Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Ow. Heat. Boom. Boom. Home. Woohoo. He's so afraid to touch stuff. It's quiet. Okay, it's 9:30. We will call the meeting to order.

It's 9:30. 6:30. I'm Did I say what did I say? Well, I was figuring we're done playing. We're in Greenland. I'm sorry. It is 6:30. We'll we'll call the meeting order. The first item is u roll call, please. All right. Schnelli here. Bo here. Meer here. Molzan here. Smith here. Vancampen here. Pula here and Nelson is absent. Thank you. I'll call the uh village ward to order and ask the clerk to call the roll please. All right. Vancampen once again here. Kurtdorfer here. Higgins

here. Caner is not here. McDaniel here. Marks not here either. lease and he's not here either. Okay. All right. Thank you. Let me take you from here. Uh first item on here is item number five which is business. Items would be discussion and or potential action. Presentation by village staff and JSD professional services. The reason is for due diligence of the former village hall building and site at 117 spring street and redevelopment concepts. Elise.

All right. Getting everything pulled up here. Thanks everybody for um attending tonight. So um we wanted to gather together tonight to um speak about former village hall property and as we move towards an RFP um the content of um what we want to include in that RFP. as if we can just go to the next slide here. I'll give a little bit of a background of kind of how we got to this point. Um looks like my text is sliding off the right side here, but um in 2023, a lot of you were involved in a comp plan and park plan update process with VanDeral. Um and as it relates to downtown, there was a lot of um goals that were expressed related to promoting um space for business, more residential opportunities and activity downtown. kind of on the heels of that, we did a downtown master plan following a lot of um facilities, village and public facilities moving out of downtown as well as um just changes to our downtown in general. Um so both the village hall and the triangle park spaces were identified as opportunity sites, one of 10 opportunity sites. Um and again goals to um get more activity, more more um tax base downtown as well as just um supporting um events and community building, placemaking in those spaces. Village Hall is sat vacant um almost um three years now. Actually, I think it was three years a couple days ago

um that we closed and moved over here. So, um, nature has somewhat taken over, um, as time has gone by and it's been, you know, sort of mothballled. Um but we um did have a conversation with the board last summer and they all voted on um moving forward on an RFP request for proposals to sa to sell um the former village hall uh building slashsite and um and look for um folks from the outside to get their ideas on how they would reuse or redevelop the site. Um, so as Martin and I were starting to work on the the bones of that RFP last fall, uh, we realized that there's probably a lot of information about this building, about this site that anybody is going to want to know before they really spend the time and effort um and money to look into a project on the site. So, we called our um consultants over at JSD that we've worked with on the senior center, on the new library, a lot of other um public infrastructure projects to see if they can help us with some of that due diligence work to understand what is really what do we have what are we dealing with within the building. Um as well as getting us thinking about um the site in general and kind of how that might tie into future projects that we've envisioned with Triangle Park. some of our goals for that space. Um the parcel, um as we'll see, we can go ahead and go to the next page in this context map, and I'll invite Chris up here, too. But the parcel that's outlined in yellow there, um is the entire village hall parcel. It includes Waterman Triangle Park, the parking lot, the village hall building, as well as the alley. So, if we were to sell the building or the site, you know, what all of that parcel do we want to hand over to somebody else? what are we kind of physically talking about in terms of you know lot size and accessibility there and also want to make sure that any plans and decisions that we would make about the

village hall space uh wouldn't uh limit us in the future for opportunities for Triangle Park and the parking lot and the alley and just again want to make sure we're thinking holistically about how all those spaces work together and how we want to work towards achieving some of our goals for downtown. So, um, I'll invite, uh, Chris Dawson to introduce himself and come up and, um, we're going to kind of be going back and forth on a couple slides here and then we'll end with some discussion questions.

It's surrounded here. Um, hi, I'm Chris Dawson with JSD Professional Services. Um, we were, as Elise alluded to, we helped do some due diligence on the site and work through some conceptual redevelopment options. Um, our role is really to help structure the framework for the RFP um for when this body kind of moves forward for redeveloping that site. Can you just make sure you're talking close to the microphone so we can catch you on the recording? Yep. There we go. Can hear myself better, better or worse.

Um, yeah. So um so just starting with the context map here um there were a couple of key elements that we were that were identified for consideration um as we looked at different options for the site. Uh we were aware of some parking uh concerns and kind of what would be the the impacts to parking in the area. Um, so on this slide you'll see a parking summary that provides the total counts for street parking as it stands right now. And I kind of say that with the assumption of what Park Street is going to look like um sort of with that next phase of public improvements associated with and adjacent to the senior uh center parking. And then the the second category there is sort of the area parking lots that allow for the the public parking as well. Um so the colorization there is directly out of the downtown plan. Um and as Elise mentioned the yellow outline is the the overall village hall parcel in question.

Do you want me to talk to a couple of these too? We just wanted to include these in the slide deck and this will be added to the packet later um all these slides for you to refer to. But just um some context of some area projects and some kind of current condition um photos, but this is the senior center site plan. Um I think on the previous side you said there's um 86 off- streetet parking spaces within the senior center parking lot. And then with the rebuild the park street with JSD also did the design for that. um that'll be a 42 spaces. Um so a significant increase from what's there now based on um you know just kind of the parallel parking on one side right now.

Yeah, we're getting a little bit of a haircut on the right side there. But uh the the village hall parcel itself uh currently has 50 on-site stalls. Uh that includes a few stalls that kind of extend into the alley there. Um just to the left of the village hall as you're looking at it now. Um the parcel overall has a 28% open space um coverage and we wanted to highlight that because we we understand that there is a balance to be had here of the redevelopment function of the site and adding to the community benefit capabilities of the site with the with the park there and the band the band shell. Um, and then just to give some perspective, the the current building footprint is just over or just under, I suppose, 8,000 square feet. Um, and just to kind of highlight the uh the history of the site, you can see where the original 19 I believe it was 1941 uh building and then 1981 the the building addition. um just to delineate kind of where that that boundary is in the footprint of the building itself.

Um we also just included some of the historical photos. These are taken from the downtown master plan. Uh that was done at 24. But um what the building looked like upon completion on the left and then on the right is a um photo from when the building was under construction. and it was part of the New Deal. This is the Works Progress Administration um that constructed the building. So, kind of a cool picture. I think we have a couple of these framed around around the building. And then these are just some street view pictures, but again, if we need to refer to them later, but where you can see the the 80s atrium and to the north is the newer wing. And then this is the older side of the building closer to Waterman Triangle Park and the entrance there on the south side.

All right. So part of our scope was to look into the condition of the building. Um so we partnered with 1901 to look at a lot of the mechanicals, electrical and plumbing. Uh and we internally also looked at the structural elements. Um so starting with the structural it is as you say it has good bones. Um there are some needs in the roof space. Um a little bit of tuck point uh recommendation going on. Uh and then overall uh some abatement will need to happen. As Elise mentioned nature is moved in a little bit. So there's some known mold remediation that needs to happen. um as asbestous remediation and from our testing there were no concerns with lead actually. So that that was some good news there. Um and then moving on to sort of the mechanicals. Um you know as we mentioned there's 40ear difference between the two halves of the building. Uh there's a hodgepodge of kind of retrofits to a lot of the mechanical systems. um some of them being from well just obsolete generations of equipment to really on their last legs in general. Um so there is and I believe at least the reports are going to be provided or are in the packet.

They are in the packet the phase one environmental that we had to resend to each other. The full appendex will be added to the packet afterwards. It was an additional 400 pages that's not included in the packet tonight. So, we'll just we'll spare you and give you the highlights here. Um, so as I mentioned, structurally, the rooftop has some work that needs to be done and then some of the mechanical elements on top will also need that. Um, the good news is there are a lot of pieces of equipment that could be repurposed. Um, there's some mini splits that are expected to I mean, as it stands right now, there's no power or water to the site. Um, but from all inspections, they look functional. uh the the new carrier uh rooftop unit is perfectly fine. Uh so those are kind of big ticket items, but there are still some specific HVAC needs uh to kind of bring it up to code and and functioning. Next slide. Uh moving on to electrical. Again, kind of a common theme here. Uh there's a a mismatch of different generations of of technology. um a lot of 1970s era electrical but actually in good shape. Um just a little bit harder to modernize and and retrofit from there. Um there is a emergency generator that needs to be replaced and brought outside. Um, but sort of a the good news here is that there's a general consensus from the 1901 electrical team that it is a quote unquote easy retrofit um for a lot of the critical electrical needs. Um, and there's plenty of power that serves the site today. Um, there were a few concerns with the uh

emergency the the fire systems. Um those will need to be replaced and and brought uh up to codes. They are well outdated at this point. Next slide. And then plumbing. Um the the site is served well by uh existing utilities. The water heater and softeners are going to be needing replacement. Uh I believe there's some history behind the boiler itself as well. uh and need some upgrades to the the sump system and just overall uh to again bring it up to ADA compliance for instance there will need to be a few retrofits uh throughout the building and the last thing was I guess alongside the ADA compliance there's other just modern building codes that would need to be addressed uh with any kind of rehab of the of the building itself.

Okay. Um, one thing that was highlighted by the 1901 team is there are sort of some lacking IT systems. Um, so providing proper networking through the building, especially depending on what its future use is. Um, that that could be a challenge. Um and again just highlighting that there are some remediation measures that are needed. Um and with the current building footprint and how it could potentially be uh repurposed, there is limited viability for uh creating enough residential space for it to kind of pencil out um based on kind of a real estate uh evaluation. Um so it it would maybe be a balance of attracting some residents and commercial users. Um potentially some community space within the existing building if it were to be kept. I'm not trying to ignore this side of the room.

Um next. Go ahead. So um what we'll present to you today are going to be three different options and they kind of start at the low impact option which is going to be concept A here and they will progress in sort of how impactful they are how much the I guess the degree of change that you would see at the site. Um so we'll kind of end at a a full raise and and a whole new site look. Uh so concept A is an adaptive reuse. uh you keep the whole footprint, the 1940s and the 1980s uh addition. Um and for all three of these options, I do want to mention that they are all in consideration paired with expansion and um improvements to the triangle park. That will be a common theme. Um but the focus really for the RFP right now and you can maybe expand on this a little bit at least but um the RFP will be structured towards the building site itself um understanding that there needs to be accommodations for I guess flexible planning for the future park improvements. I don't know if you want to add any kind of details to that. Yeah, we'll we'll talk about it more when we have our discussion questions towards the end, but just keep in mind obviously we're not making any decisions tonight. We're not choosing between A, B, or C. These are really um kind of extremes for discussion just to show you what things could look like. And as we get to the discussing questions, we'll kind of just keep in the back of your mind what things you think are um you would be open to seeing in an RFP response and what things do you think are totally off the table or would be hard to swallow for the community. Um, and then I did want to I led with sort of the parking count. So I do want to make sure that we we highlight that. So with this particular option, uh, this

would reduce the on-site parking stalls by 22. Next slide. So concept B is a small uh, adjustment to concept A. It effectively removes the 1980s addition to the building. And the thought there is you have a balance for the parking uh if that is sort of a priority in consideration. And it allow it kind of opens the door for down the line any kind of expansion or redevelopment of the adjacent fire station site. Um, so it allows a community function space within the 1940s structure. Um, sort of with a long range planning option, not necessarily a requirement, but the option to use the parking lot space uh as a future consideration with any possible redevelopment of the the neighboring fire station site. Um, again, still expanding and renovating Triangle Park. There is a small reduction in on-site parking um which is sort of traded for just improved circulation and that expanded space within the park itself. Next slide. And then finally, concept C is a full tear down and repurpose. Uh the circulation on the site looks very similar to concept B except uh no surface level parking in the north half there. Um the idea here would be about a three-story residential structure with potential for a rooftop patio that could look overlook the park space. Um but try to be self-contained with residential parking on the ground level. Um so this would have

I mean there could be some discussion about how that particular residential structure is accessed. Um but the idea would be that the ground level has roughly 34 uh internal stalls which you see there at the bottom of the the bullet point list. Um so there's a net decrease of 26 public parking stalls. Um but there are 34 within the building footprint itself for the the folks who live there. Um the the ideal sort of the target unit count um for what the real estate market is at right now um would be about 40 residential units. Um and that can that can swing depending on the blend that is desired. But that's that's just a a good number to keep in mind as you kind of consider this particular option. Um

did you mention the structured Yeah. Ground level.

Yes. Yeah. Um and then we we didn't want to propose just tearing down a historic building and and not thinking about it at all after the fact. Um, so we did talk about how we could build into the RFP some requirements to pay homage to the previous structure and that could be sort of maintaining some of the facade, reincorporating some of the old materials into the building itself that replaces it or something like a concession stand in the park. Um, so not letting it be forgotten uh would be kind of something that we could incorporate into the RFP um as sort of a requirement. Next slide. So just to uh put this in perspective and take a picture from what the Tin Man would see uh with that particular redevelopment. Um just wanted to put it into context what that three stories might look like. um pro provide a little bit of transparency so you can see how that rooftop sort of relates to the fire station behind it for instance and the the surrounding buildings and businesses. Next slide. Um so just to kind of provide a few visual representations of something that could be incorporated in. Um, the next couple slides are just sort of a a materials board uh for consideration of aesthetic requirements that could be dictated in the RFP or just generally um pursued. You can kind of just shuffle through these a little bit. Um, you know, com creating some community spaces for uh play for the kids. um if they're not interested in a concert at the band shell, for instance, uh kind of work

that in. Um some some lighting in that area for a rooftop patio, food trucks, um things of that nature. Next slide.

All right. So, um, we can certainly flip back to any of those, um, concepts and report pages if you want to take a closer look at them. But, um, really the the rest of our time together tonight, we wanted to devote to discussion and, um, if we're ready, some potential direction to give um, to Martin and I as we start to draft this RFP and then would bring it back in front of both bodies for review and discussion before we would publish it, of course. So, um, as I mentioned before, you know, I think we should talk about are there any options that are completely off the table that you think would be not acceptable community? Um, or again, a change that would be pretty hard to swallow. Um, what are we open to considering? Um, we want to leave the door wide open. Are there things that again should be off the table? Um, what are our goals here with redevelopment? So, what do we want them to know about the village, but also for this project? What are kind of our our big objectives? So, I think we can start with those and then

if we make some progress on that, we can maybe move to some more of the the details about what specific information we'd want to see from respondents in an RFP. But, um, like to start here. Well, the idea is that that what we want to do is start the discussion. We're not going to make a decision tonight because obviously this is all just coming before us, but give some direction to staff and to JSD as to what we really want to do. Um, and that's basically what we start out with is like I said, are there any options that are off the table and just have a discussion? We don't know for sure get to that point. So, who wants anybody want to start have any thoughts on it?

Greg, I guess one other thing I wanted to add is just, you know, obviously an option like option C is a big swing from I think where some people sort of had this redevelopment going in their mind um from the downtown master plan. It certainly wasn't 100% of the respondents, but I would say, you know, twothirds or more said if there's a possibility to save Old Village Hall in some way, shape, or form, that would be great. You know, it's an important part of our history. Um, and I think we went all went into this just, you know, again, wanting to understand what we really have with left with Old Village Hall. Um, and just having a better understanding of that, I think the realities of the reuse challenges. um here think we should just go in with our eyes wide open knowing that if that's an option we want to consider or require to keep you know all our part of the building that um you know there might be a very low cost as far as a land sale might be a dollar sale type thing to get the the building off of our hands. There might be a tiff request for um some of the

redevelopment work that needs to happen. So, you know, just kind of looking at the and that's part of your all's scope. The next steps is to look at depending on what scenarios we want to look at further or continue to entertain um looking at some you know potential tax taxable revenue. Well, the idea I think is again with the RFP that we want to open it up a little bit but have some guidelines as to what we're looking for. So, you've got essentially there were three options offered to us and maybe we want to consider all of those and it's kind of what what you do and what you don't want. Uh, we're going to walk through all of this tonight and it's going to come back again and I suspect it's going to be more than one more meeting more than likely.

So, but that's just to get us started going how you all think about this. Uh, if you've heard anything from the community, which I don't think the community has known much about this at this point. Uh I haven't seen anything but yeah other than we did mail out for this meeting folks within I think 500 feet of the downtown parcel to invite them to come and check out the meeting. Um again all these slides will be available for folks afterwards too. So we can certainly make sure that people are able to access this village board. Anybody in the village board? Sure. Yes sir. Sorry with the survey. Um you said 500 feet around the parcel. Is that right?

That was I sent a letter. We sent a letter for tonight's meeting to let them know that this was going to be discussed tonight. Back in 2024 when we were doing the downtown master plan, that essential same group of people, we did um a focus group with downtown business owners in that same radius. We did a couple focus groups and walking tours with downtown residents and then we did some wider community surveys, um you know, outreach at different events, concerts, things like that, too. So there was, you know, various questions from what do you love about downtown to, you know, specific questions about village hall. Um, I think we more kind of focused on that type of specific question with the downtown residents and business owners. So

Oh, that that's amazing. I'm just wondering of the twothirds that wanted to maintain some sort of village hall presence, right? How many people, right? Like so was it 10? Was it a thousand? 200.

I mean, of the the like downtown groups, I mean, probably a couple of dozen in that like in those focus groups, people that we actually heard from. Obviously, a lot more people were invited to attend, but um yeah, overall we got probably, I don't know, five to six hundred people's responses across all engagement um for the downtown plan, but some people just were not specifically asked about village hall. And one followup and um was that across the village or just downtown?

Uh both. Yeah. So there was a wider community survey and then again booths at art fair and sounds of summer concerts and things like that. So those were more questions about what do you like about downtown? What's missing? Um what would draw you to spend more time here? And then those focus groups that are more the downtown residents and business owners. We actually walked around to different spots downtown and talked about we stared in front of village hall or the you know intersection and talked about you know challenges and opportunities for each different site. So great. Thanks.

Yes ma'am. I have a quick question about what we think the feasibility and and I'm sure there's no experts in the room that can really have a crystal ball and tell us this, but you know, I'm looking at this rendering in front of me and it's, you know, a primarily residential building and it's also in a space that's right next to a fire department and a downtown space. Um, I wonder are we I mean obviously housing is a need in Dayne County. We understand that, but is this something that we think will fill and stay full if you know in its current location for just purely residential.

Do we have any indication? Yeah. Well, some obviously like Jefferson Crossing that was sort of the first redevelopment and and addition of multif family downtown. I think there was a lot of skepticism about what that would look like and how that would impact downtown. And as far as I know, there's a waiting list or those, you know, those fill up pretty quickly. Um there are a lot of locations where um there are apartments like Madison, for example, there's apartments above fire stations and it's just sort of part of the

excitement I guess of living there. Um um but there's a lot of amenities that I think maybe people would be, you know, again, we don't know the long-term future of that fire station and everything too, but I think there's a lot of amenities that um people like to be near and are already living near downtown that being right next to the fire station, you know, there's already people that are kind of living in this area anyway. And it's not a common, I guess, like complaint that we hear that, oh, they're running, you know, sirens all the time. I think typically they actually start their sirens when they get out closer to like Jainsville Street. Great.

Um too, but yeah, I mean all we can really look at is the market, how quickly other buildings fill up, but that there's a demand for people living downtown as we're adding more businesses and um you know hopefully a more programmable, usable space for Triangle Park too with amenities that people can use when there's not scheduled events going on as well. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Um, I would say, you know, our our goal for this space would be something that would draw more people to downtown.

Um, and the thing that most attracted uh my imagination was the idea of a rooftop amenity, especially if that was available not just to the residents of the building, but um to anybody who might want to come down. Um, the two concerns I have are number one, I think all of these options reduce parking and parking is already pretty tight downtown, especially, you know, certain times and days. Um, and the other thing is we know the fire department needs more space. We also know that the fire department best serves the district by staying roughly where it's at. Um, and so, um, we're looking at options to expand, uh, for the fire department and, um, so I would at least keep that on the table as a possibility.

Okay. Thanks. Keeping in mind though again that that we're going to have some more parking with the development of the senior center. True. Granted, it's a half a block away or something, but we have, you know, park streets being redone and and uh and we're going to have a very nice parking lot at the senior center, which then obviously would be more available, let's say, in the evenings when we have more stuff downtown. So, keep in mind that that is also we're not just unnecessarily losing uh parking, but it's going to be shifted a little bit. Good point. Thanks, Tim. You got anything, Bill?

Yes. Uh Chris, a question for you. Uh regarding the uh 40 40 unit minimum u um can you uh I wonder where that comes from. I know that's probably not your area of expertise, but I mean is it unheard of to build half that size or

um so so I guess that that's not my area of expertise. Um but it is part of our scope to we have a partner who does uh real estate analysis. Um and that's kind of our next phase is really taking the feedback here um and and then going that extra step with the the real estate analysis and appraisal process. Um but that was sort of the the initial count we got from our uh real estate consultant. um just what they're seeing in the market right now for what developers have an appetite for and how what it needs to be for it to pencil out. Sure. Okay.

Yeah. I would just say if you think about all the infrastructure that's needed for a multi-story building, elevator, you know, sprinklers, things like that, right? A lot of that costs just as much whether you have, you know, 20 units or 40 units. Obviously, if you have more units, then you can pay off some of those those costs a lot sooner. So, yeah. But I think that's consistent with a lot of the multif family too we've seen. We haven't really seen a building at least in my six years here that a multif family building that's less than 45 maybe um per building. Trying to remember. Thank you both. Commissioner I got a question that's more global. Okay.

What is the intention of this report? And I don't mean to sound flip on that. What I'm asking is, is the intention of this report to create the foundation for another report that gets sent out to developers or is the intention of this report to go out to developers to come back with prospective projects? Yeah, I can take a whack at that. Yeah.

Um, so I think, um, the appendices, all of the reports, the phase one environmental and the mold inspection, all of that will be, you know, added to the RFP. Um this slide deck I think that's up to us how much we want to include. This is really more for our purpose. Um this is to get feedback from you all as to what we do or don't want to see within the RFP. Um I think it's sort of up to all of you to decide how we want to steer the ship. If again if we want to say here's some ideas to kind of get your wheels turning about concepts that we are open to this is what they could potentially look like knowing that you need to bring your own project that would have its own you know site planning process and things like that but um is that kind of what you're asking I guess how how we want to kind of

steer people's thoughts

I guess I I look at this as you know if I were a developer and I got this package, is there the right information in it? And my answer is no. There is a lot that's missing. If I'm a developer and I'm looking at this, foundational questions aren't being asked or aren't being answered. Um, it's good stuff, but there's still a lot of stuff like services, sprinklers, water, electrical, um, mechanicals, what can be saved, what can't. Um, you know, those are things that are sort of described generically. My gut tells me that mechanicals aren't even worth saving. You know, they're just a scrap. And and if that's the case, fine. But what about the boiler? Can the boiler even be removed?

Oh, yeah. Oh. Oh, yeah. Have you I know. And again, I think I believe that this report and it's very detailed. And again, we have more information that's available that we don't have in this packet. But I I believe that what's done here is that putting enough information together so that if we go off for an RFP, it allows us to make an RFP that is somewhat detailed as to what we're looking for, guide people, but there's enough information here that they don't have all kinds of questions about the building and stuff, which is why I was asking.

Right. That's I believe if we go and and I I didn't read the whole thing. I'll be honest with you. I read I page through everything. I looked through everything. There's a very detailed um mechanical, electrical, very detailed structural. Um it's it's all there. Now, again, what happens is a contractor or whoever has to do this, they're going to want to come back and look at the building and look at the options that they have available, whether they want to do one of the three options we have. And we don't know if that's for sure what we're going out with yet, but we think we are. But this allows us, the discussion tonight and this report allows us to come up with an RFP that at least gives somebody enough information to put together whatever they want to do for a proposal. We may get a whole range of things, but you know, that's kind of where we're going with that. Makes sense.

It it does. And and I'm uh thank you for that. But to finish my thought then, you know, where are water manes in the streets? You know, how big are they? Those kinds of things. Um, you do, like I said, you've got great information in here, but if I'm a developer, you know, I'm going to want to know those kinds of things because I'm not going to save the mechanicals.

It's just not it's not worth it. I'm not going to save the electrical. It's not worth it. Um, so what can I really save? is one side of that project, the 40 1940 version of the 1980 got a better floor to floor height, more usable, more clear floor span than another. You know, that's what I'm looking at if I'm a developer that's looking at this for an RFP. What is worth saving? What's not?

And that again, I'll go back. I believe as we have been a contractor, you have site visits and and they need to come back in and evaluate that. I think what they've done, if you look, there's pretty good detail again on the mechanical electrical. It tells you what's available, what's, you know, what should be replaced. And you're right, more than likely there's maybe one air handler can be used, but then again, by the time you get done fooling around with it, there's no warranty on it. Da da da da. You're probably better off something new. But here I think that's a good idea as far as you know just site utilities. That's information we have in our GIS system. Super easy.

There's some there's site utility stuff in here. There is some but well we can also get more for the you know RFP unless there's more in this 400 pages that we haven't looked at yet which could be the detail. And then in my opinion, I'm not sure if I look at this as a developer that I would want to have sort of cookie cutter approaches because for me candidly, I'd be also looking at an option D, which is can I save part of it and and tear down and build new. Oh, yeah.

Because that's really the most value potential right there, especially if you want to make a sales pitch to the village community about trying to save something. Um, you know, that's sort of part of it. So, I'm not sure that we would I don't know if we would want to say give them here's your four options, here's your five options.

Um, I think that you kind of give developers the framework of what you want and let them decide and let the community decide based on that. That's my opinion. Um, so yeah, I mean, I don't I don't think we would want to be inflexible. I I don't want to put words in uh Alisa Martin's mouth, but uh you know, we have three options and and as Alise said, part of this is to to get the gears turning a bit. Um but I don't think we would want to restrict it to just three options. Um even collectively in this room, you know, there are people out that would maybe be looking at this and have seven or eight. Um so it's kind of the end goal is to provide the framework um for just providing at least a clear outline of what the village desires to see at the site and how a developer might go about uh accomplishing that goal. Um I guess you're you're not off based on the the reports and all of that information. Um, but to truly spare the a few trees, the phase one ESA report itself is 500 and something pages. So that that information is provided. Um, and after review of that, if there's there's more that you want to make sure is included, there's ways we can certainly accommodate that. Um but uh yeah so this this report right now the benefit is truly for this body to have this discussion and understand where we need to go with the kind of final push effort to reach that RFP stage um and really get this out to those developers um so that they can start looking at this and um you know site visits are are one thing we did perform an alta survey for the site which has detailed uh

information about all on-site utilities, um, topography, um, all of that. So, that would be provided to a developer as well. Um, and then any supplemental GIS data that might be needed, that can also be provided. And Phil, to answer your question, I just did a 20 unit slab on grade and it's over half laced up. It's less than a month old. Um, but they're absolutely right in that if you put underground parking or surface parking on stilts, that's going to double your cost. Your your ROI is going to be 40 units at least. So, thank you.

Yeah, I guess that does highlight sort of the the the importance of parking. Uh, we we heard over and over again that that is a critical element to be considered here. Um, so providing that to the folks that live there and then allowing that increased foot traffic for the downtown businesses was something we wanted to make sure we considered in one of these concepts. Um, I, you know, I appreciate what you had to say, Donna, and I it makes a lot of sense. I think, um, you know, the elephant in the room is, are we going to tear down the village hall? Do we want to save the village hall? Do we want to save part of the village hall? Because I think if we want to go up for an RP, we, you know, we we can either say an option is to reuse the building or another option is to tear the entire structure down. But if the decision makers here have said, no, no matter what, we're we're going to save the building versus part of it versus none of it, we need to get that out of that out of the way.

And that's where we're going with tonight to a certain extent. You know, we there was three options shown there. Okay. That that that really and you made a point that's not all the options. And I look at if you go for an RFP, you have give them the options of whatever they want to do with the building. If we want to keep it, we tell them we want to keep it. Yeah.

Um if we tell them that, well, we don't care about the 1980s edition or something like that. Give them all the options they want to do and maybe they want to use part of it, but let them decide what they want to do with it. uh and we guide them through that. But again, we're not going to try to limit them to the three options. That was just a starter here or where we want to go with it. Yes, Tom. I guess it go back to some of the responses we got in relationship to the walking tours. And so it it was always that they wanted to preserve the historical element of it. You can do that in a lot of different ways.

And it maybe it's just a facade, maybe it's a a relative element, but that would be an element within the RFP. that when we're considering the different proposals, one of the elements is how much does this help preserve the historical character that everybody said was an important element. They also said at the same time, we want lots of parking. So, there is a conflict. Well, there is and and again, like you said, there's a lot of things you can do. You have a shell, you could do anything you want with it or just one wall of it like you were talking about or something. There's so many different things.

Give them the option. But is there again getting back to what we start going through these three items we just talked about here not the three options are is there anything that we are not don't want to give up and we don't know can't we don't have to decide that tonight but is there is there some no go things or is there are we going to leave it wide open for anything that somebody wants to do or just try to get some discussion tonight that we can eventually get to a final RFP. Yes ma'am. asked that.

I was just going to say I mean it I'm not going to I don't want to limit anybody but I I will say like my gut reaction when seeing the last option which took away like the trees and some of the green spaces and it just it it didn't feel to me like like that didn't feel like it fit. Again, it's just a box, right? like it is absolutely not what they're designing. But it's it just it my gut reaction was like well take a look at the other two pictures that you had of the not the box. There you go.

Yeah. And the like the landscaping in the park, right? It's just like a big green rectangle. That would be and that's kind of a point. We're not going to talk really too much about Triangle Park and stuff tonight, but that would be sort of a trade-off of again reaching some of those goals we have for Triangle Park, but there's the parking trade-off there, too.

Yeah. I guess my reaction is more just like this is it feels to me very far away from what the original building is. And I to to your point like I understand giving them the direction that we want it to look or feel very similar, but if you're going to put under parking underground and you're going to put 40 units, like it's going to look really different than the original building. And so I I don't want to confuse a developer by saying like this two-story building that's really old, we want it to look we want your modern 40unit building to look just like this because I just don't know that that is ever going to be achieved.

And we won't be very far underground with parking. It's called Spring Street. It's called Spring Street for a reason. Yes. Quick question. Has there been been any soft reachouts from any developers saying like it's been debacon for three years, right? You guys are doing surveys, people obviously get win, they're not down. So like is there anybody that's kind of softly interested and there are ideas coming from developers because there's three options here. There's probably 100 options, right? So does anybody else have an idea? And I would argue that we should then present that to the village and a survey that's wide ranging um so that we kind of really get a sense. So, couple questions and comment.

Well, I'm sorry again on that, Matt. If you you mean we we threw out four options or three options, excuse me. But that's not the only options, of course. What I'm saying, what you're saying is that let the developer have some imagination, sir. And maybe utilize it, maybe they can't. Um, Village Oregon, I've been here for quite a while, but folks that live here that have been here for a while really like the old stuff we have. Fair and

sometimes you got to say goodbye to it and you know so it's it's let let it up there let them decide what they can do and what's the best for the village and of course developers can come back with what they feel they can do most economically and still get the job and be profitable and to your point sir I think that's great um it's just let's see the ideas and go from there right I mean well we're trying to I don't and I'm not sure how we we again have to get to a point here at least get this discussion started. Does it all sound good to everybody? Is what we're doing um and get this RFP down?

And I guess in answer to your question, I won't name any names, but yes, there have been groups that are local that we're familiar with that have inquired about the building and the site over the last, you know, couple of months, couple of years. Everything from, you know, office uses, event space, redevelopment. Um, so there's a lot of folks that I think are just waiting until we get to the point of and say, you know, when you get to that RFP, make sure you let me know, keeping their eye on our RFP page and all that. But

I think I'd want to see goals that we tell them and it might say maintain this many parking spots and it might say maintain the character of the building. It might say, you know, what we want this space to be used for. I don't think that restricts anything. Um maybe it gives them an idea of how to present to the group that's going to review the proposals and

yeah, you're right. It's but if you're going to well maintain as many parking stalls or provide as many as possible got to be careful about whether we want to guide them in a direction of of residential or business because years ago we did that down here and and we had a number of developments in the in the village where we had the idea that we were going to have uh businesses on the lower level or the first level and that residential. None of those flew. It was it it it was started out it was using the word disaster is a wrong word but it was not beneficial to the village. What was the what was the issue? Why why did those failed?

It was it was a it was a wonderful concept back 20 years ago still around here and it just didn't draw the that the they didn't draw businesses. Okay, that was a thing. It didn't draw the businesses. Um and perfect example is out on Wolf Street. Wolf Street. Elliot. Yeah. Elliot. Um gentleman did a wonderful job building it, but he it didn't turn out well for him because now you drive by and you see all the individual gas meters because it's now it's all apartments or condos or whatever he's turned it into. That's right. That was going to be

it was going to be all retail on the lower level. Right. And it just never took off. and and and and if you go up and I'll tell you go to some other municipalities, Dne County, um north up towards Sock, you draw through drive through these municipalities and you will find that concept and you'll find that the that they didn't take off. The business did not take off because they're not it's hard to bring a business as viable to a smaller community and make it work. Depends. There's some there's a niche for everything but not necessarily a lot. How is Pitchburg doing with the development of Bayer Elementary School up there because they have a lot of that there. Is that doing well?

I I don't know. But the thing is that when you go up there, they've got so much residential. You want to believe that that helps. Yeah. Okay. I've seen in like the Terravesta neighborhood there's like

you know cocktail lounges and a salon and some smaller kind of neighborhood oriented businesses that I think um I think there probably are still some vacancies but I've seen there is Eric to your point I don't know how many of you were around or have seen the RFP we put out when we were looking for reuse of the 249 North Main Street site where the North Point Town homes are now but there were goals that we had about um you know preserving the historic trees um trying to remember Martin what some of them were like you know engaging uh or providing opportunities for people with low income or special populations you know seniors children um how well yeah is there a park element um you know density things like that and then we had kind of a scoring matrix so based on some things that we felt were important how well did they meet those goals? And obviously there were a lot of different types of responses from that. So some swung kind of one way on, you know, density and had less green space, others were more green space. So yeah, if we could identify maybe some and maybe that's not tonight, but some metrics of, you know, or we want to try to, you know, minimize parking loss or we want to it's it's hard to kind of tie some of that parking because public. We're going to retain probably, you know, a fair bit of that site with the parking lot and Triangle Park, too. So, how much do we want to I guess put that on the developer versus what do we just make decision for our space?

Yeah. If you give them that whole space that was outlined in yellow, then what are they going to use it for? So, if you don't tell them that part of this needs to be for public parking and it's not your cost or it's not your part of the development, but we need to keep some space here or the park needs to be this size. Well, I don't believe the um the idea here is is is to I think essentially look at the footprint of the existing old village. I think we would suggest we would carve out like do a CSM and carve out the portion of the site like the footprint of the building, you know, plus or minus some square footage. Well, the idea Triangle Park is not part of it. That's not part of it. That would be our that's that's the villages forever kept,

right? So, that's but the only thing is there is some concepts there that they they want to maybe put some more green space in. So, you're going to lose a little bit of parking. That's where the issue is about um uh Triangle Park. That part struck me. All three concepts had a parking count, but all of those parking counts were in the assumption of more green space for the park. And that kind of is a separate again, that's separate project. I mean, those parking stalls maybe stay. Exactly. the the um redevelopment of park would of the park would probably come after right

what happens here and um those decisions can be made after this is redeveloped and taken in consideration of what's put there may affect how we decide what to do there but I wouldn't want us to think well we don't want to do this because it's going to affect the park is you know yeah I think in a way we kind of wanted to show like a not worst case scenario, but like a maximum buildout of maybe what green space could look like over there if we expanded that and then what impact that that have on parking. Obviously, that could be adjusted in a lot of different ways.

I would suggest we kind of like just set that aside, Triangle Park, and not be concerned about it because we got Triangle Park. It's there. it will not be part of this RFP and then we'll decide later if in fact we can do something else and again address parking whatever we have to do. Right. Yeah. But depending upon what's going to happen in this place exactly that that said it seems fairly obvious to me and kind of what you led with is the current building does not really redevelop well for residential. No. So if if if we want residential in that block, I think we need to offer it up as a as a tear down site and we get the

but again threetory, fourtory, whatever. If if we would like to see a business on that site, I think we need to offer them more details about the building, you know, dimensions and plans and bearing walls and spans and things that John was talking about. I don't think we want, but do we want to get to that point as the village? We I don't think we do. No, I think what we want to do is we want to find somebody that would love to buy this property or however we they or get to it, get ownership of it and let them provide to us a proposal of what they want to do for development. We can say yes or no.

If we give them a few more details, they can give us a much rendition of what they are proposing to put there. But that goes back again as I envision it. You know, I'm I'm Envision in one way that that is that if you give them the option that they can use the building all of it part of it whatever they want to do with it residential business that is the developer's concern and then they come back to us and provide what they want to propose and then we're going to be sitting here comparing apples to oranges to grapes to

depends depend well we may I I would hope not again we don't have the RFP again we're not deciding tonight. Let's get to that point and and we can't do a lot of whatifs. We got to start narrowing it down a little bit. I I think we can make a decision. Do we see that block as viable and necessary for residential or would we like to keep business there? I look at what the condition of the red brick building was 20 some odd years ago and the job that Gorman did with that and what that has brought to that end of this block, you know, and is something like that viable down here without knocking it down and going to three or four stories of apartments.

Well, go ahead. I I think that what we want to do, my opinion, is not give them any options whatsoever. I think what we want to do is we want to give them we are looking at generic terms. We are looking at infill for a um downtown location that could incorporate things such as residential, commercial,

non-drive through. We are looking to maintain 25% green space and the creation of a park that has x number of square feet. And where I'm going with that is I think the best use of this site is to take that building and not put it there at all, but put it up against the street. Parking is rectalinear. Use the rectal linear portion of your site for your parking and use the funky shape as your building. It will create more interest in the streetscape. It will create more interest in your building and it will force them to sort of tie into the architecture of the neighborhood. That's just my gut. That's where I would go. Uh just to clarify, which street are you saying you need to hug it to? Chainsaw green space.

Yeah, that's where I want to put a building. Right there. That's damn right. That's triangle. What you do is you tell you tell the people that you want to maintain x number of square feet around that. So if that's where you're going to have that's what your area is for your park right now, doesn't have to be there. It could be along where the the front of village hall is right now. No, there's nothing that says that it needs to be along there. Is that the highest and best use and best interest of this downtown area? No. But now you're getting involved with Triangle Park, which again, we didn't want to use part of that as the Well,

I I am 100% in agreement with John. I'm sitting here thinking, why are we taking Triangle Park and setting it as a no touch zone? Um, okay. I think you let a developer give them a clean slate. Say, "Here, here's what we have. These are the assets we have. What can you do with it?" Let them pencil the numbers out. See what works. But from the fabric of the downtown, I want to back up a second. What was missing in your report was any discussion about the historic nature of the current uh village, the past village hall. I didn't see a lot of information, but it stood out to me when you said we have a historic building.

Is that is that building on the state or national register? No, it is not. I don't believe it is. Right. So, it's charming

and it could be useful. Um, looking at all three of your options, the last one, the box wasn't very appealing. Uh, the fabric of the downtown needs to m be maintained. We have one of the best downtowns in Dayne County because of the historic nature of the buildings. What John is saying is we are creating that space, that central plaza space uh around these facades of the building by bringing it up to the road. You are going to have more of a a built-in area and I think it's going to be more successful. And then take your green space and put it near the fire station where it's quieter, where people aren't listening to a concert with cars buzzing by.

Okay. So, I like that idea saying give them some parameters. We want x percentage of green space uh but leave it as open-ended as possible and see what the private sector comes up with rather than us sitting here saying it should be residential, it should be b business. That was the mistake that was done 20 years ago where we wanted business but the market wasn't there for it. The only thing is when you do that, I don't think we want that park to be part of their development.

No, the park will be the park will be deed back to the village, but let them determine what is the best sort of orientation for that piece of but somewhere along the line, we got to give them some idea of what we want. And I that's fine. Yeah, I understand. That's not a bad idea, Bill. I agree 100%. Um, but the only way I see that working is we take down the village hall, turn that into the new park and park in. Is that is that what your vision is? I'm not going to say that. Okay. Because I can't. You're right.

But I can't, you know, because I think that um, for example, to what Patrick just said, if Gorman comes in and says, you know, we have a history of doing this and doing it well. Yeah, they do. and we're going to convert this existing building into 14 units so we can make the numbers crunch. Good for you. Yeah.

If if they need to tear the building down, you know, Fred's contracting company needs to come in and tear the building down, put the building on stilts to put 40 units above it to make the numbers crunch. Good for you. You know, I mean, I don't want to say I think that again, what we want to do is give them generic properties. We are looking at infill. We are looking at something that has a aesthetic that matches the neighboring comm community area. You know, we are looking at um possible mixeduse developments if you want to do that. Um whatever. You know, maybe they've got um maybe they've got uh Panasonic wants to come in and they're looking for a corporate headquarters and they're going to put in a three-story building right there.

They're still in business. They're still You're aging yourself. Sorry. No, it's fair. It's totally fair. I mean, my is there's a developer that has somebody on the hook that is looking for a I'm not going to tell them that they can't put an office building here. That'd be a good use. Well, you guys I you know, you you open up that's why this discussion is good because the two of you have come up with a great idea that is possible. Um, and go ahead. Go ahead. I'm going to mark my agreement down to 90% because I really embrace the idea of putting the building along the street. Yeah. And then moving the park over to where the village hall is.

I just want to make that. So, so I'm just going to come back to you on the village hall and say don't say it has to be taken down because some developer might want to use that shell. They might want to create an atrium and it could be that's right very exciting. And just to the north, and I'm not talking the addition to the village hall, that can go because that's a subterranean nightmare, right? Uh but the old village hall might have use. Let the developer decide that. So Chris, question for you. I'm sorry. Quick, Chris, just a quick question. Yes, sir. How how difficult is it going to be to put an RFP together like that? You know,

in a way, I think more flexibility can be easier, right? Because we're not saying here's your choices and you have to fit within one of these boxes. I think you're right. Obviously, you know, you're just giving them food.

Yeah, exactly. We don't know what we're going to get back. One thing I'll say just in tying back to the fe the like uh community feedback from the downtown plan. Obviously, Triangle Park was another site that was talked about a lot. Um, just for what it's worth, you know, historically from the original Sanburn maps and things of the village, that has always been a public green space. Obviously, now there's more parking than there used to be, but um that area has been historically public green. Um, I think there's a lot of attachment to that band shell,

too. Not to say that it couldn't be relocated or reused. We even talked about that in the downtown plan and I think there was an option that uh redevelopment resources showed where they even took the band shell and flipped it towards closer to the intersection and kind of had people facing west rather than east. Um but I know that that was just a point of discussion. People feel really strongly about where Triangle Park is keeping the band shell. So that would be something else. Again, without knowing what somebody would come back with, it's hard to say would we accept that or not. But um that was definitely a lot of discussions about Triangle Park at that time too. I I was going to say something along those same lines is that

if we make the decision to do this and I I do support it because I always wondered why we wanted to listen to concerts with cars driving by. Um and I would much prefer something that was a little more in away from the traffic. But I think we're gonna have to think very carefully about the communication to the community about what our plans are and the timing of how stuff gets laid out because I can just see a lot of people being up in arms about they took down Triangle Park, you know, what's wrong with these people, right? Um and and so I think that's that's going to be something we're going to have to think through very carefully and communicate very carefully. town.

Well, I I think but what we're getting down to is that there's some points in the RFP that that would be you can develop this whole area, but in it you have to maintain a public band shell, music venue, park, something somewhere within this in the downtown area to continue to draw people to the downtown. Parking isn't, you know, what what's our criteria that we're going to judge against? You're going to build a matrix out of this to judge just like we did on the the main street property. So these are you know the we give them the freedom to to consider putting the building wherever they like but then they also have to give some space to where will there be a park where will be a venue that draws people to the area

and those are just becomes your criteria your matrix and again that has to do with nothing more than your your planning of your construction you know because you may and I know financially however you look at it but if let's just say just for giggles here if you move and you want to reuse Triangle Park for the new building. Okay. Well, then take down the old building, get your development so you can have your concerts or what so we don't interfere with the with whatever we do at our our village and the enjoyment we have in the summers and everybody else who do that get that accomplished and then they can go proceed with the other part of it. That's a good idea. So, yeah. Yeah. Again, I this is actually getting more exciting as we talk about it. So, yeah,

it really is. The other thing that I would throw out is that possibly the band shell could be incorporated as a developer option as a public private entity. And what that would enable them to do is use that for a profit source for them to offset some of their costs.

But it could also then be something that could be reshaped and incorporated into the architecture to better solidify um an orientation within the downtown area. Um, you know, the to your point, um, if you go to a concert at Breeze Stevens Stadium, that's sort of a public private entity in Madison that has all of a sudden become incredibly energized.

Um, and you see people on the balconies around those units watching concerts all the time. and you've got the soccer games that go on and it is an exciting I don't even like soccer. It's exciting to be there. Um um so so that's the kind of thing that we could use as an energy source for this kind of development. I think if you allow a developer to do that. It's a soccer town. J I know. Take a look at me. I'm not built for speed.

John, I think you've had great points honestly. And one question I do have though is um is this faded complete? Is this keeps going? Because the roof is leaking, there's water in there, there's mold every like does it just become a knockdown at some point just based on the amount of time it's taken us to figure it out. Well, I don't know. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. No, no. I I just Okay. No, that you get a good point. So maybe tonight we can talk about is there any option I opposition to that raising that building? Is there an opposition to it? Is there somebody who says no? Absolutely not. We cannot let that building go. Is that something we can talk about tonight? I'll just weigh in real quick on that. You know, history is important, right? Yeah.

That doesn't mean it's a building. That building could be spread around the village. It's downtown right now, which is the heart of a village. However, why don't we expand the history of the village with the village too, you know, and have monuments all over with the facade or any other idea you think. Good idea. So, I just throw that out there, but that's good. Thank you. Good idea, man. Chris, what do you think as far as what you've heard from your sub consultants? Like, is there a certain point where like the roof has five more years and it's going to cave in or um things are I mean things aren't going to get any better, right?

Right. No, I I I think um as we mentioned, like structurally it's it's in good condition. Um as with any property, you know, it it's roof has has seen its uh functional use um and needs some needs to be addressed. Um and one thing I want to make sure is not lost, Scott. Um this will be a feat in itself. Um but there are building plans. Um, we'll have to figure out how to scan those maybe because they are fragile

print only um and and fragile. Um, so I did want to make sure we didn't lose sight of that uh discussion topic. Um, but yeah, um, the the roof just flat out it needs to be replaced. If there's going to be any reuse of the building, it there's some work to be done on the roof. you're already going to be looking at a lot of the mechanicals that are up there um and those penetrations. So, you're probably punching through the roof to put in more modernized systems to begin with. So, I think that is I'm not going to say it's a foregone conclusion. Um but certainly a maybe a big ticket item for reusing that space. Um yeah and then um again even though there is aged equipment in there um yes maybe it is just easiest to consider a full gut and and kind of start with the the skeleton. Um but there are I don't think there's going to be any sentimental value attached to the fire panel but there are elements that could be salvaged. Um, so yeah, I I guess maybe the the critical component is if we're talking about the and maybe historic building, that's a misnomer because that does technically carry its own connotation, but um from the public viewing perspective, what they see as the historic nature of the building is really going to be the exterior. Um, so if if that is a particular element that needs to be

Well, historic is it because it's only 10 years older than me. There you go. When do we pick When do I get I feel like that's a trap and I'm I'm going to let that one go. It kind of turned out that way, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Let's reaffirm that. Let's Let's talk about that again. Reaffirmment. Is there any opposition? Does anybody here on the village board or plan commission feel that there's absolutely no way we'll consider letting that building be torn down? No.

I don't see anybody in opposition to that. So, the idea that that we all of a sudden Thank you, Patrick and John. That's a heck of an idea. Yeah, it is. I'm on board with that. How about you folks, Billy? Now, again, we still I don't know how much more we have to go before we get to this RFP because all of a sudden, I think maybe this changed it around quite a bit. Now, again, you're going to give an option, but we got it opens up options. It opens up options. Yeah. I think maybe I if I could maybe repeat back some of the goals and things that I've heard. Um

I think we have you know made some good progress here. We can take a first crack first step at it RFP and again kind of building that matrix like we talked about of these are our goals. Um so um you know having some I guess you know an active use downtown and and describe what that is and we can kind of weigh what that might look like. um are there, you know, it's some amount of historic preservation whether it's of the building or elsewhere on the site. If that's a goal, we can we can state that. Um aesthetics matching the aesthetics of kind of downtown or um kind of honoring the history there. Do we want to have a mix of uses? Um, like John said, infill. Um, I mean, we could have even criteria like what's the most creative use of the site or what about like taxable potential taxable value or or land use value? What would be a projected, you know, value of your building? Whatever way, shape, or form you're proposing it. Is that something we want to

ask people to try to, you know, come up with a number? And we want they're going to come up with a with a design that's going to be beneficial to them financially and then is it workable to make it profitable and and we can say yes or no but u they they could utilize part of the structure give them that option to use part of the structures any way they want to. You don't have to, you know, maybe I'm wrong in that, but yeah, financial opportunities, what are your resources?

Um, I think, you know, in the past RFP2, we asked people about their, you know, project experience, what are other, have you done projects like this that have been successful? Who's your project team? Do you have the experience to do, you know, a historic adaptation of a building or downtown, small town, downtown redevelopment. Um, give us some examples that we can look up and yeah, you're going to want a track record. Yeah, you're going to want them to look, I suspect, keep the the look of the downtown we have somehow best they can. Yeah. And we have some language, I think, for the downtown master, but it's not in the

this idea that's just been thrown out here gives us a wonderful opportunity to change the whole thing down there. really really make it much more of a bigger downtown or a interactive whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I know that was one comment your your team had when they were coming into Oregon for the first time. They said, you know, coming down Jefferson looking downtown, it looked like kind of a used car lot because it was just the parking lot like where where's the park that's all that?

It's a good point there. Yeah, I know one thing Redevelopment Resources talked about was having like a like a feature, architectural feature, whether it's something that's got a tower or whatever, but like defining that downtown space a little bit more. You know, humans like to feel like they're enclosed, you know, kind of in like outdoor rooms. It's a safer feeling. So,

there's a lot of different ways that things could be laid out that would be, you know, still comfortable and functional. So at the point I you know to get this to some kind of a closure for tonight at the it looks like we've opened this thing up a little bit. We've we've agreed at least at this point that there's no opposition to it. It has to be the existing structure can be removed. Um and we're going to look at the entire parcel as opposed to just the footprint of the existing old village hall.

That make sense? Yes. I just have a quick question. Um, for the the the refiguring of potentially having a developer use the Triangle space, are we then going to is there going to be something in the RFP that says like if you take out if you decide to build on Triangle Park, you must then and then is that on them to design in your mind? Like when we did North Main, we took back that section and then the village developed or will develop that park based on what we might see from the neighborhood. I guess I'm wondering like is that what it looks like where they like potentially tear down the space and they give us this empty space and say okay village this is yours or do we also ask them to potentially pull together a plan for what that looks like

which then there's the other trick then that it becomes our property then again correct well it's all our property right now I mean what happened with the North Point situation is not that we sold them the whole lot and they gave us back. We subdivided the property and we kept part of it and we sold them the north end. So, there's a lot of different ways it could be set up with phasing and and everything to where we, you know, maintain ownership until their new building is built and then we sell it or whatever it might be. So,

it's a good point. What you're say what what I was trying to say before is that if you do the con depends how we did this and if it works out that way and if the grand plan that John and Patrick talked about would work. We have to provide a facil or space for I would suspect for the summer concerts. We would do that first, which would, if that's the case, probably go to the north where the 1980s edition is and maybe it's part of the 1940s, but that would be developed first. And that's just a thought. Maybe maybe not. But

yeah, maybe without dictating all of the timing, maybe we could just say in the RFP that, you know, we we want to maintain like right now it's what 28% open space. Maybe we say we want to we don't want to go any lower than that. Okay. Or something. Um but that you know and I think the alley we've all that's important right to businesses and maintaining flow but within this other envelope you know we want to you can redevelop anywhere within that but we need to have at least whatever 25 or 30% space and show us how show us how you would achieve that gives them a lot more area to develop too

you know regarding the alleys you've got to cross access agreements you're going to have to be maintaining those as rights of privilege um the other thing is I would yes I would I would if it were me I would write it as we were looking for 28% green space plus or minus 2% and what that then would allow the developer to do is either create a green space that he could deed or leave back as part of the village land or he could encompass that into a tax base that he could then also use as part of his quasi public private entity.

Okay. in which the village could use that land for free. He could deed it that way. Um or he could use it as a I don't know Rolling Stone antiquated, you know, short concert tour. I don't know, whatever. Um for the Panasonic Panasonic microphones, corded microphones. Um so, so um yeah. So I think what you're saying is we can keep the 28% in the guidelines. So show us what you would do but minimum whatever 25 28% green space wherever that is. And I think too like maintaining traffic flow and that alley access and stuff, those would also be

I'd say that it has to be contiguous because if you could if you don't make it contiguous, they could give you 12% here and 12% there or they could even start to play the developer game and say, "Oh, my roof is green." Yeah. Okay. Um so not that I have heard of those stories. Um so and again, you know, it it it's this is just we're just the first kick at it right now. But yeah, that's all stuff that can be ironed out as we go through this. I don't know. We don't timeline. I think we're trying to get it going. But I think, you know, by the end of the summer, yes, or so, start of the fall if we get the RFP out on the street by then. But, um,

so the village board can keep the first Thursday of every month open for possible. Hopefully not too many more of these. But, yeah, I think yeah, we'll see. Do you guys how much more discussion you want to have tonight? But I think we have a lot of good feedback and we think we we're good. Um Okay. Tom, did you have something else you want to say?

No, I'm just it's it's really some of your goals are already defined in the the downtown plan. So you can pull some of those and say, you know, some of the these are goals for this area that we have and you can build that into your RFP is like we want to see is there going to be more when we judge your your proposal, we're going to look, will it have adequate entertainment options? Does it have enough parking? You make those judgments between two different proposals. This one gives me 12 parkings plus this give me 20. Oh, he gets a higher score. So, it's just make sure we get through all those goals defined

as we put that uh proposal together. So, but you've got some of that already in the downtown plan. That's a really good point. Good. Okay. Thanks, guys. Thanks everybody. Uh let's see. I will u as our business is concluded without objection the village board is adjourned. Just the board. Just the board. And you're all too long. And you're all Yeah. And you're all welcome to stick around and watch the rest of the exciting part here because there's one I just settled down here.

That's right. It's not related to last week. Well, it doesn't matter because you say anything you want. So, you tell me when you're I'll tell you a minute. We're ready.

Well, I'm I John. One thing we didn't talk about is where's the cannon going to go if things get moved? The cannon. Where's the cannon go? Does that have to stay far? You don't want me to tell you where that goes. How about your front yard? Right where it is. Yeah. Right pointing right down the street towards now. I'm just Anybody that enters the village should be where keep an eye on. That's right. Well, we won't say anything about it. Okay. Okay. We're going to move on then with the plan commission meeting. Next item, approval of minutes of April 9th, 2026. Do we have a motion to approve?

These are actually not not included in the packet. We we forgot to note that they were not available by the time of the packet printing. So put on the agenda. I Yeah, it was a long it was a long packet. We were So what we're going to do is retract that my statement is what we're going to do. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on then.

Public appearances. This uh this uh part of the agenda allows members of the public to provide information to the plan commission including items both on and off the agenda. 15 minutes will be provided for this item with the three minute minimum minute maximum per speaker. Otherwise, the agenda will proceed as posted. The remainder of the agenda items, the plan commission will not invite public comments and there's no other public hearing. So, yes, sir, you can address this guest.

Good evening. Tim Higgins, Prairie Grass Road, 109 Prairie Grass Road. I'd like to make a public comment regarding last month's planning commission and the conversation around adding owner occupied requirement to our zoning code. And I would like to speak against that idea. For context, when I was 25 years old, I bought my first house. Nice little three-bedroom, two-car garage end of a culdesac. That was not unique. When I was 25, my peers were all buying houses. 25 year olds today are not buying houses. Okay? the housing market is such that the deck is really stacked against them owning their own homes and so they are forced into renting. If we then turn around and put in our zoning code that renters are less desirable as neighbors I think we are doing a disservice to the community. Um, you know, after the last meeting, I came up and talked to a couple of folks about the idea of corporate ownership of housing, which I see as a greater threat. And we kind of waved that off like, ah, it's free commerce. You can't do anything about that. Well, to me, that's a pretty bad message to be sending to the young people today, that we can't help you with the systemic issues that are forcing you into being a renter, but we can shame you for being a renter. So, I went home that night and I was a little frustrated and I decided to Google, is there any objective evidence that suggests a renter is a less desirable neighbor than a homeowner? And what Gemini came back with was 45% of renters feel connected to their community whereas 62% of homeowners do. Like, okay, but what's the cause and what's the effect? If we make people feel less welcome as renters, why wouldn't they be less connected to their community? To me, a community is one where the people who are already here welcome the newcomers and tell them about things like the homecoming parade and the clean water and the highly rated

fire department and cinnamon rolls at the firefly on Fridays. um and invite them to care for the community the same way we all do and share that with them. Not shaming them as renters. We're forcing people into renting situations and I don't think owner occupied belongs in any of our zoning codes. So, I'd ask you to just give some thought to the belief systems that led to some of those opinions and take it under consideration. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anybody else? We'll move on then to uh new business.

Review and possible approval of a site plan revision for Dream Kitchens, 150 Brun Road.

All right. I am Dream Kitchens tonight. I told them to uh not not come and sit through the whole meeting, but um Dream Kitchens is looking at a couple of upgrades. They've been in Oregon a really long time, and I think they're celebrating a milestone year. I think it's maybe 30 or 40 years here in Oregon. So, wanting to do some um upgrades to their warehouse. Um I did just receive a call a couple days ago from um Chris Schmidt, who's the owner of Dream Kitchens or I think manages this location at least, and he said that that um proposed concrete um on the east side of the lot um closer to where PAX used to be um kind of near where it says lot one there. um he has decided not to do that work this year, potentially next year, but just due to budget. Um he would just be interested in proceeding with the proposed concrete. Uh there's a gravel area right now and the dumpsters are kind of just out in the open. So I told him, you know, if you're going to be doing any paving, we need to kind of bring this up, of course, to our current standard. So he site plans are good for two years. So, I did let him know that um I think we could if you all are in support still um approve the site plan revision tonight knowing that um that eastern concrete area it was going to be additional parking for some trailers, work trailers and things um that might not be built right away but potentially next year as his funds and you know projects allow. But the heaving of the gravel area to concrete on the west side um along Market Street and then the fencing of the dumpsters would happen this year. So that's my update, but otherwise meets all setback requirements, impervious area,

um all of the requirements of the the GI zoning district. Any questions? Anybody uh comment? I guess I I have no objection to what he wants to do. Um, but I'm sorry he's not here tonight because I wanted to ask him. He's proposing a wooden fence. I wanted to ask if he has plans to finish it or just let it weather naturally. I'm assuming he was going to let it weather naturally.

Um, and that's fine. Um, but none of the buildings around all the buildings around there are steel panels. And so all I wanted to ask is had he looked at any other materials? And if he goes one building to the south to Lakeside Landscaping and you look at the fence that they did, steel panel fence, it looks really nice. So, wood fence probably cheaper. Um, probably easier, but I just wanted to kind of query had he considered anything else that might be a little more appropriate for that area. Sure. Okay. So, you'll pass that on.

Yep. I can follow up with that. I did confirm the fence would be taller than the dumpsters, too. So, and and the bottom line is it's going to look better than it does now. So, I I have no hangup about using a wood fence, but I just think aesthetically when you look at all of Market Street, it's all steel panels. Thank you. Okay, then we need Go ahead.

I had one quick question for the engineer types. Um I know that um they're not disturbing an acre of land, but they're disturbing more than a half acre, especially with that area on the right, 25 by 110ish. That's pushing half an acre. So isn't there a trigger point for not having to do the full monty with storm water? But if you touch a half an acre, aren't you having to do like basic stuff? And I don't I don't need to have the answer. It's just something to kind of keep an eye out from you guys or Yeah, we looked at that.

Yeah. Um so one kind of quirk of this is that gravel is considered impervious. So yeah, I know it's weird. Um but when you're Yes. So that's gravel right now. It's gravel Yeah. converted to concrete. Yeah. All right. Never mind. Yeah. But yeah, 20,000 square feet. If less than that is disturbed that you don't get into all the storm water voodoo as you would say. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Need a motion to approve the revised site plan for Dream Kitchens 150 Brown Road. So moved. We have a second. Second.

We have a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Opposed. Motion carries. abstain from that vote since I he wasn't here for me to have that dialogue. That's fine. Good idea. Thank you. All right. So, motion is approved. There's no other new business. Unfinished business. None. Communications. Status of public and private development projects. We got a lot going on, right? Okay. I'm going to try to keep it more concise than last time.

Um, so I cut out a lot of the nothing much has happened projects and just tried to focus on the ones that have changed. So, for our ongoing construction projects, uh, wastewater treatment plant, I'm lying right off the bat. Nothing much has changed there, but it's big enough that probably good to know that nothing much has changed. No big surprises. Um, change orders are within contingency, so that continues to go well. Um, there will be some drilling of dewatering wells out on Richard's Road at the Richards Road lift station next week. So, starting Monday, probably see a traffic detour for a couple of days, not on Main Street, but on Richard's. Um, Dorne Hardware is well aware of that. Uh, we've spoke spoken with them per the terms.

It' be to the east. It'll be to the west. Yes. Yep. It'll be to the west of the current um building there that you see on the corner.

So, then it will likely sit for a little while before the full project begins this summer. Um, but you might see some of that. Uh, well six, the one out at the Highlands of Netherwood, has been in commissioning for the last couple of weeks. So, last week it was all of the physical things. So, pumps, electrical, uh, the reservoir, we had the driller out there. We got our safe samples, so everything passed. Things are looking good. We did get our DNR approval letter. Um, I know that the controls team was out there this week. um and uh and hopefully are pretty close to wrapping that up and tying the two together. So, we're looking at hopefully putting that online within the next couple of weeks. And then probably the most exciting thing, at least for us internally, is that well 3 out on Hillrest is as of I think Don texted me at 4:30. It is online now. So, we're back to three wells, which is um a real success for us given the last month. So,

and that's the one on Netherwood and Hill. Netherwood and Hillrest. Yep. So, you just have sight finishing. Correct. Yep. Final restoration going to happen here as we're sure that we've moved out of this colder weather and the grass and you're going to paint the I guess you're going to paint the generator. Is that right? We are going to So, we've reached out to the public art committee. I don't care. Um, yeah, but it's ugly. Um, that mint green doesn't go with anything. That's the color of the Yeah, it was the color of like the Wisconsin civil engineering building at the UW. So, it kind of gives me flashbacks. Oh, I know.

Not good 50s stuff. So, yeah, we have actually reached out to the public art committee to talk about wrapping that generator and as well as the one out at Richard's Road. So, hopefully we'll get something nice for those nice

pretty quickly. Um into our 2026 construction projects. Just real briefly, Alpine and CC. Um, we are looking at a precon the last week of May. So, construction likely going to start within a week or two after that. So, likely in those first couple of weeks of June there. Um, and as we've said before, the contractual end date is August 30th. Um, East Lincoln Street, not a lot of new information on that one. So, again, has to start on or after the last day of the 2025 26 school year. likely going to end in September or October. They're really pushing a tight schedule is the last I heard. Um they have started some middles with the engineer. So

they're replacing all the utilities in the in the they're putting what? Gas and stuff in in in the BMS or I call them boulevards burns. Yes, in the terraces. Yep. That's Alliant. Um the last couple of years you probably noticed they've done a really good job of getting out ahead of our road projects and doing all that gas main replacement. So yeah, that's Alliance team at Intercon doing all that work um as they did here at the at the corner of Alpine and CC and I think you're going to see a little bit more work in the next couple weeks here too.

Um Park and Waterman that has started. So uh they hit the ground running this week and they've already done a significant portion of the underground utility in the last utility installation in the last four days. So that should wrap up within the month here. Um Rachel would want me to say that Brock Bash is on for tomorrow. Have shut down that intersection, but we will have signage everywhere directing people to enter from Spring Street and the west side of Park Street. So um so that is going from I think 11 to 1 tomorrow.

Uh senior center project. The groundbreaking ceremony was this Wednesday. That was kind of a misnomer because it's been going for about a month now. So, they're well into uh excavation and foundation work. Uh Gary Dish is probably going to start in Gary Dish Park in May or June. Likely after Speedway, which is the same contractor doing Park and Waterman. After they finish up at Park and Waterman, likely they'll flip over to Gary Dish Park. Um let's see. The biggest change on the kind of 2026 design projects is the Bethl Greenacre Park improvement project. JT Engineering is working on that. They have come up with two concept plans that they shared with us um this week. They will share those with the public at that park um in the evening next Wednesday. So, we will have a PIM and have them present that and just kind of answer questions from people if there is rain or is otherwise not conducive outside to having an outdoor meeting. We do have a backup here at the village hall, but it should be a pretty exciting meeting. They've come up with some neat stuff. Um, private development work, uh, Green View Preserve phase 4 construction on that will start in earnest next Monday. There will be blasting as there was in earlier phases of Green View Preserve on Tuesday and Wednesday. So that may be audible.

Phase four, that's going to be up to the to the uh east. It's going to be up to the northern limits. So an extension then north and then east or no kind of teed off. So it's going to be kind of a double handlebar. Right now they're doing this development that just goes up to like the the the south east corner of the cemetery, right? Yes. So it's an extension I believe of Mary Hill, isn't that Mary Hill drive that goes up the middle there? So it's that and kind of five or six lots on either side of that for the next two streets up.

Um Highlands of Netherwood phase 4. FDG and Capital are working on that. Uh all work will be completed by early July. And then Highlands of Netherwood phase 5. We've heard very little. So they've indicated they're interested but no further movement. So kind of wait and see there. Okay. Good. Thank you very much. Um upcoming plan commission meetings Thursday June 4th. Thursday June July 2nd. Future items. It's going to be uh we'll see with with the uh

all the adus. Okay, without an objection, we are ajourned. Thank you everybody. Good meeting. Good meeting. Thank you. That was a That was I I hate to admit you guys