Town Center Economic Development Commission - Special Meeting

the meeting of the Town Cent Economic Development commission a special meeting agenda was called to order on January 21st 2025 at approximately 6:01 p.m. uh ly can you please uh conduct the roll call commissioner Michelle present commissioner kerio present commissioner gly absent commissioner hudin present commissioner Riley Pres thank you moving on to item three in the in the agenda can I get a motion to approve the uh Express meeting of 114 2025 so move movein I got a second second uh second by Miss Riley any um changes any discussions in the minutes has presented hear none see none ERS in favor of the minutes as presented signif by say I I any abstentions okay uh chair votes I motion C unanimously thank you much moving on to item uh four public comments anyone here for public comments we do have one for public comment you can go ahead up oh were you signing in or were you oh okay okay so no public comment then sorry oh oh yes public comment I'm sorry it's too late it's too late sir I'm sorry I'm just kidding just kidding as always please now your name and your address please thank you thank you uh my name is David man one Adams Road and uh I also I'm the chair of the design review board for the town and I was not at the last meeting but I did see the sketches that were

being produced and I think it's a appropriate that the uh Consultants come before a design review board so that we can work out something that we all can appreciate and and go forward with together um we're not looking necessarily at the economic model although that has something to do with what gets built but we're looking at some of the consistent guidelines in our comprehensive plans for the last 20 years with regard to creating streetscape visibility movement patterns and so forth and I think we've um developed some sense of consistency with some of the projects that we've been able to work with in the center here with the uh apartments and so forth after the fact the first apartment came in which spawned the design review board and uh and I think it's appropriate that before we go too far along so that the public things seems to would believe of what the sketches are are that that that's what they're going to be uh it would be best if we review these before rather than after thank you thank you okay anyone online have a public comment if so please raise your virtual hand right here n n I'm going to move on uh thank you very much for your comments we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda Works uh work session with Gman York and updated revised plan since last uh last time we met last Tuesday uh doctor thank you chairman uh for the record my name is Don Poland I'm with the firm of Gman

York property advisers and we are the Consultants to this commission and town uh assisting with the Town Center economic development plan and chapter 132 plan uh at last weeks could I steal your copy thank you uh you my reminding the public and everyone else chapter 32 what does that mean just um right chapter 132 is the state state statutory Authority for what is called a municipal development plan and it has specific requirements that provides uh if adopted and approved the pro provides the town with additional authorities related to a property acquisition and B the financing of Redevelopment projects uh within the designated project areas thank you thank you very much on behalf of all those who are watching us online thank I I appreciate that because I get wrapped up in my own world so uh so last week and in some ways I'll address part of what Dave's public comments were I think we're more than willing to work with uh meet with you guys Dave um but I just want to make clear we've gone through a number of revisions to this and using the words of Dusty our designer Who's online again uh from last week while these look like a site plan uh and feel like a site plan are definitely heading in the direction of a site plan these for us are graphic

representations of the financial models uh that we're trying to work on to determine feasibility and cost and so forth and so on uh therefore the design is very much conceptual with that said uh this is the revised plan that was shown last week it is now labeled as previous plan I'd say from last week's discussion and feedback there were two probably key things uh two key issues that were raised of concern that we've since addressed um uh in varying ways the first one is on the bottom left hand side uh the proposal to terminate uh winon Berry before the intersection that it would become a dead end or shown there with a turnaround with the small roundabout there uh I believe it was John raised concerns and rightfully so related to potential concerns by the fire apartment who are located just just around the corner there and their ability to respond to calls if that road was closed John being as efficient and detailed oriented as he is immediately last immediately reached out to the fire depart fire chief I believe uh and I'll let John speak further if he wishes too but essentially the fire department uh the fire chief voiced no concerns about the the closure of the road he did not feel it would negatively impact them I actually spoke to the deputy fire chief in the Fire Marshall did not speak to the chief himself but they indicated that um they did not have a strong

objection to the closing of Wen buried that space that they could go out the other way interesting they said they more significant concern and one that exists presently is cut throughs through the parking lot of both the church and the firehouse which frequently happens now particularly when the light backs up on whittenbury Avenue uh so they were they uh felt that they could um work with um all of us uh in terms of how we do the design uh they were intrigued by the suggestion that maybe there could be a situation there where the most normal automobiles could not pass through but but emergency vehicles could um that was a viable but they um did not voice any strong objection to um to the initial design that was proposed so we we feel this is a very good thing number two is If This Were to occur the light at winberry would go away which would stop the stacking of traffic at that light there and at least the cut throughs from winberry generated from winberry would most likely be eliminated number two is the light would go away at winberry out on Bloomfield a that the next light would be at the main intersection with Park and without the five directional intersection the two lights uh we are pretty confident that the primary intersection as a four-way intersection would function much better and you would not get stacking all the way back to the fire department creating cut throughs in that direction so we we think this is a plausible alternative now moving forward and we're going to continue to maintain it unless we directed otherwise not to so don real quickly quick followup that road is a lot of buses where still

having issues with us closing off Winterberry in in um tungus or Bloomfield Avenue because lot of buses currently make that turn right I they might going to um pick up folks on the corner of Jerome and winterbury I think so somewhere over there is that going be an issue with the state we could look into it okay they primarily pull in the Sacred Heart use as a park and I think that used to be a park and ride lot thank you yep so if you go to the next slide please uh so this is a revision so the second thing that came up last week that was a key issue of concern and we are already internally aware of it but once again we're more focused on kind of footprints and massing and the square footage of space both on the commercial side and the real real residential side that we were less focused on kind of the specifics of maybe site planning and stuff but the issue that was raised during our discussion last week uh of concern was actually the allocation or the location of par parking that the overwhelming majority of parking was behind the depot Residential Building uh uh and therefore there was a lack of parking associated with the commercial uh with the commercial space this plan makes a slight adjustment it pushes the uh Depot building back towards the parking structure taking that the parking spaces that were previously behind it and

relocating uh more of them to the front in addition it that also opens up space uh where you get another row of parking uh another row of parking I'm just going to go up here just to make clear so the depot building was previously sit situated here it's been pushed back the parking that was here is now being shown here Jerome has been shifted a bit and parking has been provided here they're still conceptualizing the potential for parking under these two structures if there were parking under those two structures that parking would be capable of parking those two structures uh which means all generally or most likely all but possibly the overwhelming majority of the surface parking around those buildings would be available to public parking uh one for the green two for the commercial spaces and so forth so this slight tweak does uh does get much more parking in and around um the commercial areas which is extremely important uh once again conceptual uh also knowing that within the world of parking there is a general adversion from the public uh perspective of going into structured parking even though the deck is conceptualized as just a single story so you would have a

parking lot under a deck with parking on top of it now a multi-story structure here uh but conceptualized in this you'll see there is a connection now between the parking deck and the depot building uh which is the residential uh apartments that would provide direct access to the second floor into the building from the Upper Floor deck so the conceptual thought here is you can ocate the top floor of the deck and some of the space underneath the deck specifically for the tenant parking within the building the idea is give the tenants the structured parking and then leave the surface parking to the public which people visiting and shopping will be more uh amenable to you can go to any place that has parking structures along with surface lots and you will see people circling trying to find surface parking uh before actually committing to going into a structure so just a thought there once again all of this remaining in the conceptual realm uh at this point I'd like to turn it back to the chair and to the committee for any further questions comments concerns uh on this update and this is still evolving thank you Don um move on to my colleagues in the commission any questions followup questions from last T last Tuesday's meeting or the revised plan that's presented today Linda you have a question yeah go ahead um I see that you added some crosswalks more defined crosswalks here and the on

the bottom of the page so that's more defined those crosswalk correct um yeah yeah so start starting down at Park from the town hall over across the road at Park and then each of the kind of intersecting walkways now has crosswalks uh the recognition and you guys are only seeing the final plan here you're not seeing the six other slides that Dusty provided to us with red markers all over them in bunch of comments explaining why and how and what he was doing but one of the key things he was doing was making sure that there was uh pedestrian connectivity through that Central spine between the parking and the uh structures and also uh between the parking the commercial and the residential at the Depot and at the two Brownstone also at the uh Depot building on the second floor is there going to be this conceptual is there going to be some type of uh uh C swiping to deter um surface parking so the tennis can park on the second level is going to be any type of yeah swipe you know once again all conceptual but you'd have to do final kind of count on Spaces could we park all of them up there if you could park all of them up there the overwhelming majority of them on top then I think yeah you probably would key control you know some type of parking control gate at the bottom uh to keep the public out of those spaces uh there's other ways of dealing with that also but it come down to final counts um you know so that's all I had right now thank you Miss Riley any question no

good okay any questions okay we're good Don I'm good Don thank you very much thank you so if there any further question we ready to move on to item five of the agenda um I mean sorry item six of the agenda executive session I would entertain a motion for commission to committee to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing development of cost and financial estimations for this project can I get a motion so move move by Len I get a second second second all right um all those in favor sign signify by say I I hi sh what's I the motion car unanimously the only person we're going to ask to stay Jonathan and our general counsel uh Town attorney thank you all very much appreciate it good evening folks I'm on just wna don't get don't boot me out it's the mayor mayor Wong yes thank you very much hi mayor Wong this is Lynn I'm goingon to send you a separate link okay thanks ly