City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm told the mayor is rushing here from a previous engagement. So, he was supposed to open. So, here I am, your city councilman for the area, William Tinkler. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Um, this is, of course, the second meeting that we have on this important city project. Uh, I don't know if how many of y'all were here in August, but the mayor presented the project, sort of the conceptual designs that we had at that time. It's been several months now and we've we've gone through the the estimating the fine details and we're going to have the the engineers and the and the design team coming up and presenting their portions of the projects and answering any questions that y'all have whe from storm water to traffic to landscaping all those issues. So, uh but you know before we jump in I kind of wanted to talk about the project a little bit. I mean, last time I pointed out, you know, this is an infrastructure project for the area. I mean, I think people are pretty pretty unanimous and and when there's any development over here in this part of town, we need to make sure that we have infrastructure first. Putting city offices and the kind of infrastructure you get when you when you put in buildings like this is going to be extremely important for the neighborhood and for the community. And you'll see that uh when the engineers come up and talk and and why say a project like this will actually help storm water runoff. So um but this is going to be an important project for West Ashley. I mean I I already have business owners coming up to me from the area who were actually thinking about leaving um who are excited about this project. They know that it's going to bring city employees here during the day who are going to be eating lunch at restaurants.

So, so this is going to help support the business community over here uh and support us, you know, to have nice things here in West Ashley. So, uh without further ado, um I'd like to bring up Miss Maryanne Sutherland who is uh with Kimley Horn. she is handling the the site design and all the storm water as part of this project. So,

thank you. Uh, so I'm Marian Sutherland. I'm with Kimley Horn and I am the project manager on the civil engineering side for this awesome project. Um, I am a native of Charleston, but I also live right across the street. So this is a project that directly impacts me and my family and all the fun things I know everybody wants to talk about relative to storm water and traffic control which Kimley Horn we are also providing the traffic consulting and the landscape architecture. So, um, as you can see up here on the far right, we have a rendered, uh, landscape plan. And right now, the plan is to build, um, the first building and then the second building will come, um, m maybe several years down the line. But for now, that uh, building pad will be green space. Um, storm water, everyone's favorite topic. We, just like any other project in the city, will be held to the city's very strict storm water regulations. So, this project is going to put in underground detention to detain the storm water on site and treat it. Um, this is a project that's in a special protection area. So, we have very strict regulations. It's also a redevelopment project, so it has even stricter regulations that we have to meet. So, I can promise you that storm water is going to be reduced and held on the site to beyond the pre-development flows. Additionally, um I will let my partner Dylan Turner speak about traffic control, which I know is another favorite topic of everybody. So, with that, um Dylan is going to talk about traffic.

All right. Thanks, Marian. Uh Dylan Turner also with Kimley here Kimley Horn uh did the traffic um impact study for this coordinating with uh the city of Charleston and South Carolina DOT. So this project is is unique. So we did it in two phases. So you'll see on the boards kind of two phases of the of the office building. So we looked at a 2028 and 2035 buildout of of the project. So uh first phase um less than 100 peak hour trips. So it's about um it's just right at like 95 in the morning and the afternoon uh trips anticipated to these buildings. Uh so we overlaid those trips on top of the network um with background traffic with including the Ashley Landing redevelopment traffic and their improvements uh plus the improvements that Charleston County has planned out on Oldtown Road uh in our in our study area here. um second phase. So the full uh buildings together um it's about 167 trips in the morning and 166 in the afternoon. So about even there. So same thing overlaid those trips on top of the road network with background growth approved developments and other known uh infrastructures improvement on the network. Um and did that traffic study. Um, so be glad to to answer questions after we present on on our findings and everything, but um, with the county improvements plus the Ashley landing improvements, um, no additional improvements were identified, uh, as needing mitigation here except for a, um, do not block intersection um, striping um, here near the site. So, um, if anybody has any questions, I'll be glad to answer those after we get done, uh, presenting here, and I'll hand it off to Andrew Todd Burke, also with Kimley Horn.

Good afternoon everyone. Um, as mentioned, my name is Andrew Todd Burke and I am leading the landscape architectural design on this project. Um, for this project, uh, we we really wanted to focus on using a native plant approach. Um this is beneficial for many reasons. One, the plants that are from here are easier to grow here. So they need less fertilizer. They need less irrigation to get established. Um additionally, they are tailor made to help our pollinators, right? The birds and the bees um really thrive when you can use native plants. And so I think one of this is this is going to be an example of how you can use native plants in the design and still have it be absolutely gorgeous. Um, so if you look at the plan all the way to the side there, um, you can see a couple things that I'll highlight. Uh, one is we tried to leave a lot of space and a lot of the existing trees around the edge um, of the property. We wanted to do this um, so that it uh, you know, didn't feel like all of a sudden a a brand new thing popped in because right now in the existing site there is a good buffer around the edge. So we wanted to maintain a lot of that. Um, and then as an underplanting around those sides, um, we're using a mixture of native grasses and flowers. Um, it's not going to be quite a meadow because it's not that big, but it'll kind of give that feel. Um, and once again, just really be beneficial to all those native pollinators. Um, and then in the front of the site, um, we wanted to create a screen planting in the front that was going to, you know, hide any sort of visibility of cars, um, but also complement the building behind it. As you can see, the building is looking very nice in these renderings. Um, so that that was really our approach there to use the landscape to highlight the architecture of the building. Um, and and use it with native plants to show that you can make a really beautiful place just with the plants that are from here. Once again, I'll be around to answer any questions that anyone has.

I'm going to give it up to Craig Clemens with Sotiel and Sotiel. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it. Um, so our role here is, uh, we're sort of the city's design architects on this project. And so, um, our role is to really ensure that this that this architecture is beautiful, that it is, um, that this building has a a civic character and that it is made of the highest quality materials possible. So, uh, what we're doing is it's it's pretty much entirely brick with stone accents. So, stone surrounds around the windows, stone at the at the main entrance portal, and large generous uh vertically proportioned glazing, a central formal entrance uh in the middle with the Charleston city seal uh in the gable, a strong cornice line at the top. So really just trying to give this a very, you know, we've got Ashley River Landing across the street, which is a great mixeduse, residential, commercial, restaurants to introduce a civic use uh into this this district that that's emerging and to really give it a municipal quality. And so that's that's kind of the goal of this building is to really feel a building that makes you stand up a little straighter when you walk into it. So strong cornis line, brick and stone, generous glazing, and just a formality that speaks to its uh to its municipal character. So that's that's the approach to the exterior design. And uh with that, I'll turn it over to Mayor Cogwell. Thanks, Greg. Sorry I am a little late. Um, I would tell you it was traffic, but you all probably can appreciate that. Uh, and wouldn't find it funny, right? Um, but that is what happened. Uh, so

again, sorry to be late. Thanks to the design team for, uh, getting things started. Also want to give a shout out to Charles Town Landing and allowing us to have the meeting here. Uh, thanks guys. Always a beautiful space. Uh, and thanks to you all for coming out. And so really the intent on this is to meeting is to give you an update on where things stand and then to hear from you. So um I can stand up here and talk all night. But why don't I turn it over to you all uh so we can start answering any questions you might have. Does that work? Who's first?

Yes, ma'am. I wanted to suggest maybe I can give you the microphone just make sure everybody can hear.

I'm in West Pony. I wanted to suggest that just having that one entrance light there at Eero Foods right there to go into Ingram that you extend Ingram Road down to Charles Town Landing and use that light as an additional entrance. Ingress egress. So, be able to tie in over to the light that comes into Charleston Landing. I mean, is that something that is Okay, we'll turn it over to the Thanks, mayor. U So, yeah, we did look at that and so we talked with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, especially with the new light that Ashley Landing is going to be getting. There's a new light that's going to be serving into Ashley Landing. We wanted to tie in I'll show you here on the board a fourth leg into Ingram Road, but the spacing is really tight. So, what you have at uh Donahue and Charles Town, they really won't allow that anymore. Um it's too tight of of a radius. So, we wouldn't be able to tie in there. So, we are tying down into Donahghue, Charles Town, and Oldtown and that signal. Um, but we won't have a new signalized access into um directly into the development or across from the Ashley Landing uh signal they have there.

Who else we got? Yes, ma'am.

So, what city employees are going to move into this building? Where are they currently located? And is it going to save us any money from them moving from where they are to where they will be? So over here we have a breakdown of all the departments that are uh that are moving in. And so you can come up and take a look at these. And currently uh originally they were in 75 Calhoun Street which was a building that we owned part of or owned part of with the uh school district. So most of those people moved out moved into 200 Meeting Street in the temporary office space. And this is going to be where they're gonna their permanent home would be. So it's HR, it is um let me think about this. It is cultural affairs. Um I'm trying to remember off the top of my head. Um anyway, we we we can get you the list, but uh we do the one thing the one retail component of this uh that will have potentially people coming and going is there will be a satellite office for the permit center. Right now, all permits are downtown on George Street at the Gyard, right? And so that's pretty inconvenient for a lot of people u because 40% of the population lives in West Ashley, for example. So, we wanted to have a location for West Ashley residents to be able to come to without having to go all the way downtown. So, it would be a satellite office for the permit center. Other than that, it's pretty much all general office. And then we also are having um a large meeting space much like not quite as big as what you see here, but uh that would be in there.

Will it save us any money for those family?

Of course, it will save you tons of money. Um um no I mean the bottom line is we desperately need more office space from the city. I mean we've we've grown a lot um as a city uh and with that while we're getting economies of scale and our employee count is not uh going up one you know uh um exactly proportionally with the population. Uh we do need more staff though uh because of how much Charleston has grown. So, we need a place to put them and we've been looking to figure out where to invest in uh a new office building. And so, if you're asking a question, is it less expensive to build here than to build this building downtown? The answer is absolutely yes. Uh but more to the point, we really wanted to make a significant investment in West Ashley. Uh and so that's what we've done here. That's what we're also doing uh at Park Circle. I mean, excuse me, Park Circle. West Ashley Circle, uh, where we're building the fire training facility, um, versus putting it downtown as well. Who else we got?

Charge parking, huh? Charge for parking. No, there will not be a charge for parking. Yes. Yes. I'll come over to you. I got you. You're right here. Hi. I actually have two questions. I can see a lot of the city employees and people in the neighborhood wanting to walk across the street to Ashley Town Landing. Uh, is the pedestrian walkways going to be a lot safer than they are right now? And my second question, did I hear correctly that the light at Donahghue and Oldtown is going away? The traffic light? No. Okay.

The light is not going away. and and the goal is yes to have safer pedestrian access across uh Oldtown. I mean, you can't do any worse than what we got right now. Uh but the idea and one of the reasons why we put it there and bought this site uh was because of what was I mean the the investment that's being made at Ashley Landing. Um all right. Yeah, I got you over here. Yes, sir. Get my extra my steps in here going around.

Thank you. Um, I just wanted to say thank you because I have not seen the building before now. So, um, as a resident on Co Pepper Circle, which is the street directly behind this, um, we appreciate that. My question is the parking on Ingram Road. Um, it's a neighborhood, children, dogs, elderly, and that parking is a bad idea. I mean it's just

fair enough. I think the idea that we had was um you know to have I mean this is not going to be a heavily trafficked uh and or certainly cars going fast here but to give a street presence to the building. And so as a uh individual coming to visit um office of cultural affairs for for example, you can pull it and park right in front of the front door versus having to go around back. Um but look, I mean again I I think if if this is something that proves to be in the neighborhood's mind uh dangerous, I mean it's not necessary for our employee count. This is more, you know, for convenience of people coming to the building. Um, that's something that could easily be uh modified uh uh as we move forward.

I just know there are a lot of residents back there where I live that are not here tonight that if they saw that they it's a bad idea.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Who else we got? Yes, ma'am. As a resident of the neighborhood, I recognize and say hello to many of you. I know that you brought the property and this is exciting. I suppose that it's coming here. But we've been North Bridge Terrace for a long, long time. I was president of the neighborhood association at one point, worked with the city, and it's like all of a sudden, boom. this massive building that's way bigger than anything we have or any retail nearby or any retail on Oldtown Road or any building on Oldtown Road for that matter? And I hear a lot of considerations, but was any consideration given to all the people that live behind all this and what it how it impacts us? Second, more specifically, as we don't know what departments are here, can we have a clear answer about that and a clear answer about how many people are coming to get permits and co coming to cultural affairs and all these things that are very important to the city. But those are all going to come up and down Ingram Road where people with baby strollers and dogs and elderly have been walking for 50 plus years. So, I think I'd probably speak for more than one person saying that.

Sure. Thank you. Well, again, we're trying to make sure we get public input on this. Uh we this is the second public meeting we've had uh related to this property and again point is we want to hear from you and and I respect that, you know, you think the building is too big. Um we tried to keep it at three stories, which I think is a reasonable height. Um, and we might just have to agree to disagree there. I mean, there's going to be five stories across the street. The property street's nothing that there's nothing that big on this road

all the way. What about the office? That's fair enough. Yeah, that's when they wanted to build that. People were very upset about it. But we had a choice of either that or um multif family. And that was the same case here. We we bought this property in advance of an apartment developer and it's zoned to where it could have apartments there. And so,

so that was one of the reasons why we decided, you know, we felt that it was uh would be the preference to the neighborhood and the community to have a city office building and a city investment there versus an apartment project. Um, yes. And and and let me let me get the answer just cuz I'm a little embarrassed by this. the departments, Liz.

Yeah, we will have um the procurement division, the procurement division will be located in this facility. The grants department will be located here there. The office of cultural affairs, as the mayor mentioned, we will have part of the planning department. Some of those folks will be over here. And this is a huge thing for a lot of our employees because they're coming in from this direction. And it's a it's a real traffic win and a and a um opportunity for that group. And then some folks from our recreation department will be here. And then we'll have the satellite permitting office here.

Right. So not a lot of people coming to that office in traffic.

Yes. Yes. I mean it would have to be in that. I mean again but but I think in terms of an off your general office building where you do have typically clients like at Parkshore you have people going to visit that office clients of the law firms or insurance firms or whatever else that might be there whereas here generally speaking we tried to be somewhat um thoughtful about the fact that there not a lot of people coming to visit the cultural affairs or our HR department for example right We did want to have some component of it for wreck and uh permit centers so that it's a convenience for people that live West Ashley. Uh that was a huge thing that we keep hearing from all over West Ashley that they'd like to be able to have a a city office where they could go to where they didn't have to go downtown. So that's what we're trying to deliver here. Um and and so I don't think it's going to be um a huge burden on traffic. It certainly won't be compared to an apartment project. Who else we got? Yes, ma'am. I got You can't go twice. I mean, I'll come back to you. Let me get a few other people.

I have a question about the um traffic count. How does it take into consideration the stop lightss and the backing up of cars? So maybe that many cars go over it, but how long are they sitting there? I guess how does that Let me turn that over to the engineer.

All right, so that's a great question. So what we do is we go get a traffic count while schools are in session. There's no holiday schedules or anything impacting. So everybody's on their typical commute. So we collect it Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, one of those days of the week. And then we take um signal phasing data, signal timing data that we get and we overlay those counts um on the signals and see what happens from a level service. So level service A through F is what we look at and those levels of service are defined by delays. But we also look at queuing. So we look at the backups at the traffic signal. So we have to look at it, you know, before this development's on board and after and how does that kind of uh uh tie together? Is there any improvements that we need to make from that standpoint of the backing up? And what we we found out here with the other improvements that the county is doing right now uh or have planned out on Oldtown Road um plus what's going with Ashley Landing was that no additional improvements were required for the for the office building. So the office building I I wanted to clarify something I said earlier. It would have uh two access points. So the signal uh at at Co Pepper and Oldtown plus uh and you'll see it on this graphic really well. Um this ride in right out uh access here that is across the street from Sumar Street. So that's just to kind of give you an idea of exactly where that's located. Um and so we have that those two access points and this access point here to the north brings traffic away from the Coal Pepper uh intersection as well. So that's one of the things that we looked at. Um, Donahghue, I'm sorry. Co Pepper is the other road nearby. Um, but Donahghue. So, does that help answer your question? So, we have to look at overlaying the volumes and we look at the signal timings, how those signals work with each other, the queuing and

all that. And we have to look at it much like storm water does a pre and a post flow. We have to look at that from a traffic standpoint as well. All right. Who's next? I'm pretty loud.

Okay. Um, so I also have two questions. One is if you could you could get give him with the the microphone. Um, I have questions about that the light. I I understand that we don't need any improvements to keep traffic flowing on Oldtown. Uh, those of them are also concerned about getting out of the neighborhood. So exactly how will that light and old town manage the traffic not just across us but out of us? And I'll just give them a shot. If the landscaper could also talk about um the landscaping that's going to be between the building and the road. Right now there's a scruffy and there's a scruffy but there's a border. There's a buffer as you walk down the sidewalk between yourself and Oldtown. Um curious to know if that's going to be able to be maintained.

Yeah. So I'll answer the the first question. So we are going to put up striping that if you're familiar with if you go across Ashley Landing to Amberly and Sam Rit. Um there is some do it's like a do not block intersect intersection striping. So it's a box with an X in it so that it helps clear up uh where Ingram ties in to Donahghue cuz that's a very tight spacing there. And additionally with that is the county is doing some restriping and realignment. um improvements specifically kind of moving Oldtown up a little bit because if you know um you know that intersection very well there's kind of a skew between Oldtown and Donahghue and they're getting rid of that skew uh which actually helps a lot of the operations there. So there'll be some restriping and um in that

any kind of left turn lane though Yes. Yes, there's a there's a left turn lane. Yeah, there will be a left turn lane um on Donahghue. Uh that'll that that the way that it's striped now will be a lot clean. It'll be cleaned up and there will be a left turn lane and a through right uh on Donahghue. What's that? We we could look at absolutely look at retiming of the traffic signals specifically. A very specific point to that is when the Ashley landing signal comes on it has got to be timed along that corridor and that would be an opportunity to look at the retiming there. And then landscape.

Yes sir.

So the existing scruffy buffer um will mostly um not be there anymore for a couple reasons. One is currently there is a ditch that it goes in there and we are piping that ditch. Um additionally the um county project the improvements that we've been spoken of has a sidewalk going to about half of the site. And so we wanted to extend that sidewalk all the way across to get to the crossing that was talked about earlier to get over to Ashley Landing. So we wanted to provide safe pedestrian access there. Now what's being replaced is, as I mentioned before, it's going to be a good screening border, but it's not going to be 20t tall. We don't want people to feel like, you know, something's looming over them, but it's going to be tall enough to block the visibility of cars in the front there. So, you're looking at, you know, four to five feet of nice thick vegetation, giving you all season interest, um, but also preventing just a line of cars from being, uh, seen in the front there.

Visibility from whose perspective from inside the building or outside the building? If I'm going driving down Oldtown, am I seeing greenery? Yes. And if I'm walking down Ingram and I look out towards Oldtown, am I seeing greenery up to Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. And you had question in the back. Yeah. Okay. Off to you first.

So, back to the traffic guy. Um, so I you used Amberly as an example. Well, I live at Dickens and just last week you talk about that do not block. I'm sitting at the light two car two separate occasions car goes around me into oncoming traffic because they want to make that right onto Sam Rittenberg. So they go through manor go speeding, you know, and then make that right. They don't care that they're not supposed to. Um, so I'm just saying those really are dangerous. They're not great because people are just in too much of a hurry. They just are.

I hate to see that you're making another one of those type of intersections on that side. Well, and there's no penalty for bad driving. That's speeding and running red lights. We don't monitor.

Well, I think enforcement is a is a another subject which uh you will you will find me to be a big believer in enforcement of existing rules. So, let me let you All right. Thanks again. Uh, feel like I might be a popular guy tonight. So, um, so yeah, that the the the striping is a reminder to drivers. So, not everybody complies. And I understand I I I look at roads, I look at traffic all day. It's my job. And the things that I see people do on the roadways is why we have jobs to try to make things safer. So, we we could put in stuff. it comes down to implementation and people recognizing what the striping means. So, we could have additional signage up um to help with just the the understanding of what that striping means. So, that's some of the stuff that we could look at. And I do want to go back to like what the operations right now at Donahue will improve a lot with the Charleston County project with their realignment that they're doing. So some of the queuing and backing up that you see there um is really anticipated to to improve with that project as well.

And if I may, I mean I'll come to you. Um just on that point though with all the improvements that are being made, the goal is to make things safer. No question about it. Right. And there are idiots. And so we owe it to you to with the investment that we're making both in this office building and the investment that's being made uh at um across the street. I mean, you know, these are new traffic patterns with with the money that the county is putting in. So, people are going to have to get used to it. So, I'm happy to talk with our police chief, have him uh bring um the traffic division out to to to talk with you all and we'll talk fully about enforcement, making sure that they've got people in this area to to watch these things because if people are doing stupid things while we're trying to make things safer, then we need to tag them and they need to they need to get fined and fined heavily because again, the whole goal here is to uh make Oldtown and uh with the other work that the county is doing uh Sam Rittenberg safer than it currently is right now. And granted, that's a low bar, but we've got a long way to go. Yes, sir.

So, there we go. Last uh I'll keep beating on this traffic bank. Um last time we spoke, there was a discussion about cutting ingress off like at the end of the property and having done it. Is that not feasible option? We'll go back to you by now. Can you explain like just so you all are aware like we can come up with ideas but when they affect the state road it's dot and they have the ultimate say we can push different ideas to them but ultimately it's their say and you know we we generally speaking have to go along with it. So I didn't just want to give

yeah absolutely nuance there. Absolutely. So was the question or you said the last meeting it was mentioned of of of just having the basically Ingram cut off at the end of the property line, right?

So neighbor separate. So just to so that you know there's there's there's pros and cons to that idea. And so what that would do from a pro side is no traffic volume going through the neighborhood. However, what you'll have out on um on Oldtown Road is a bunch of people having to do U-turns and stuff because the only access they would have if it's one access would be a ride in right out to this office building. And so then you would see kind of a lot of different change in traffic behavior on Oldtown, which then would have downstream effects through all the signals. So, I mean, I personally wouldn't recommend that um from that standpoint. Uh and just having one access to office building. I mean, that might even be allowed per uh Charleston code. I actually don't know that answer. Maryanne may, but a lot of times you have to have two accesses to serve buildings and stuff from a fire and safety response time.

Can I just ask a followup question? I heard what you just said and I understand. Yeah. And I know this is not a popular idea with a lot of people. Is there any way there could be like a traffic circle to slow down the highway speeds there and but yet

so uh if Josh Johnson from SE dot was here he would have loved that question because he he wants to see a lot of roundabouts go due to the volume through here that roundabout would would would back up a lot and you would have a lot of queuing stuck within the roundabout because of conflicting movements. And so here um just with your volume demand um I don't I don't think even a dual lane roundabout would work well through this area. Um just people in this neighborhood would be like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I will I will uh I will say too um to speak back to the Ashley landing having that additional signal doesn't allow for that higher speed. It's another stop stopping point. um will it lead to um queuing? Yeah, because you're stopping a point, but you're also kind of keeping that flow in this in a spaced out time frame. So, um that should help too with some of the speeding through here. Okay, let me I'm going to go let me get get everybody on their first question, then we'll come back for seconds.

Thank you. I'm just wondering in future if we could perhaps have a look at the traffic and the architecture in a much more than one single site perspective. So I think a lot of questions need to be looked at through that whole run of Oldtown Road. I'm a little lost sometimes with all the names of the road not being set in my own memory. But where's this line up with that?

How's it a broad a bigger regional area? You know, an area that shows you how traffic moves through there. Does that line up with this? Does this line up with that? How do the walkways work? I don't see where the bicycle traffic's working. I don't see any bus parking being plated in here. So, it's like there's a lot of stuff going on. All we're looking at is a building and a parking lot, which you know is there. And I'm just saying how does it fit? Yeah, that's a good fair point. And I think and also what is that section on the bottom? Where is that taken? right here. Uh, no, right here. It's in red. Right.

So, it's an elevation showing the lower. Okay. You can if you get up to the plane. Okay. James, afterwards, you can see it's out. So, the cars and pedestrians on the left are actually going into the main entrance. Yes. The left here. So, this is a car looking at the right in, right out, right? And this walkway is where that person is standing. Right there. Okay. I far side. You got this way right here. Just another recommendation then. Let's show section lines. When there are sections, it's an elevation. No. Okay. All right. Well, in an elevation, show me where that elevation is taken. It's right there on the plan. I see. Okay. Thank you.

I would like to see a larger area so we can talk about this meaningfully. Yeah, I think we can absolutely provide a zoom out. That's not a that's not a problem at all. And and and it's a great suggestion. Um just showing it how it all fits together. Yes, ma'am. Coming in the back. If I could work one side of the room first. No, I'm kidding. Right. That's right. That's right. I need them. Since I only get one um chance, I'm going to uh do two things. Okay. The traffic um on Ingram Road. Could you would SC DOT consider putting like speed tables with crosswalks to slow down people on Ingram Road?

On Ingram Road. Yeah. Um because you know people are going to be trying to get from that one entrance to the next entrance as fast as they can. Um and you know and then that way you have more pedestrian crossings. And then the other is I am a large portion of property that backs up to this first building. Um and I was curious about like could you put up some type of wall? Um I'm kind of worried about light pollution and just people staring into my backyard. I have children who like to just run a muck in their pajamas and people are going to be sitting in their cars and you know I know they have young children and so a wall I know you're going to have natural barriers but trees you know especially these local trees and grasses aren't going to cover much. Um, so just

so fencing or a wall. Um, I think that's certainly something that could be looked at on the the back property line. Is that being contemplated right now? Right now, all of these trees that you see are not being disturbed. So, we were not planning we're not planning to go in to disturb further to put a screen wall in most trees back there. So like pink spray, what does that mean? They're just No, that they're just studying the size and species of the tree because we want to make sure we can leave as many large trees as possible. How many feet of property are they going to leave untouched?

It it varies throughout, but there's going to be this 25 foot buffer. That would be where we do disturb. We go back and plant. So we can look at your house and figure out exactly where it is. Mhm.

and figure out what the buffer is if you want to come look at this. Um, but there would be a buffer and we, you know, we're we're certainly um open to figure out ways for privacy to enhance privacy. We're not trying to put a spotlight on your backyard. I think we've got lighting plan that will limit any sort of down lighting. So, it's, you know, limiting the light pollution, right? And then uh we can talk about the specifics on the buffer on each property line and just m and give you a scale on that so you'll have an understanding of what we're talking about.

Answer the so I'll answer the question about the speed tables. That is a possibility. So we have to do kind of additional study once the site's built because of the the volume that we need because it's a vacant property now. the church, you know, the church is there was there um so there's not a lot of volume going through here, but we could do a volume uh study that adheres to SED DO's traffic calming guidelines or the city's traffic to calming guidelines. That that is a possibility road soot does um for now, but there's there's options that the city's looking at there.

Yeah. Um, if I can, it, you know, it it's a it's a feeder road. It's not a major artery. I don't think they would really care. If they do, maybe that's something that we could take over from DOT just because it's right out in front of our office building and it probably would make sense for us to have more control over it.

Right. So again, they always throw things at me when I say stuff like that, but I mean, because again, you all know this and you, you know, I sound like a broken record up here talking to a lot of people that, you know, the number one complaint I get is traffic, understandably so, right? Um, but it's, you know, we have a louder mouthpiece with DOT than you all do, and it's our job to argue on your behalf, but there are just limits to their funding and where their attention is. And so on something like this, even though we don't have a budget for road maintenance because it's not our responsibility and we don't own the roads in these scenarios where it makes sense, you know, I think that's logical if it makes it where we could have speed bumps um to uh enhance this investment. Yes, sir. So staying on the theme of traffic, um I head up human resources for a company and one of the data points we look out for our employees across the country is their commute time and I'm curious as to because for me the biggest traffic is in the morning when I'm going to work and when I come home at the in the afternoon during the day it's not as bad as the morning and the and the afternoon. Have you have they evaluated how many of the current employees who are going to be here are living live in West Ashley and have to travel downtown and this will actually uh have their commute shorter so there won't be as much traffic going downtown.

So that is why it's here. Uh we did a pretty deep dive on where our employees are commuting from and you know there's a huge uh uh swath of the city employees. Let me just say very very very few I would I would guess maybe 2% of city employees live downtown, right? And so we did a an analysis of where people are commuting in from and this is kind of an opportune location because some people are coming from I26 to North Bridge. Uh but a lot of people are coming from Bees Ferry uh really all over West Ashley. Um and so this is a great location for for them. And we our hope again just to be very blunt I mean we're also trying to take care of our employees. I mean it is u not the highest paying job in the region to work for municipal government. uh we have a difficult time keeping people because how the lack of affordability and how far people are having to drive to where they can qualify to buy a home. Uh and so this is part an exercise to help the city on retention uh keep our employees. So and this is a big request of theirs to have uh offices closer to where they live. What else we got? Yes, ma'am. Coming back on round two. I guess I'm opening it up, right?

All right. I'm trying to remember the square footage. 48,000 ft I believe was quoted at the first meeting, but it was only going to house 100 employees. How do you justify three stories, 48,000 square ft for 100 employees? Have those numbers changed? How what's the total employee count? Roughly it's changing. We got high demand. Folks want to be over here and so we're trying to be respectful of that. Right. Right now 120 to 100.

So it might be a little bit higher uh 120, let's just say. But we've also got a permit center. We've also got a large uh meeting room uh that takes up some of the square footage as well. So, what the a what the what the uh uh per person per square foot ratio is, if somebody could do that math really quickly. Uh I can't do it off the top of my head, but it's not uh uh exceedingly high or low for a general office use. Who else? Huh?

400 square ft. Again, that's a little bit high. I mean it can be as low as 250 but given the fact that this is in the civic building has a lot of common area space big open area that when you walk in because it's again it's a civic building we're not trying to um eliminate uh the the the common areas for profit sake uh we're trying to build a civic building and again have community meeting space. All right. Who else? Yes sir. I noticed that in the mornings and in the evenings, we have a whole lot of traffic. People going to a work downtown and out. All your employees are going to be hitting going to work and coming out at certain times. And I I just can't see, but we're going to be landlocked inside trying to get out. It's going to cause a lot more trouble in traffic jam. Would you consider maybe um staggering your work hours for your employees so you can break up the the amount of traffic that flows into your building?

Uh, you know, I think we could look at that. We do some staggering mail uh depending on what department it is uh and you know where where um where people live and we try and be as accommodating as possible. I do think and again I don't want to speak to the traffic engineering but I think a lot of these improvements that are being made and obviously not just this building but what the uh county and DOT are doing are going to make a pretty significant improvement to what you're seeing right now in addition to this. Um, and so look, I mean, but I'm one of those people that I hear these complaints. I hear these concerns, right? Like your parking concern, this idea. Uh, you know, we want to be good neighbors, right? We we want to see how this thing shakes out and if we need to make operational adjustments because it's a burden on the neighborhood, I suspect you all will be very vocal about that. And I'm saying that in a complimentary way. Look, I mean, we'll listen. I mean, that's why we're here tonight. We're listening. We want to hear from you. We want to hear what the concerns are. We're trying to balance as much of your concerns with the needs of the city, the city at large. Um, and also provide a significant investment in West Ashley, which I think is long overdue. So again, I think as we go and we see what the traffic commutes are, again, if if it's if we're finding our employees can't get out because it's dangerous to those intersections, I mean, we'll be the first ones to be pushing DOT to make them make adjustments.

I just see a large volume of traffic coming into the neighborhood and when that comes in, people in the neighborhood, they want to get out. I can see that that's going to be a problem. Well, again, it may be and I think that's something that that's why these guys are running these models and uh based on what the current conditions are. Um but if if the models proved to be not accurate, then like I say, we can make adjustments. Yes, ma'am. The models that they're running taken in consideration the 360 new condominiums coming in across the street

apartments. Yeah. It's it's assuming all of the development that is going on at Ashley Landing. Yes. Timeline all of this passes. What's your timeline on starting getting it completed when we can see all this beautiful stuff? Yeah, we uh was it July of 28 it'll be done?

Yeah, we have to have it done because we have to move out of the office space. So, there's some uh urgency to it. Yes, ma'am. In regards to the main entrance, in regards to the main entrance of the building that's going to be done first, um how what's going to happen with the second building when that comes along and that's that entrance is now the main entrance and that's kind of a so will the building then be not as important? The the goal here and the way this has been generally laid out is to take this building and replicate it right here and then create uh a connection between the two. So, it's all being designed to be able to do that. And that's some cost savings from the city standpoint. We we only want to design it once. So this will be a prominent entrance, but then this will have a prominent entrance. So think of it like a schoolhouse like I mean with two wings and then having a architectural element in the middle.

So there's not going to be a driven parking. No. No. If I if I'm understanding you correctly. All right. Who else?

Yes, ma'am. Well, I'm 45 minutes late as I drove from Camp Road to my home here. So, if y'all have already talked about this, forgive me, but with the increase in all these um cars and traffic and people coming and going, has there been thought to address making sure people aren't cutting through our neighborhood to get back and forth? I mean, we've got kids on bikes. We've got old people like me walking. I mean, I just would hate for our sweet little neighborhood to turn into a racetrack.

No. or a cut through, right? And and I think that's always a legitimate concern. Um I think if and I'll let you speak to this, but I think that the reality of the improvements that are being made on Oldtown Road, uh if for the average driver, it would be much easier and more convenient for them to go out at the planned exit and egress points versus to try and go through the neighborhood. Is that

Yeah, absolutely true there. So, as far as anybody who's who's not working here, I don't really see them using Ingram. Um like so if you live there back in the neighborhood behind it or you work here, but any other cut through I don't I don't see that happening um through the neighborhood. But that gets back to a question I asked over here. Uh we can absolutely look at traffic calming measures. Um the speed tables or other types of things that if there is a note like hey there is cut through then we could do things to discourage that um and that could in all due respect people are already using some of these roads to cut through. Okay. without the addition of this. Okay.

Well, that's something that, you know, can be looked into. Absolutely. And again, that's also in advance before the major improvements are made. So, yes, ma'am.

Hi, I'm sorry I was a little bit late to the meeting. Um, but I do have a question as to whether we can um extend that road that's uh almost next to where that property is and change where the entrance is for the rest of us. So then this is like our neighborhood and then that can be your neighborhood. Well, yeah. On Ingram Road, but like um that crosssection um I I guess there's a house that's adjacent to the property that you guys are looking at. So 1660, 1662 and whatever that house is on the corner, right? So that house on the corner extending that street to um to Oldtown Road.

Yeah, we did cover that, but I'm going to address it. Okay, one more time. The short answer is is that that was discussed with DOT and they said no. Uh they wouldn't they didn't want to have that connection. And they they wanted to have a right in right out um at the at the uh northernmost access point. Okay. Yes. They put a light there. The there can't be a Well, let me let me You want I'll come back. All right.

So, uh yeah. So what what's going on with that is the the way that um the Donahghue and Ingram is signalized now, it would not be allowed anymore. It's it's an older road design and so DOT wouldn't allow another very close uh connection to if you're referencing uh the entrance into this uh here, it's just too tight that that's not enough spacing to have a connection into the road. And so they wouldn't allow that as a new point of access. It stacks up. It It's not the necessarily even the stack up. It's just a throat distance issue. It's they they've got manuals now. So that that they did not have back then. You guys use that area, right? What's that? Part of the building. Whatever. Whatever.

I can't hear you. If we use if we use that area for part of what you guys are trying to do at and like kind of take over that road, then why can't we have the the Because the the the intersection is where they wouldn't let us do it. We can take the road over, but we can't we can't mess with the intersection. Yeah, the intersection belongs to the state. They won't give us that. Yeah, that that like Ingram Road, they'd be glad to, but something um like Oldtown, they they wouldn't hand that over. Just out of curiosity, if there's 150 people planned to come, what's the purpose of the second building? Is it like part of a fiveyear plan or a 10ear plan? 10ear plan.

Okay. So people might be more people might be moving from downtown

uh or certain departments could grow. I mean so what we we did a deep dive on our office needs um and how the city's growing and trying to project that out cuz land's not getting cheaper. And when we do use taxpayer dollars, we want to make sure it's a good long-term investment, right? Uh we don't want to build something and outgrow it in seven years and then we have to go build something else. Uh so we did a pretty deep dive on that. We're also doing that and being much more aggressive about fire stations and police stations because uh and that's why you know my my uh capital improvements team or capital projects team uh they all have gray hair because uh we are way behind on a lot of that stuff. I mean that's the reality of it folks. I mean we need a lot more fire stations. We need more police stations. uh and land's not getting cheaper. So, we are uh actively buying land on the Canoy Peninsula, for example, on John's Island, for example. Um and it's not just police and fire, it's the city office building. It's the fire training facility. It's the city operations building. Um it's recreational facilities at WL Stevens and on John's Island and ultimately on the Dillact. I mean, we need a lot more infrastructure to service our residents. Um, and we need to be pretty aggressive about it because we're way behind. I mean, that's the reality. Um, so again, we're trying to balance what the needs are of the community at large, balancing it with the very real concerns of the neighborhoods that they will be uh located in. um and you know trying to uh address as many and uh uh issues as we can but we we we have to do stuff uh and get caught up.

That's the reality. And we have to do back to being a beating a dead horse. We got to do something to help retention with our employees. It is getting more and more difficult to to keep people uh staying with the city just because of how difficult it is uh just logistically to work there. All right, few more questions and I need to Councilman Tinkler. Do you want to say a few words or um I can put you on the spot? You can answer some of these questions if you want. Oh, you did? Okay. Sorry, I was late. So, there we go. It was a group group thing. All right. You've got one more. It's a detailed question.

Great. Um I'm wondering how much the situation with the requirements for ingress and egress and so forth would be improved by having a curb and a lowered speed limit through this section. Right now, those are big factors within the state's requirements for setbacks and curb cuts and all the rest of it. What uh a lower the speed limit on Oldtown? Yeah. And some curbs. Right now there's not many curbs there. That would certainly improve street trees and all the rest of it if we had that. I would agree. Any any any thoughts there? The county's road improvement project is putting in curbon gutter. We'll be extending some of that curb gut better here as well. We'll see that on this regional drawing.

Yes, regional drawing. Yes. Make a statement. You may make a statement. Um what it is?

No. in in the last election for the mayor, uh, a big component was the city didn't do anything in West Ashley and we didn't see see in a very short period some growth. People complain about having to go down to get permits. People complain about not having a city presence in West Ashley and I I I know that this is concern about traffic. Um, but that's everywhere and if you've lived anywhere else out of Charleston, it's it's an ongoing issue with anybody in the city. So, I trust that the city is going to do the right thing for the citizens. I appreciate the fact that we have these listening sessions and we can voice our concerns, but I'm kind of excited about the the city having a presence in West Ashley since it's the largest voting block in the city of Charleston. So, thank you.

Well, thank you. You want another statement? You can have another statement if you like. Um, all right. One more qu question back here. Hello. You may have also addressed this as well. Um, but you said you're starting with a 100. Um, but then you have a 5-year plan, a seven-year plan. What's the number for five and seven?

So, generally speaking, this office building will accommodate somewhere between 100 to maybe 140 people. If I had that's that's general headcount is what's contemplated here. You know if we double that it would be roughly double it be 280 uh on the upside. And you know we don't know exactly where those growths are going to occur whether it's in wreck or HR or grants you know we just don't know but we do know we're going to need it um pretty confidently. And so we wanted to buy this site. Again, just to give you all full transparency, uh we were going through this big analysis um looking at again not just city office space needs but u just facilities. Um and that was about the time that uh Ashley Landing was going through its approval process with the TIFF agreement and and the like. And then this property came on the market. It didn't come on the market. The Catholic Church signaled that they were going to sell it. And I got word of it from a real estate broker who had a the buyer for the apartments. Um cuz he was asking if we were going to buy it or not. And I said when he told me what he was talking about, I was like, "Yes, we are going to buy it." And uh and so, you know, knowing that we had this need and knowing that we needed to find a suitable location in West Ashley, we'd looked at Citadel Mall and areas over there. Um and this was the other location that we were uh kind of targeting. And so that's how it came to being. And I think it's worked out in a in a in a good way. Generally speaking,

I I would totally respect the concerns, the very legitimate concerns and nervousness about the impacts that this will bring to the neighborhoods that it it uh that surround it. But you have our commitment that we want to be good neighbors. We want to make sure that um this is a positive, that this is not a negative. That's the reality. Um and again you have our commitment to stay engaged with you all as this process moves forward and people start moving in and if there concerns that we can address and there will be uh we're all in. I mean just tonight figuring out speed bumps and that's pretty easy um and probably makes sense for us to just go ahead through the process and take that road over because gives us a lot more control. So these are the ideas. We appreciate you all providing this feedback and input. We know that we can't address everybody's concerns or um dislikes, but they're also easy things to do like what you're talking about, having a a broader um uh map of how this is addressing the larger area. Totally makes sense and we should have done that. So, who else? Uh so, what we'll do, we'll make sure that that goes out. We'll pack we'll package this up. You can send it to all your neighbors and and if there are any other thoughts or ideas, we're open to suggestions. Um I will say we're on a tight time frame and we we do need to get this thing built. Um, and so, you know, it sounds ridiculous to say that, you know, 2 years from now we need to have this thing up, but that's that's actually a pretty short period of time uh to do a project like this. So, um, you know, but we're not trying to cram it down anyone's throat. We want your engagement. We want your

input. If you you start we start getting into the construction drawings and you have concerns about the buffer, we're all ears. Again, we want to be good neighbors. Yes. With the 240 employees, is that adequate parking? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It we definitely meet our own uh parking requirements.

Sure. Sure. All right, guys. Any other questions? Any other questions? Uh well, listen, I really appreciate you all coming out tonight. Again, we'll package all this up. If you could sign in with your email, we'll make sure you get uh the the package along with the larger map and whatever scale drawings we could do. Um and look forward to hearing hearing back from you. Sound good? Thank you.