Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Start our recording here.

Wonderful. Thank you, Thomas.

Thank you.

Are we live?

Yes, we are. We're good to proceed.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. So welcome everybody to this meeting of the City of Boulder Planning Board. Tonight is June 23rd, 2026. I'm the chair, Laura Kaplan, and let's go ahead and do a little roll call, even though our names appear next to our faces on the Zoom. So if we could start with Mark, if you could just say your name, please.

Mark McIntyre.

Thank you. ML? ML Robles. Thank you, ML. Max.

Max Lord.

And Mason.

Mason Roberts.

Wonderful. Kurt Nordback will be joining us shortly. He had technical difficulties, but he'll be back soon. And Vice Chair Claudia Hanson-Theme is absent tonight. So tonight we have probably a brief meeting. We have one call up item and one matters item, and we'll get to those shortly. But first, we will go ahead and do public participation. Thomas, will you be reading the rules and managing the public participation tonight?

Yes, I will. And so give me just one moment. I'll pull up our slides and go over these before we begin. All right, thanks to anybody from the public joining us tonight. Just wanted to go over a couple of basic rules that cover our open comment and public participation guidelines. At city board and commission meetings and 1st of all, we just want to let you know that the city is engaged with community members to Co, create a vision for productive, meaningful and inclusive civic conversations. And that this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and board and commission members, as well as democracy for people of all ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. You can find more information about this vision and the community engagement process on our website. And the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this vision. These will be upheld during this meeting. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business. No participants shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. Obscenity, racial epithets, and other speech and behavior that disrupt or otherwise impede the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited, and participants are required to identify themselves using the name they are commonly known by, and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online.

When we open up the opportunity to speak, if you would like to speak, please go ahead and click the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen.

If you're calling in, you can press star nine. And if you happen to not see that raise hand icon, you might see this reactions icon here, and you could click that. And then once it expands, you should see the raise hand button. And that is all for our slideshow. And with that, if anybody would like to speak for our open comment period please go ahead and raise your hand and you'll have three minutes to speak and I'll just note that we have no public hearings tonight so any topic is fair game anything that the planning board deals with for this open comment period and I'm seeing no raised hands on my end so We have one raised hand from Lynn Siegel. Lynn, you'll have three minutes and please go ahead and speak. Hello, Lynn.

I like to other people speak, but nobody ever wants to speak. They certainly want to complain. And as we saw in the paper, the letter from Matt Benjamin and and what's her name? And I don't know. But, you know, the criticisms of staff and the complexity of the dynamics of city government with the council and the manager, et cetera, and with Bob Yates in town and 80 spaces that are in, you know, deferred maintenance or in bad condition that we want to sell off. And the West Senior Center, I mean, this is utterly ridiculous. well, seven to ten condos there for, like, probably four or five million bucks each. You know, so, like, that's a good way to manage our funds because we're in debt, because we can't pay our first outbuilder rec center, because we haven't planned properly, economically speaking. You know, and I'm Jewish, so I'm really... I am really, really cheap. I lick my plates. I reuse my floss. I clean it and rinse it, but I reuse it for like two weeks. Okay, so why can't the city run a little bit slimmer rather than sticking it to me with a transportation maintenance fee? And this all comes from you guys. It's on the ground. It starts at planning board. It starts at Papelios, at, you know, the Millennium, at Colorado, you know, the encouragement of the CU campus. It's utterly ridiculous what's going up in this town. 8,000 more folks, probably more like 40,000 coming up. And after Sundance, probably doubling our population. This is not, you know... good for my function it might be functional for you folks because you take in money and you you have a thriving community here by selling off all your 80 properties and taking away my ability to jump down to my west senior center in five and seven minutes you know But this is not, you know, what was it in the Boulder Valley comp plan? You know, the 15 minute thing like this is not happening with 15 minutes. All you see around you is more condos. Those aren't those aren't functioning for me. Like Matt said in his Max said, Max Lord said in his commentary about the commercial businesses. So do something about it. Jane up, you know, but not on the taxpayer.

Thank you, Lynn. Thanks for joining us tonight. If there's anybody else that would like to speak to the open comment period, this is your opportunity to please go ahead and raise your hand. And seeing no others, I'm going to pass it back to you, Laura. Thank you.

Thank you, Thomas. And thank you, Lynn. Let's do a quick sound check. Kurt, do you want to say hello so we can know that your mic is working?

Hello, this is Kurt.

We hear you. Wonderful. Welcome back. Okay, so a quick agenda review for tonight. We will have two sets of minutes to approve, our minutes from February 17th of this year and from April 28th of this year. We will have one call-up item, which is a use review on Broadway, and we will have no public hearing items. but one matters item, which is an update about the Civic Area East Bookend public-private partnership RFP. So that's our agenda for tonight. We think it'll go fairly quickly. And let's go ahead and dive into the approval of minutes. The first set of minutes we have to approve is from February 17th of this year. Did anybody have any comments, questions, or edits to those minutes?

This is a kind of legal question. Am I meant to vote on these? I remember that being a bit of a back and forth because I wasn't there.

So to your question, you can abstain from voting if you do not feel comfortable opining on the minutes. However, in the event that we don't have a quorum, you could vote if you felt that it accurately captured the meeting as you understood it to be. And so you can decline, I believe, tonight. Was that for both sets of minutes, Max, or just one?

Just the first one. I wanted to know the correct precedent. So I guess I'll just decline on the first one and comment on the ones that I participated in or vote on the ones I participated in.

Thank you. OK, thank you, Deshauna and Max. I just learned something. I did not think that we could vote on minutes that we were not present for. That's good to know, Deshauna. OK, so let's go ahead. And any further questions, comments, edits to the February 17th minutes? Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. If you were present, I think I have the list. Mark? Yes. Kurt? Yes. Mason.

Yes.

ML. Yes. And I'm a yes. So those minutes are approved. We'll go on to the April 28th, 2026 planning board draft minutes. And Thomas, I saw that you incorporated the edits that I sent and they have been uploaded into the packet on the website and they were also sent separately to the board. Anybody have questions, comments, or further edits? Seeing none, I will go ahead and call. I'm scrolling to the minute so I can see who was present. It looks like Kurt and Mark, you were both absent that night. So we do have four folks who were present who are here. So we'll vote with those four. Max. Yes. Mason.

Yes.

ML.

Yes.

And I'm a yes. So those minutes are approved also.

Madam Chair.

We'll move up. Yes, Mark.

I'm not sure what you're seeing on your screen, but I see, I think Mark Wolf has his hand up. I don't see that. He just lowered his hand. Okay.

Residue from public hearing.

Okay. Thank you.

Well, no, I appreciate that, Mark. Thanks for helping me keep an eye on things. Okay. Any staff members want to speak at this point? Seeing none, we'll move on to the call-up item. This is a use review to convert an existing ground floor office space at 2521 Broadway, Unit A, into a three-bedroom residential unit in the BC2 zone. This approval is subject to call-up on or before June 26, 2025, and it takes at least two of us, I believe, to call it up. Did staff want to say anything about this? Seeing no comments from staff, any questions or comments from planning board members? ML.

Yes, I have just a clarifying question. I believe in the information it said that a unit B had already been converted to a residence. Is that? So there's already a residence in, it's just on the ground floor.

Yeah. Hi, ML. I'm Alex Pichaz, senior planner. And so it is a mixed use building. So the upper floors have residential units. I believe that unit B was converted and it's on the second floor. So it did not require use review of the zone.

Got it. I'm just getting confusing as to what was going on there. I have no other questions and I have no need to call this up. Thank you.

Thank you, ML and Alex. Welcome. Any other questions, comments, or desire to call this up from planning board members? Okay, I'll just comment and say, you know, normally I'm quite conservative about converting a commercial use to a residential use in a BC2 zone on the ground floor, especially along a busy street like Broadway. But I do agree with the staff analysis that this is on the edge of the zone. It is, you know, it has residential units to the south. It won't significantly change the character of the area. And this unit is not needed to support the street life of this area. So I agree with staff. I don't desire to call it up either. Okay, so that takes care of our call-up items. That leaves us with just one more item for the evening, which is our matters item, the Civic Area East Bookend Public-Private Partnership, RFP. Brad, would you like to start us out?

Yes, I would. Good evening, Planning Board members, and thank you for your time tonight. So even though there aren't any decisions for you to make tonight or comments to make, we do want to make sure that you are being kept up to date on the work of the civic area and the newly renamed Boulder Creek Park and development around that. So we're happy to have Mark Davidson with us, Shihomi Kiriagawa, and Jake Minden, as well as maybe for the sharp-eyed among you, a familiar face from the past, David Driscoll, former planning director for the city, now consultant, now assistant in some of these efforts. So lots of really good work and hard work by this team. And our department's been very involved with it as well. We appreciate the partnership and thank you all for being here tonight. So take it away.

Thank you so much, Brad. Can you all hear me okay? Okay, I see nodding. Like Brad mentions, I'm Shiomi Kuriyagawa. I'm the project manager of Civic Area. I'm with BPR and I will walk you through what we're here to talk about in terms of Civic Area and the East Bookend development opportunity. Let me share my screen and see if that all works. Is everyone seeing my screen? Great. OK. I see some thumbs up. I'll do presentation mode. Are you all seeing presentation, or are you seeing your slide and the next slide? OK. Give me one second.

I'll re-share.

zoom is always changing things around so it happens to all of us that is kind of my quandary with oh here we go okay okay i think we got it slide presentation good to go all right let's walk forward okay All right. So tonight's agenda, we will give you a little bit of context for the civic area and then also for specifically the East Bookend Development Partnership opportunity, the main focus of what we're here to talk to you all about tonight. With that project, we are going to see where we're headed, some next steps and how that includes planning boards. And then just like Brad said, this is a matters item for information. The planning board does not have an official role at this time, but there will be a role during the development review process. Okay, so just a little bit of context setting and to locate us in space. The civic area as a whole is definitely located in central area of downtown Boulder. We are right next to the downtown area with influences up to Pearl. as well as down to the south with this CU campus as well as the hill. One of the key features of Civic Area is not only the park at the core and then development on the bookends, but also the Arboretum connection that goes up to the new conference development as well as the CU campus. And of course, the Boulder Creek runs through it. And so very key prime downtown location. I'll just also note, I know we're zoomed out a little bit, but generally the scope includes 9th Street to 14th Street. From the north it's Canyon and to the south it's Arapahoe that binds this area. Okay, so this is a zoom in and a look at the park at the core. But what we're going to talk about tonight in terms of this project scope and this opportunity is what you see here in yellow. And specifically to the right of your screen is the east bookend opportunity. that we're going to focus on. For this process, the main offering will be the East Bookend. I will note that we are looking at the West Bookend as an alternate opportunity. So when we think about development and going out to our private sector groups, if they are interested, West Bookend is sort of an alternate opportunity. But the main focus, like I mentioned, is East Bookend. Everything you see here in yellow is going to be city-owned property. And then just a note here, you can tell that the east and west bookend are highly integrated into the park at the core. The park design, which is a little bit screened out here, has been a concurrent process. So the last two years, we've been working on phase two improvements for Civic Area. I'm really excited about that upcoming implementation in the next couple of years. So this will be pretty important to stitch the development that we're seeking from a private sector opportunity into what the city will put enhancements. And I'll get into that in a little bit more detail. But generally, the scope is to look for a developer partner to come in and help rethink these bookends with active and vibrant development. And then specifically thinking about this project and why go out for a partnership and why look to the private sector to get some of the development and redevelopment built in this area. Really, we're looking to achieve communities vision through programming this key downtown space, more activation and making sure that community benefit is baked in. So we think from the city side, we hold the civic area 2015 park plan and making sure that as we go through engagement, both from that 2015 park plan, as well as the new phase two improvements, we've gathered a lot of feedback and what community would like to see. And so we can be sort of the holders of those key ideas and themes and in this area. We also think that on the public sector side, that we can leverage the city investment and the properties that we own here. So again, key downtown location properties. And when we look to the private sector coming in, there's all kinds of opportunity the private sector brings in terms of capital, as well as creativity and innovation through design. And so rethinking some of these bookends and how they stitch into the park we think can be a great collaboration between both the public and the private sector. And generally to one of our goals as city staff move out of some of these buildings, we'd like to look at reprogramming and repurposing some of these key buildings. And so also looking at reducing the city's facility management role and therefore the cost, making that a little bit more efficient on our side as well. Both parties would gain benefit of Jen generating revenue both to support near term and long term girl goals and so that's what we'll be talking about a little bit later in the presentation as well. Okay, so through the park plan that I mentioned from 2015 but also from our recent public engagement, but also. an economic and market study. So there's kind of three layers going on in terms of what are some of the design principles and the key themes for the East Book Inn and what we'd like to put into a public RFP, a public request for proposal, would be these ideas of a food district. So making sure that we're strengthening the food in terms of Boulder County farmers market presence and maybe some other retail opportunities, recreation, of course, like I mentioned, integrating and creating a holistic design with the civic area adjacent, and then community arts and culture in terms of programming. So all three of these themes have been prevalent through our past park planning, excuse me, and then a recent community feedback, and then that recent economic and market study that we've done. Okay, so if we zoom in here on the existing conditions for the East Bookend, you can see what's labeled in the light yellow is the atrium, the tea house, and the storage and transfer building. I'll note that those are landmarked buildings. Specifically, the tea house is going to remain the same land use. The atrium and the city storage and transfer building are up for opportunity, again, as city staff. move and leave the atrium eventually. What could this building be? How could it be repurposed and revitalized? The city storage and transfer building has currently BMOCA in it, and they're looking to a new northern campus. So what does this building become? And we also know that BMOCA does want a presence somewhere in downtown. So thinking about that, taking that into stock throughout this process. I'd like to also note generally, again, that yellow boundary is signifying the city owned property. So there's a few things going on on the backside of these buildings, the existing buildings. We have some surface parking lots. So that's sort of ripe for opportunity and developable area of brand new buildings going up of some kind of new programming and space activation. And then you notice this dog lake just to the south. So some of this is city-owned and will be a part of this development opportunity while everything outside is currently privately owned. So that's where we look to the private sector, should they be interested in reaching out to property owners and seeing if there's negotiation for sale there or sort of letting the private sector take the lead on that. But what will be And the main offering is what is city-owned property, what you see in yellow. Okay, so adjacent to what we've looked at on the east bookend, I'll talk a little bit about the phase two park enhancements. So we did a two-year effort with the community to look at a civic area as a whole again. So that 9th to 14th, Canyon to Arapahoe, Phase two improvements and what is actually able to be funded for construction is what you see here in the pink. But we think this is a great opportunity for the private sector to come, incentive for them to come develop adjacent to us and even be a part of the finalization process of how 13th Street, so what you see here in peach, stitches together with the East Bookend area. Generally, the phase two park improvements include enhancing and upgrading 13th Street for an outdoor venue for the Boulder County Farmers Market, looking at new uses that activate the space, such as playground splash pad and a lot of passive activation to bring vibrancy back into this downtown space. Some small improvements to the bandshell, not the structure, but some of the landscape areas surround. And then, of course, tying in the bandshell into a celebration of history through a story walk, opportunity and creating multimodal transit opportunities. So a lot of investment going in adjacent to the East Book End. So it's a great, ripe opportunity, not only as a key downtown location to have a partner come and collaborate with us, but also knowing that they'll be adjacent with proximity and access to these key park improvements. All right, so we're kind of meeting you I would say maybe one quarter of the process, but where we've been in terms of envisioning what this development opportunity could be. We knew we had to start with an RFI, a request for interest. And so that was really to test the market, was to see what the private sector thought they could accomplish here. Would the private sector be interested at all in developing in this area? And also so that we have learning opportunity going forward should we get to an RFP or request for proposal. So initially, we held a forum on the project just to go over a lot of the different detail of the East Bookend and the parameters there, as well as some detail on the West Bookend. And that was last year, late last year. What we got in terms of posting of the RFI in February 2026. So earlier this year, we had about nine submittals. So all kinds of responses from full developer teams with their finance personnel, their design team, submitting more of a full vision, all the way down to individual organizations submitting for things like reprogramming a building and or a specific design team. So kind of ran the gamut of what we got back in terms of responses. And then, like I mentioned, the responses we had, we gained a lot of information from, and we are currently looking through some of that information, and that will help inform our request for proposals. And then generally, what we'd like to highlight too is what we've learned from the RFI. So really, we've got a strong interest in mixed use in terms of the developable program. So thinking about not only building space, but looking at how public and community benefit is baked in with gathering spaces, food options. So a lot of folks definitely included Boulder County Farmer's Market. In that, the private sector will be looking at how to house Boulder County Farmer's Market interior to East Bookend. So again, City Improvement is looking at upgrading 13th, so their outdoor space. A lot of folks submitted on how to house the Farmer's Market interior, which is one of the specifics that we asked for. So that was great to see. There was a lot of interest and support for a partnership model in general, and we got a lot of great feedback on that. So the teams thought that this delivery model would have a lot of public benefit while balancing what would be city long term goals and developer goals on revenue generation. We also had feedback that emphasized connections to the park and downtown, adaptive reuse of our historic buildings, which was great to see how they're tying in some of the landmarks there, and how to expand specifically arts programming, thinking about Sundance coming in, but also existing arts and culture partners from around the city. So that was great to see from some of the submissions as well. I got feedback on how to be clear and concise and have more specific specificity in terms of the city role and just some of the project parameters in the RFP. So that was also very helpful. Okay. So, you know, after doing some due diligence with some of the scoping, some studies, community feedback and RFI to gain just kind of market temperature on these bookend development opportunity, where we're headed now is that RFP, so request for proposal. That is a formal process. The RFI was an informal process in which we, again, were just sort of asking the developer sector on what they thought. Now the RFP is really looking to look for an aligned partner, somebody that will look to collaborating and development on So the target release date of the RFP will be late this summer. Again, we're looking to finalize and select a partner. Again, it could include main offering is East Bookend and could include the West Bookend. The Boulder County Farmers Market, because of the themes of food, because of community feedback, And also knowing that they're a great space activator, we are having them on as a core partner. And so making sure that we can help them in terms of achieving their goals for an interior space was pretty important in this RFP. And then also just noting here that this effort is a multi-department effort. It's led by a city manager's office and has a lot of departments from across the city to support. RFP 2026, like I mentioned, we'll go through interviews and hopefully a partner selection if we can find somebody that's aligned in the collaboration that we'd want to see with the East Bookend. 2027, we will work towards a pre-development agreement and then get into concept planning with that team. So just to note, I know I showed some plans with some of what looks like the East Bookend is already in design. That's just a placeholder to see how we could integrate both the rest of the park into some type of development. The concept plan for the East Book Inn really has to be done with the newly selected partner. 2028 will move potentially to a site plan and finalized partnership agreement if all goes well in that concept planning stage. And then this is definitely just forecasted out at this point. It could be that 2029, the developer partner starts construction on the east bookend. So this is all subject to change. We really have to rely on knowing that we'll find the correct partner and we'll find a good fit in general. And then, of course, there's kind of a lot that could push out or change on the schedule. Okay, so the next steps for the planning board, I'll highlight that late 2027 general milestone that a concept plan review process will be an opportunity for the planning board to provide feedback. And then public hearing, of course, on preliminary site design concept and propose of mixed uses. So that's the opportunity there in late 2027. And then tentative for 2028, If we can move into the site review process at that time, that would be an opportunity again for planning board. And then I just note the project website here for any updates to the project process. So that is what I have for you all. I can open it up if there's any questions.

Thank you so much, Shihome. Okay, questions or comments from board members? Kurt, immediately with the hand up. Thank you, Kurt.

Sure. Thanks, Shihome, for that presentation. I have a few questions. The first is, we've been hearing about the DDA, the Downtown Development Authority, I think it is. Is this connected in any way with the DDA, or is it dependent on the... creation of the DDA or is vice versa? Is the DDA in any way dependent on this?

Yeah, it's a great question. For the DDA, the East Book End, you saw that it will take quite a bit of process to move through into construction. And so it could be that if the DDA is formed, that the East Book End would be a potential opportunity to pull on any tax increment financing that could be available if the DDA should pass. So specifically if there is renewal opportunity to put funding into the East Brooklyn at that time, that's sort of an incentive for the developer to pull from if we pass the DDA.

Okay. But you're not predicating it on that. It sounds like, is that correct? No, no, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Sounds great. Another question is, it sounds like you're not talking about any residential use, at least in the concept that you have. Did you consider including any residential, which seems like it might make it more attractive to a private developer?

Yeah. So from some of the submissions and from preliminary studies that we did on our side, residential was an option. We had residential as one of the thoughts in the submissions. And so a lot of mixed use ideas, residential, commercial, retail, food and beverage. So we definitely saw the gamut of mixed use for sure.

Okay. So you're not ruling out residential? No. Yeah. Okay. Sounds great. I've got another question, but I'll let other people ask for now. Thanks.

ML. ML.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I've been hearing a lot about the bookends, and I've never seen really anything. My questions are kind of more just about the thinking process that's gone into this so far. In the interested arts, culture, business entities, I was online to see those entities and what they were excited about and thinking. It seemed that there was an implication of affordability. Just the nature of the people who were, for example, the junkyard, we'd like to move there if the rent is about the same as where we're at now. Those kinds of things. And I'm curious, and especially the smaller entities, is there going to be some kind of integrated strategy to retain, to help small local entities participate in this quote unquote opportunity?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think generally we will have to get through the process, look at submissions coming through and find a developer partner really on what is possible and then start the concept planning process. And so affordability will have to be something that I think that the team looks at together. But we've also included an interest sign-up sheet on our website for anybody and everybody who's interested in this opportunity. Again, looking to space activate with local business and support local business. So we have that sign up sheet on our website for the East Bookend opportunity. So that includes, you know, I think so far we have a long list of people interested. We've talked to Create Boulder. We've talked to BMOCA. There's been several folks that we followed up on who would be interested. And I think we have to get through a lot of the process to find a partner first in concept planning. I don't know, David, if you have anything to add or Mark Wolf to that, but.

Yeah, I just think that's a really important part of the concept planning process next year, which will be a joint process. From the city side, there's been a lot of community visioning on what we'd love to see on those properties. Many of them require some level of subsidy to make them affordable and viable over time. We're looking for a development partner to come in and tell us what kind of development program they might want to prioritize and bring to the table. And it's looking at how do those things all fit together? What's the right mix that makes this place economically viable over time that activates, creates the kind of activation that's part of the vision in terms of activity 24-7 all year round? Mike Noce, Mgmt. And then, where might we have opportunity to cross subsidize so some of the uses that generate revenue that could help to lower the cost for parts of the property that wouldn't. Mike Noce, Mgmt. Definitely generate revenue and that's going to be a decision that will have to happen next year, through the concept planning process like is there. John Potter, Additional public subsidy to make things work, or we looking to make this all self sufficient, how much are we looking to generate revenue to meet other city needs outside of the seabrook end area so that's going to be the challenge and opportunity of the concept plan process next year.

Karen Hollweg, We haven't had a lot of success in private partnerships, bringing in affordable. solutions to the table.

Well, at the end of the day, it all has to work. I mean, it has to pay for the development. And I mean, there's ways we can publicly subsidize, but there's a lot of things in the city that need public subsidy. And it'll be an interesting process.

Yeah. So my second question is talking about the retail opportunities, the events and restaurants and whatnot. One block away, there is the Olive, which claims that there is no way to have successful retail, at least on their block, which is a block away. And so I'm really curious to hear what's going to be different than what has been there as an empty... kind of ground floor for a couple of years now.

Yeah. You know, I think through our market research, but also in talking to some of the developer teams, you know, it really just depends on what type of retail we're looking at. Certainly, again, one of our key themes is food and beverage, as well as supporting farmer's market. The farmer's market had mentioned a year-round market hall and definitely expanding their services and community offerings. So There's definitely potential there. And then also just thinking about being adjacent to the park itself. So the other theme that we find could be recreation opportunity. Maybe for the East Book End or surely throughout the park, there's always opportunity for recreation vendors, tube rentals, outdoor rentals in general. So we're kind of close to this outdoor space. You find places like the REI in downtown Denver that's next to Confluence Park. So there's still some synergies and there's still some opportunity and we'll definitely have to test it out with our partner on what we think would be successful.

Interesting. And let me see. Oh, I think those are my two main questions. Thank you so much. I appreciate the presentation and the exciting potential future of that area. I'm assuming that the tea house will remain. It sounded like the building will, but the enterprise might not.

Oh no, the building and the vendor will remain. So that wholly induced swap change for the tea house. Got it.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, ML. Mark.

Hi, thank you for that presentation. My question I ask with some deep trepidation of maybe pissing off a lot of people, but this area, I frequent this area on the weekends, during the week, and there is a significant population of unhoused people in this area with great regularity. And there is a public perception regarding safety in this area. So did our RFIs on the city side offer up any context, comment about that? Did the responses offer up any, we're really interested in this, but dot, dot, dot, you have to do something. And finally, is this an opportunity potentially for some real creative thinking about how to manage a space that uh does have let's just acknowledge it that has a significant you know we talk about activation 24 7 this area has a significant population 24 7 of unhoused people and it it it's an issue when we're balancing that and our constitutional uh obligations and are empathy and kindness considerations combined with restaurant tours. And we talked about a food aspect of this, uh, and restaurant tours and their concerns about their patrons, et cetera. So I've, I've just laid out a great big problem and I, I don't know if you have any response, but I'd be curious about any response to that.

Yeah, Mark. Um, we do, we're, we do get this question a lot. It's a tricky question, right? It's, uh, This also is sort of a citywide problem, effort, support, challenge. And with Parks and Rec specifically, we have to make sure that our parks are welcome to all. So we walk this line of being inclusive and welcoming. And I think you talked about some humanitarian and kindness values in there. We absolutely share that with you. So in terms of the RFI, what we painted a picture as was sort of specifically the need to invigorate and revitalize this key downtown area. I think in the forum, we had mentioned too that like a lot of cities after COVID, some of our downtown spaces had some challenges with population and folks leaving downtown, businesses turning over. So we're hoping that part of that revitalization conversation is looking to activate the space With activation, what we've seen, we definitely have a better, I would say, eyes on the street, but also just generally a lot of people feeling safer. And then what I will say concurrently on the design side, in terms of phase two, what we're looking at and studying is a park management plan. For civic area. And so what that includes is how to take care of what we have, how to take care of what we're building for all the new amenities and infrastructure. But also looking at social behaviors, how to promote social behaviors. Again, thinking about walking the line of making sure everyone feels welcome. But that everybody's kind of following park policy and that there's no unsanctioned camping, for instance. So we have a management plan that we're working on for this space because we know the space is sort of, this is a regional facility and amenity, and it's pretty important to feel safe and welcoming down here.

If I can just interject too, to be maybe a little bit of a third party observer to this, I'm not obviously intimately involved. in the regular parts of it, like Shahomi or even some of our team members, but I certainly have seen a good number of presentations and summaries of things. And I do wanna assure you, Mark and the rest of the planning board members, that this item is very much front and center of both what was captured from the public and also being carefully considered. It's definitely not being swept under the rug. It's being put out there. It's obviously, as you all know, a very big challenge. in general, whether we're talking about Boulder or elsewhere, but I've been very impressed about how there's been honest and, you know, direct conversations around that. And I think we can all feel confident that there's a very strong desire to integrate that both into the park planning and the East Bookends.

Great, thank you. I just wanna emphasize that it does take, it will take direct and honest and thoughtful conversation during this whole thing to address it in ways that do reflect our values and at the same time, encourage activation and encourage investment And anyway, I was hoping you guys had some magic that you're going to reveal, but seeing that, you know, it's just back to the usual. This is a conundrum. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Thanks.

Thank you for that question, Mark, and to Shihome and Brad for the responses. Mason, you have your hand up.

Mark, I'm glad you broached the topic. Both my questions are in the same vein. My first question is, could you expand upon the coordination with HHS on this development plan? Given the concentration of our homeless neighbors in this area, I would assume there would be some kind of outreach or support or services provided in the area. I don't know if it's exactly in the bookends or what, but just kind of interested in what that is.

Yeah, we work with our SAMHSA teams, our safety management team that includes our rangers includes utilities operation. It includes PD. So there's a whole host of folks in the Sam's team. Um, and so when we're thinking about being welcoming, but also Sam's team provides support and connection to any of the services around the city or provided by the county. Um, so that's the key team that we'll be working with in a civic area. Um, In terms of HHS, I know that we're also coordinating with them as well for any services that they provide. So, you know, we're trying our best. It's definitely, like I mentioned, again, multi-department effort. And so it's something that it's sort of outside of Parks and Rec, but it includes policy. It includes the county. It includes PD. It's a lot of folks that come to the table to support.

Great, and in those discussions, just a quick follow up to that question, in those discussions, has there been, has it been brought up the possibility of including harm reduction, like vending machines and other type of amenities within the space?

You know, we did go through gathering some feedback from the community and included some folks from Bridge House. So our organization that takes in unhoused and sort of gets them set up and working into some transition and new job opportunities and then also transitional housing. And so we have been working with some key stakeholders and looking at if there's any service or support that we would include in civic area. I would say not at this time that we have anything like that in this area. But again, working with our partners with Sam's group and Boulder County.

Great. And then the second question is more around our our nonprofit and other community activists who regularly work in the civic area through the permitting process, will those types of efforts be allowed to continue in the civic area? I know there was like a cancellation of some, there's been confusion around the permitting of those activities.

Okay. So I think I got your question, Mason. You're a little quiet.

Sorry. I can get closer to my mic. Yeah. So I know over the past, um, two years or so, there's been some confusion around permitting for our nonprofit and community partners doing work in this area. Will that be allowed to continue and encouraged?

Yeah, I mean, at this time, definitely still working with our special events group and what we're hoping through, again, I'll go back to the park plan So I talked a little bit about safety and policy. I talked a little bit about maintenance and operations as we built this new space. Activation and programming is also something that we would love to look at. I would say revamping, making it more efficient. This is kind of a long process that we're looking at this park management plan, but it includes space activation. So we currently have our special events team working to ensure that we have programming in the civic area. So, you know, I'm sad to hear that there's maybe some difficulty there, some confusion, but we'll continue working with the special events team. We've also been in discussion again with what I'd say anchor partners in terms of the library and Boulder County Farmers Market to make sure that our key space activators remain able to activate the space. So hopefully that answered your question.

It does. Thank you.

Thank you, Mason. Max, anything? Nope. No, I mean, no. Oh, no, go ahead, Max. Go ahead.

No, it's all been very informative.

Thank you. And back to you, Kurt.

Okay, thank you. First of all, I want to follow up on Mark's and Mason's excellent questions. And specifically, I'm just wondering if they're, my understanding sort of interpreting what you're saying is that the expectation is that there would be increased enforcement on unhoused people in the area to try and make sure that they are not camping there. And so is there any plan for, providing them a place to go or at least trying to understand like asking them maybe if you could we're not allowed to camp here if we really crack down on it where would you go to try to understand you know what what then would happen yeah and those are conversations that you know I think we're we're always trying to have for community engagement um yes so looking at

more enforcement in the area is something that we are discussing. Again, our SAMS program does connect folks if we have to move them out to other services and other providers that aren't necessarily in the civic area. So making sure that we are connecting folks. But anything outside of sort of park improvements to help passively activate the space, looking at the development as well as programming and activating the space is sort of outside of the scope. So I don't know, Brad or Mark, if you have any comments on that.

Yeah. Good evening. I almost said council, planning board, old habits. Mark Walsh, assistant city manager. Happy to provide a little bit more context on just kind of the nexus with our own house community and some of the services currently provided. I think Xiaomi captured it well. One thing I'll mention is that camping, unsanctioned camping currently is not allowed within the greater civic area. That is, you know, some signage and posting and some more intentional enforcement really has been intentional over the last 12 months or so, and we've made some good progress in terms of the camping that you'll see within the civic area. Some activity still occurs, and what we are focused on is the behavior. As Shihome mentioned, anybody is welcome to be in our public spaces, in our park. What we're really focused on is the behavior. I think in terms of Big Picture, our homelessness strategy that we updated in October of last year, also pointed out that some of the handout activities that essentially make it easier to what's called rough sleeping, to be able to sleep outside, ultimately is a drag on the health outcomes for those individuals that are currently living on the street and also the health impact on community. And so what What that document was trying to do is be a little bit more intentional in our outreach with our unhoused community and making sure that they're connected to all of the support systems, not just one aspect of our support system where some of the handout activities are occurring, making sure that we're plugged into the housing resources that do exist, the shelter, our day services, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. this development, this park project is a part of just thinking about the overall activity within the civic area and making sure that we're thinking about good activations that drive out bad behavior, but we're not trying to drive out people. And I think we're interested in making sure that we're continuing to connect folks that need services with the full suite of services that they need access to. So just for what that's worth, providing a little additional context on that. how we're looking at the issue downtown.

Okay, thank you both. Yeah, this I'm sure will continue to be a prime topic of conversation in regards to this. I have one other question for Shihome, and that is regarding the West bookend. So you described the West bookend as a potential alternate. Can you explain a little more what that means? Like, Are you asking people, would you rather develop the East End bookend versus the West bookend or something like that?

Yeah, that's great. Let me clarify. What I meant was add alternate, so an additional alternate. What the main offering would be would be focused on the East bookend regardless. So that's going to be the main offering. It is possible in addition, if a developer team would be interested to take on the West bookend as well, that would be an option. So an additive option, not an in lieu of option.

I see. Got it.

Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I'll go. I have just one question and it's around selling property versus long-term leases. Can you speak about what you're seeing interest in and what you're anticipating there?

Yeah, it's actually pretty interesting. So obviously the city has some goals in property sales, but development submissions, at least in the RFI, sort of pointed to, yes, interested in full ownership and sales or acquisition of those properties. But some of the submissions also mentioned land lease or leases in general. So I think we got an interesting mix of folks that were interested in both. But again, you know, there's certain goals to offload some of the property management on our end, short-term revenue from our side. And also, you know, just thinking about revenue generation on the private sector side. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Go ahead, David.

Well, I'll just add one of the things that we expect to achieve through the concept plan process is to define which portions of the block might be sold and might make most sense to sell in terms of, I mean, some of the uses like housing are a lot easier for a developer to finance if it's a fee simple development versus if it's on a land lease property. And the city has limitations on its leaseability. It's going to lease for 30 years. so like a 30-year land lease for a housing development can be problematic to get financing for but and then there's other parts of the prop of the block where the city knows it doesn't want to sell for example the tea house um or may be most interested in a lease agreement because of a you know the city's long-term goals related to certain properties i would say probably the storage and transfer in the atrium building in addition to the tea house are the ones that are the highest priority there in terms of the city having an opinion about what happens there and how things get managed. It could also be a sale with conditions. There's a number of ways in which things could be structured to ensure that the vision is achieved. And that's going to be part of what we figure out in the next year between figuring out the overall development program and then where does the city want to have a stronger say over how things are managed over time. Does that answer your question?

It does. Thank you. That's helpful. Okay. That's all of my questions. Anybody else on the board have further questions? All right. Seeing none, I'll just say thank you very much to the team, to Shahomi, to David. Jake, we didn't get to talk to you much, but thank you for being here. And Mark, thank you for being here and for giving some more of the city manager office perspective. I anticipate there will be lots of great conversations to come. And I think this was really useful to bring us up to speed. So when members of the community ask us what's going on, we know a little bit more. We can help dispel any rumors and try to share the vision. So thank you all so much. Great. Thank you so much. With that, we'll close this agenda item. And I think ask, are there any other matters from the planning director or staff or the city attorney's office?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Kaplan. And again, thank you for letting us have this opportunity to do share both our collaboration and highlight just the hard and earnest work of our colleagues in PARCC and RACC. It is a joy to work with them as professionals and hope this gives you some insight to all of the interdepartmental coordination that happens in lots of ways that aren't always evident, bringing forward to you. I wanted to give you an update on the comprehensive plan. I know we highlighted this previously, but The Board of County Commissioners will be considering this item Thursday during the day and then Council in the evening. We are planning a hotline that will be an update to Council on both Planning Board's conditions and recommendations and some of the mechanics behind that, some of the same ones that we explained to you. We will copy you on that so that you're in the loop on how that is transpiring. I think we're going to try to get a quick update to them, but probably not till Thursday night on the County Commissioner discussions as well. But thank you for your continued stewardship of that process. And as we projected when we met with you, there is a strong likelihood that we'll be back in July for a cycle of things. And of course, it's our goal to land on a single document that everybody agrees to, but we also recognize that there are items that are making its way through. And we, of course, want to be accommodating and recognizing of those. That's all I have. I'm happy to answer any questions. Certainly want to give KJ and Charles a chance and Deshaun as well for any matters comments.

Any questions for Brad regarding the BVCP update cycle?

Or anything.

Or anything. Oh, Brad, that's quite the invitation.

I know. It's an open book. That's what I told that staff at Allstaff this morning, too. They take me up on it.

Okay. Seeing no more questions for Brad, Deshauna, Charles, KJ, anything from you folks? And then I will get to Thomas for a calendar check.

Nothing from me. Thank you.

Thank you, Deshauna. Charles or KJ? I'm not seeing you pop on the screen. So no, nothing for KJ. Thank you both. Thomas, do we need to do a calendar check or anything else from the board secretary?

No major updates for me. Our next meeting is July 21st due to the July 7th meeting being canceled previously. So we'll see you all in about a month.

Almost a month break.

Fantastic.

Okay. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that Thomas? Wait, wait a minute.

Our next meeting is not until July 21st as we canceled the July 7th meeting. And that it's a, it's a month where they're the first Tuesday is the seventh. So it's as late as it possibly could be. So the,

So we have no fifth Tuesday meeting this coming week.

No fifth Tuesday. We don't meet fifth Tuesdays. And then we canceled the first Tuesday meeting.

So we will have... Our first Tuesday was canceled.

Our regular meeting next month, July 21st. Wow.

So we will have two meetings in July. Yes. But not until July 21st. Okay. All right. Thomas, thank you for that good news. I think everybody could use a little bit of rest. Any matters from the board before we adjourn?

We're all kind of dumbstruck by that.

I hope everybody has a lovely holiday. You know, it's a pity about the open meetings. Otherwise, I'd say we should all have dinner. I miss you guys.

I will sincerely miss you all, too. And I hope everybody has some fun things planned. If there's no further discussion or items, I will go ahead and adjourn us. It is 7.08 PM. Thank you, everybody. See you in a month.

Thanks, everybody. Good night.