the right people. So another thing that you may or may not have heard of is we have a retail strategy. So city council adopted the retail strategy framework back in January. So since that time, we've been working to develop an implementation plan. We don't want it to sit on the shelf. So there will be very actionable short-term and long-term tasks and goals that come out of this retail strategy. So prior to my arriving, the retail team went out and canvassed 10, 15% of businesses within the city. That means they went and talked to all of these businesses to get some understanding of their experience here in Aurora. They took all of that information and then created the strategy. We then took the adopted framework and shopped it to a steering committee. Garrett Walls was a participant on that steering committee. And that committee was made up of brokers, shopping center managers, business consultants, developers. So we had a broad range of representation on that committee. So we have a draft retail strategy that is being circulated. We anticipate being before the business advisory board and planning and economic development committee shortly. But you can see on the screen, again, I'm going to say this is draft, but these are our near-term priorities and themes that we heard from all of the feedback. Incentives are important. So we're looking at building an incentive program that we can recommend to city council that will have very clear criteria so that staff is not bringing, you know, incentive after incentive. We want these to be very meaningful. So we probably have four buckets. So more to come on that as we get some feedback from the different commissions and city council. We have prioritized properties by ward. So basically centers that we would target for reinvestment. This quite frankly is already in progress. This is something that we're already doing. We met with an investment company yesterday and, you know, this is the type of information that we're sharing, like, you know, based on age and, you know, declining leasing, etc. So we are finalizing a formalized business retention expansion and attraction program. What that does is that's our SOP, basically our guideline that holds our team accountable. So we have metrics built into that. They are, they don't promise anything. A lot of times people want like an increase of 5% in sales tax, but That's really hard for us to have complete control over, but there are a lot of, there will be outcome-based metrics in there that we would report on annually. Telling Aurora's story came up over and over again. So again, already working on this, we have met with our communications team and are looking to ramp up our messaging. So it's kind of twofold, right? We've got messaging to developers and businesses like Aurora wants you here. We have wonderful processes. So what are the strategic advantages of retailers and entertainment and service being here at Aurora? And then secondly, communicating to the residents what we are doing. Some people don't understand what business development is doing. announcing new businesses, featuring, you know, these amazing stories of some of our entrepreneurs here, you know, making connections about jobs to retail. And so that's kind of the intent behind that. So communications is in the process of finalizing a communication strategy for that. Obviously, we'll be doing ICSE reporting. We are going to be before planning and economic development with that in August. SBDC. So that is the Small Business Development Center. This is a program funded by the SBA, federal, and then managed under the state. So they are a separate entity from us. However, we work extremely closely with them. We have a lot of small businesses here in Aurora that we feel are very important to support. So we work closely with them. If we meet with a business that is struggling with marketing, for example, we will make that referral connection to them. We've partnered with them on the Bus Rapid Transit Project communications with businesses. They will be part of our business retention expansion program. And then we have a lot of data that we can share with them and vice versa. So we are planning some round tables coming up in partnership with SBDC that will essentially be listening session and we're identifying different sectors within the businesses here in Aurora. So we'll target We'll have like retail or we'll have restaurants or we'll have auto providers. So we're breaking it down like that. So we're working together on those types of things. So I know I flew through that. I wanted to make sure we had some time for questions and make sure that you got to your other time. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay, folks, we only have about five minutes now for questions. If need be, we certainly, Cindy, would like to have a little time if commissioners have questions. And Robin, I don't know if you were planning to present as well, but unfortunately we do not have time for that. But I would very much like to hear how you two work together and how you kind of divide and conquer so that it is clear to us as commissioners basically what your roles and responsibilities are, as well as with Tom and the other folks on your staff. But for the next few minutes, commissioners, do you have any burning questions for Ms. Cindy with the hopes that she can come back if there are some things we would like her to research and bring back to us?

Commissioner Riley.

Thank you. So I live just south of where the King Soopers is going, and I'm very interested in what the retail plan there is and what the pad sites are going to fill. Because as you have said very well, there's a need for grocery stores around here, especially in the Ward 2 east side. Is there going to be, how will we find out what those pad sites are going to be in the future? I mean, me specifically, personally, I'm interested. I don't think it really has to impact us on the planning zoning unless it's going to require a conditional use permit. But that's the kind of stuff that people are generally interested in around here. And I'm sure Council Member Wiles will probably ask that question as well. So I'm interested in that. And then the other thing is you didn't talk anything about FRA or FIC and how you want to bring tech into those areas. I'm very interested in that as well. Obviously, we're not going to get to that tonight, but it'd be nice to have some follow up on some of these great initiatives that are going to continue to make Aurora the place to come to.

Yeah, great, great question. And in terms of the king supers, we don't know who's going to be the end users for those pad sites. But at that particular location, there is inline retail and multiple pad sites. Tom on my team would probably have that right on top of his head that there will be pad sites for prospective restaurants. We just don't know what those uses are. As soon as we are able to announce anything, my hope is obviously we would update the council member. And then we're hoping to do some sort of a ongoing communication to Planning and Economic Development Committee. So those types of announcements would be included in our monthly update there. In terms of tech, today I was just talking about retail. We partner with Aurora Economic Development Council, and they are doing the primary job site selection, so the big corporate site selection, but we do support small and mid-sized commercial tech, absolutely. We're engaging with CCA right now on different programs and workforce development, making sure that we have the right ecosystem in place to support, you know, whatever the forward-thinking jobs are here.

Okay. Thank you.

Other questions by commissioners? Cindy or Tom, is this a marketplace store for King Soopers? Is it 120,000 square feet or is it 60 to 80? Tom?

Becky, Tom Oldenburg, how are you doing?

I'm good.

Good, good. It's 123,000 square feet, nine pad sites, 7,200 square feet of inline and room for a 24,000 square foot anchor.

Awesome.

Thank you, Tom. Junior, you're welcome.

All right, folks, that's going to wrap it up for this evening.

Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Cindy, and other members of the retail team. And then, Ms. Robin, we hope to hear from you in the future. Yes, Commissioner Hogan.

Commissioner Hogan, just a second. I was not planning on presenting. I'm just listening. But thank you very much for the invitation. I will work with you to get on a future schedule.

Perfect.

If I can add...

Go ahead, Cindy. The Small Business Development Center also extended their offer to make a presentation and talk more about the services that they're providing to small businesses here in Aurora. I just want to put that out there.

Great, great, great. And I am hoping that as you do retail with the larger formats that you will also consider some of our many diverse minority businesses that are popping up and are making us unique in the metropolitan area. Absolutely. All right. Thank you again very, very much. Folks, we will see you at 610. And we look forward to hearing from you again. Thank you again.