Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll call the meeting to order. Good evening. Welcome to the city of Charleston Center redevelopment commission meeting for October 7th, 2025. This meeting is being live streamed this evening by under media under production multimedia. If everyone will please rise as we begin the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Do a roll call vote. Bait here. Brooks here. John Spencer

here. Chuck Deon here. Derek is also present. We do have a quorum. First item on the agenda this evening is we have a presentation with HWC on the family activities master plan. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Katherine Pucket. I'm the director of landscape architecture HBC Engineering. Um, I have a presentation to give you

second, but I also have it in paper copy just for you. I did not know if the paper debate was going on, but um, this is just a copy of the presentation, this larger booklet, and then there's a public input summary estimates as well. Um, so there we go. Beautiful. Thank you.

Um, you can go to the next slide. So, uh, this presentation is going to just give you a summary of the family activities park master plan that we were scoped to do and, um, have completed. So, just a brief introduction to the team that worked on this project. Um, again, my name is Katherine Pocket. I'm landscape architect. Sally Hughes is our client leazison down here for the city of Charles Town. Rebecca Mahoney is a the project manager who led the planning effort. We got double booked so she's not here this evening. And then Matthew Fox is a led the production for the project. And this was the same team that also did worked on the parks plan um that was done not too long ago. Next slide, please. So this first map is just showing you an aerial view of the park and the park boundaries. Always kind of nice to take that glance at it. Um, so I'm sure most of you are familiar a lot of the main features of the park, the existing splash pad playground, the mini golf, the new depot is so new it's not in this aerial. Um, but that is where it says existing depot. Um, parking lot, skate park, uh, the pavilion building, and the concession and community building. Next slide, please. So, generally when we're doing master planning, we like to do uh, a little bit of site analysis to just look at the features we're dealing with. So, this is combining all the site analysis into one summary diagram, but what you're looking at here are a couple things. One is the existing natural system. So, a lot of open lawn. There's some tree canopy, but not a whole lot. Um, and then the topography is shown on this map. And then the colors you're seeing that are orange and red are representative of different slopes. So, we generally look at 5% below, which would be longitudinally ADA accessible, so very flat. and then five to 10 and then 10 or greater is usually much harder to follow. So you can see it's pretty generally flat as I'm sure you're aware.

A little bit of topography around where the um train uh depot is and going up to the kind of plaza aquatics launchpad area. Next slide, please. So after doing a little bit of site analysis, we did some public input. So this um handout goes into more detail of that public input, but I'll just kind of give you a brief overview. So, we did two public workshops on site at the park in April. Attendance was very low. Um, but it also rained cats and dogs one night. So, that uh usually means we're not going to have many people. Um, but those people that did come out for it, the kind of key takeaways from them, there was a lot of discussion about kind of hours of the facility and it could it be open longer later. Um, signage and promotion. There was a family who had uh lived in the community for about a year and hadn't been to the park, but they came for this public meeting. So that was an interesting perspective. Accessible surfacing was talked about and then some different programming ideas like doing knife mini golf like glow mini golf and we had a a young girl ask about like a dig site future archaeologist perhaps. So that was fun. Um and then we did a public survey that was open for about two months. We had 620 responses which is really good for kind of putting it something quick out there to the public. Um, but the demographics from that, 72% of respondents were between the ages of 25 and 54, which kind of matches your population breakdown here of age. So that made sense. 61% live within a mile of the park of those respondies, and 91% of people drive to the park. So I thought that was interesting. So many so close, yet they're still driving. Um key takeaways, most popular amenities, uh splash pad, playground, mini golf, concessions also came to the top of the list and just all the programming that happens there is really um liked by the public. Improvements when we asked what would you like to see? Uh there was kind of a common theme of more activities for different ages, which I think the city is already trying to address with the

depot and trying to encourage activities for teens. um a pickle ball, water features for not just toddlers but um older age kids also came up, shade and walking path. Um and then just general desire for kind of upgrades to their favorite amenities, the splash pads they found in mini golf. Next slide, please. So after the public input, we um did looked at a few case studies um particularly splash pads and looking at what are those water features that maybe older kids would be interested in and came away with kind of this idea of some cooling stations which is the image in the upper right uh water walls kind of light features perhaps some different shade structures. Uh we also talked a lot about integrated play and splash. So the middle row of pictures is a project we did in Newberg, Indiana that that actually was an old pool facility that they filled in and turned into a splash pad and playground just for ease of maintenance and and longevity throughout the year, keeping it open. And then we tried to do some research on mini golf courses. Our company hasn't done mini golf courses before, so trying to figure out where you could go with that. Um different uh ways you could improve those. Next slide, please. So the next kind of five slides are really all sorts of different diagrams that we uh played with explored a lot of space planning essentially. So things like a pickle ball court that was that came up in public input. Where would that fit on the existing site? Um so this first diagram looks at adding a pickle ball court in the upper leftand corner um outside the parking area. Um and then um a lot of the features kind of the southern half of the map are the same on the next two diagrams, but essentially looking at expanding some amenities outside of the depot, sort of the depot phase 2 for more teen activities. And then on the right side, looking at, you know, improving that mini golf course and

maybe moving in a basketball court, expanding the splash and play area to be longer and wider so you could get shade structures in maybe some more features. play with the topography, potentially have steps down to the basketball court that might be among the bleachers. Um, next slide, please. So, the next diagram is the same. The entire southern half is the same. Here, we're just swapping um the skate park and the pickle ball. Trying to look at if you relocated the skate park, you could get more pickle ball courts if that's a priority. Um, obviously, there's a lot of expense with moving all that concrete demoing and moving. Next slide, please. The next diagrams. Uh part of the process of the planning we on the lower right hand corner there is an existing utility easement and there was concern that if we removed the mini golf course and had to build something back that they would not allow us to. We've since resolved that and gotten confirmation that that's not an issue, but that's what these diagrams were looking at playing with that um pushing the mini golf course up out of that easement and then pushing the plane splash north. Um, so this slide and the next slide look at just different circulation for parking uh with kind of the same layout generally. Go to the next slide. So that just kind of shows you that same situation but looking at um just having one entrance into the parking lot instead of having um an exit on the west side. Next slide please. So this last diagram really looked at okay what if you made a major change and consolidated all the parking in the upper right hand corner what would that do for you? Is there enough justification or you know benefit from that to do something like that? And this kind of shows how you can get a large efficient parking lot um a little better circulation and then have quite a bit of space for pickle ball or skate park or kind of what have you in the future. So that's what that diagram show. Next

slide please. So after all of that diagramming, confusing arrows and what have you, we uh got consensus on a preferred concept and um that's what you're looking at with this slide. So, I'll kind of walk you through the elements, but the idea was at the parking lot at the top to um kind of uh revise how you enter into the site and make the drive a little more clear using some landscaping separate into the parking lot for just general circulation when it's really busy during programming. Also, the efficiency of this is adding spaces. I think we had a total of 30 additional parking spaces and uh that was kind of a comment from uh staff about when there's there that parking is challenging. We're still able to get the pickle ball courts up in the lefthand corner, expanding the depot, sort of a phase two with a mini football court, um or a mini soccer pitch, excuse me, maybe sort of a cooling station. um some different activities for teens, adding a basketball court in the lower right hand corner, expanding that splash and playground to be more um interactive with one another, but also widening it so you can get shade structures and then also uh lengthening the um the train uh platform area to have more space there. And then improving the um mini golf course. So, we left the skate park where it is in this version. Go to the next slide. We also did one other preferred option which helps you look at again if you took that skate park away, if that's getting outdated and you want to relocate that to a different park, you could go with a a larger parking lot expansion there. And then also we think the advantage of this layout is that the pickle ball courts then become kind of more pedestrian friendly. You're not crossing a parking lot to get to them. There's a little more open space, a little more breability around the depot area.

So, next slide please. Um, the other thing we did was look at uh the site and kind of think a little bit critically about accessibility and how we can make sure that this will be inclusive. Um, so some of the sort of recommendations for that. We're um looking at, you know, how we make sure if improvements happen at the mini golf course that it is accessible um and that you don't have barriers that would uh prevent someone in a wheelchair um from using the course. Maybe part of the course would be accessible. Um looking at inclusive splash pad features and playground features, um surfacing that is conducive to that. Um and then everything even you know site furnishing tables, picnic tables that allow wheelchairs to come up to them, next to a bench for a wheelchair. It's that accessible parking obviously. Um and then we had a few suggestions from um the disability advisory committee to also think about some accessible parking spaces closer to the depot. So I thought that was a good suggestion. Um and then also to have uh family style restrooms that are more conducive for families that have kids with disabilities and even adult changing tables within those. So um good suggestions there. Next slide. This diagram just illustrates how um we could take some of the existing paths and connect those to create a quarter mile loop trail. So, one of the public input um suggestions was having a you know a circular walking trail. So, somebody could walk this scooter bike um around the center maybe if they have kids playing and you know count their mileage um as they go around. So, that was a way to kind of get a walking path into this site. It is pretty tight, so getting kind of a bigger loop was challenging, but we do think there's opportunities for that in other parks around the community. Next slide, please. So, these images just start to show some present imagery as that

playground is a project that happens, an improvement, [clears throat] looking at everything from, you know, toddler play all the way up to kind of more exciting pre-teen teen elements. Um some that kind of central image is of a girl on this piece of equipment by compound that you kind of get on and you jump across and flow across. It's kind of a neat lever system. So different ways to kind of allow teens to be on the ground too. Next slide. And then this splash pad imagery starts to show some of the unique ideas besides just jets. You know, you can do water slides at a splash pad as long as they're runout slides. you wouldn't have to have a lifeguard for that. Um so that's kind of an interesting way to involve kids of different ages and kind of add some different um real activities. And then the cooling stations we mentioned on the right um some other ideas for that. Next slide. And then this imagery starts to show some of the sports courts um some of the teen activities like climbing and bouldering whether that looks more natural or more kind of contemporary. different shape structure ideas and some of that ways to handle the grade change out there at the site. Next slide please. So the next couple slides are just some um visualizations and renderings that we put together um kind of keeping your site in mind and adding some features and playgrounds that we that we thought might make sense. Showing lots of seating and shade um play surfacing that's accessible. Next slide. And then this image starts to show you that uh aquatics piece that would be placed in where the splash pad is now potentially. Next slide. And then this is starting to visualize that depot area phase two where you might have bouldering or the cooling station and some different things to kind of expand on that nice social space. Next slide.

So sort of in conclusion we went through the public engagement analysis went through this sort of conceptual development phase and kind of like now what? So what you've kind of come away with from this is a phased master plan. Um the idea being that not doing all of this at one time u but kind of thinking about priorities over the years [clears throat] and and when you have u funding or funding opportunities come along you're kind of ready to start to attack some of these phases. Next slide please. So, this phasing plan starts to show you kind of our recommendation of how you might break this up into different pieces. Um, we're recommending the first phase might be the pickle ball court and the basketball court. So, those are both shown in red. And then beyond that, the phasing is kind of up to you. Those just seem like a nice kind of first uh piece that could add some activity to the park without um kind of having to demo a whole lot and really reconfigure things. Um and so that's kind of our recommendation where you could begin. Next slide. So that's um kind of a quick summary of that process. And then I did want to share that we do in this master planning um type of scope. We usually go through and do some high level budgeting. So that's what this is. Not to me not meant to give you a heart attack. Um but it does start to show these So these are divided up by phase. So that'll kind of correlate with the phases that are shown on that phasing plan. So you can see the sports courts uh concept of the pickle ball and basketball as we quantified that and added pricing to it. Total project cost hard and soft was around 250,000. Um and then it kind of accelerates from there as we go through the phases as to be expected. Um the mini golf I think is a real wild card. We found examples of

mini golf courses that were, you know, $2 million um construction cost and I think there's a lot of opportunities to do that for a lot less. We also talked about kind of hole sponsorship and even having local companies come in and put some creativity and invest in it to have, you know, their name on a hole or something like that. So, that was an ideal. Um the parking lot expansion was in the range of about $300,000. a lot of surface area there for resurfacing and then also adding some new full depth asphalt was how the cost came in for that. The the play uh playground and splash deck is the biggest most expensive piece. Our number got all the way up to 5 million. I think you definitely could do that for less, but I will say we've been doing splash pads at HWC. I've been there 15 years doing them for about 10 years. We used to be able to do a splash pad for like less than $500,000. And the last we had three last year that all been close to two billion. So it's the, you know, the cost of the steel and all those features and just the general inflation of construction. We've seen that more in aquatics than we've seen it in any other type of construction. So just wanted to kind of put that out there. So we put in 1.75 for splash pad deck. And keep in mind, we're showing that big feature with three slides, which just the feature alone could be about $300,000. Um, so you could definitely do it with with smaller features. Um, play surfing surfacing is very expensive. Um, we showing a ton of shade structures and a lot of other elements, clay structures. Uh, I think the way we were kind of trying to handle the grade change with that cool kind of natural stone bleachers could be done for a lot less. So, just wanted to kind of give you that caveat that that's a starting point, but as you decide what's a priority and we go into our actual design phase, I think you could really um button that down to

a more reasonable budget. So, can I take any questions? This is just a concept thing can be kind of looked at and moved around.

Absolutely. I think with any master plan, what we were trying to do is really um push the city a little bit to think not just kind of uh update things, but really think about the whole site and how you could improve it long term. Um but with anything as you know, priorities change over the years, this is sort of a reference document, something to kind of, you know, we do a lot of work around the state where um grants kind of come up, pop up all of a sudden and you have a month to put it together. And when you have documents like this, you can quickly say, "Oh, we have this project. Here it is. We thought about it, you know, so you're kind of prepared for funding when it comes with that. So, but certainly things can adjust over time."

No, it's nice presentation. Thank you. Very cool concept. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Next item on our agenda this evening is approval of the minutes. You will provide a copy of the September 2nd regular meeting, September 23rd special meeting minutes. I'll ask for a motion to approve the minutes. I'll make that motion. Second motion second. Is there any further discussion? I ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Motion passes. Provided a copy of the claims for the previous month. Ask for a motion to approve the claims. So moved. Second. Motion a second. Any further discussion? Ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.

Motion passes. No one assignment for public comment. Uh, next item is the consultant report weekly group. Jill,

thank you. Wanted to mention just a couple things. Uh at our last meeting, our last regular meeting, we had the Superior Vault uh facade application. I reached back out to Superior Vault to see if they wanted to add anything based on the comments of that meeting and and the fact that they really need need to add more project costs in order to get that $10,000 in reimbursement or potential reimbursement. Um we've been communicating back and forth. I think there is something else that they want to add to the application. So hopefully I'll have that for you that next evening. [clears throat] Uh Madison Street Pale improvements. Uh we anticipate that construction on that start soon and be finished uh in November, end of November. And then you if you drove down Highway 3 today because I think they just got started yesterday.

They got all they did. They started this morning, got it all the way down.

So, uh, we had some issues getting the utility companies to retire service there. And then once they did, they've got the building down and we're working with them to put a plan in place to u make that safe and accessible for people to park there for the trick or trail event on the 24th. It's not likely that that parking lot is going to be completed before the tricker trail like we anticipated and hoped. So, Um I think uh one thing to mention about the family activities part M itself is whether you remember or not the city did receive a $250,000 grant from solar tourism or some and that was to pay off existing debt but also to uh fund improvements. So, we utilize that money to pay off the bond payment for uh all of this year for the fan activities park, but we do need to do some improvements there. So, we can discuss that I think later, but now that that that master plan is done, we can look at what phases of that or portions of that you might want to do in order to expend that money. And then it's that time of year again where next meeting I'll have a annual redevelopment spending plan draft for you to review um which is due to be uploaded on or before December 1st.

You have any other questions about anything in my report if you'd like to answer those? Thank you, Joe. Old business. We have resolution 2025 R4 that affirm the BOT agreement the short the common short street park.

Uh yes. So um as many of you know u the council uh did hold the public hearing last night and uh did award uh the BO for the the common Short Street Parklet project to uh GM Development Companies LLC. Um what what this does, you know, the council, you know, according to the the DOT resolution, um council had to be the one to formally award it. Uh given the fact that the actual DOT agreement though will be between the redevelopment commission and the developer. This kind of ties a neat bow on it [clears throat] on the process. Um affirming the award of the DOT agreement. um authorizing uh Derek and Bonita um mayor and clerk treasur to um sign any documents in connection with the DOT process. And um as we discussed last month um given that the uh pavilion has a much longer lead time um as far as how long it takes for it to get ordered and to arrive. Um the this resolution does approve the substantially final form of the BOT reimbursement agreement. In fact, uh that is attached as an exhibit A to this resolution. And um and so if if you all do approve this resolution tonight, um and then the council resolution last night, it also authorized uh uh redevelopment commission to enter into reimbursement agreement. So, if you all approve this res resolution tonight, um Derek and Venita can actually uh go ahead and sign that after the meeting and then uh the developer can sign it and uh that longer lead time item can go ahead and get ordered that way. So, um again, reimbursement agreement, it's only an interimm agreement. Um it does have a

cap for $195,000. So, in other words, um that cap cannot be exceeded until u the short-term financing closes, which is supposed to be uh November 4th still. So, um again, main purpose of the reimbursement agreement is just to allow um allow that, you know, pavilion to go ahead and get ordered um before the clo before the short-term financing closes in a month. So happy to answer any questions, but again this is just kind of tying a bow on the the BT procurement process. Do you need any action from this?

Um just to make a motion to approve the resolution. Jill, do you have the resolution number for that? Okay. Part of that last night we talked about it a little bit come out of it. So I make a motion to approve the order or the resolution. A second. Have a motion, a second. Is there any further discussion? Ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Motion passes. Thank you. New business. We have the forest edge drainage plan.

Thank you. We briefly discussed it one of our previous meetings last month. Um there was an issue that came up and I think all of you have a um handout too that kind of shows what the potential I think the improvements might be. There's an issue with drainage on the uh Sigma property out behind Forest Edge. I know that uh Ty Purcell's been out there meeting with Sigma. I know that Forest Edge and their forge construction he's constructing has been out on site. that's been going on for a few months. Uh, finally, there's a resolution of what everyone feels is a cost-effective resolution. Heritage Engineering is the is the engineer for um that Floyd went out there and came up with a a solution that they thought would fix this um in hopes of getting this done while the project was still underway. So what what you have in front of you is the potential solution plus an estimate from Dan Christian excavating that Forge Construction what Denton Floyd had procured from them and then with the deal that Denton Floyd proposed to pay $7,000 of the total um cost of that. [clears throat] Sorry I got this in my notes. I should have looked at them before. $7,000. Um, and it's asking if the city would pay the remainder of 17,150. It's up to the city whether the city would like to uh ask Sigma to then u help defay some of those costs. It's my understanding that uh Sigma had some drainage issues prior to this project

going forward. Um, and this project just exacerbated that a little bit more. Um but in order to try to get this taken care of, uh this is what the solution has been proposed to fix that. And this is a much more cost effective I can't remember the dollar amount much more cost effective solution that was originally floated um to fix this problem. So you said the city, but you're talking about redevelopment commission. Redevelopment commission. Yes. Sorry. No. I

$17,150 is what would be the difference. I'll make a motion we approve that. Now motion second. Is there any further discussion? Ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. [cough]

Motion [clears throat] passes. Thank you. If I could add to that to uh I know that they want to get started on that. Would it be possible um for you to take action that if that invoice when they send redevelopment an invoice because Denton Floyd will forge whoever Denton Floyd or Forge Constructions contract with Christianity and they're just going to invoice us for our portion of it. um if we could approve that payment and then just ratify it through claims the next month if it doesn't fall within the normal claim schedule since you only meet once a month. Yeah.

I make a motion that we approve now payment of that invoice that comes in even if it's prior to our next meeting. Second motion and second. Any further discussion? Ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor please say I. I. I. Motion passes. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Any discussion this evening? There's no further new discussion. Our next meeting is scheduled for November 4th, 2025. Make a motion to journ motion. Is there a second? Second. All in favor, please say I. I thank you all.