Town Center Economic Development Commission - Special Meeting

the records reflect that the um the public meeting of the Town C Economic Development commission was called to order at 6 o'cl 6 pm on January 14 2025 alen can you do a roll call please commissioner Michelle present commissioner kisio absent commissioner gie absent commissioner hudin present commissioner Riley present thank you much uh can I get a motion to approve the minutes from our meeting on um December 10th 2024 so moved second mov in second any um changes see none all than favor signify by i i i any extensions the chair what eyem motion carries you unanimously uh Lyn any public com anyone present for public comments this evening anyone online or on person who would like to make a public comment if you're online if you could raise your virtual hand okay all right thank you very much so public comment is completed so we're going to move on to item five in the agenda work session with Gman York a revised plan presentation and discussion um G York good evening chairman members of the commission for the record down Poland uh with Gman York before I get started on the presentation just very quickly I believe

Dusty McMahon our designer will be joining us and available for questions he'll be joining us virtually uh I'm not sure if he's entered oh there he is I have the screen I can see who's here uh hey Don before we get started let me ask my colleagues on the commission they have any questions from last month's presentation or do you want us to incorporate them sure no I'll let me uh let me get through a couple more administrative stuff and then I'll kick it to you guys if you have any questions comments what Happ you have you so uh number two is I'm getting over a cold and laryngitis so in the more I talk the worse my voice gets so we'll see if I make it number two is I have to leave at 6:50 uh to make another meeting and my colleagues here to the right of me uh will be filling in for me so uh you're in good hands so with that said I think that covers kind of those basic things um uh chairman kind of back to you and the committee if you guys have questions or comments from the prior presentation uh we will be giving a revised presentation tonight with revisions but we're open to answering any questions well then it might be May smart for just wait to because you may have answered some of your questions in presentation the only comment the only question I had was about did you look at the police department as a moving it from the Town Center area and leverage that space for some economic development opportunities I haven't done that or we haven't done that uh we could take a look at that in G my my general reaction to the police department and I know there's I don't know a degree of angst in the community at times uh I think related to the

architecture of the police department uh I view it as a generally more recent I'm not going to say newer but more recent facility so typically in any scenario I'd be hesitant to recommend the moving of it also just for a side note and like I said we'll gladly look at it during our meeting with uh the residents of heirloom uh some feedback we did get that we didn't you know solicit they provided on their own was actually a feeling of comfort by having the police station in town center uh that although they didn't feel there was crime or issues in town center and although they felt that you know if you're walking down the street on Jerome it really doesn't matter if the police station's there or not uh but the idea of the police station there for whatever reason did provide them a level of comfort but we can definitely look at that site I guess uh I think we talked about is we looked at other other properties in town C is is this the best use of the that town yeah of those properties and I'll POS the same question to you and your team is that the best use of that space in terms of a town center yeah development to have a police department occupying such a useful Economic Opportunity that's all so we got to look at that see if that's um how realistic is it to look at that and compare it to if few went somewh else what what can what can go there to um to improve the economic outlook for the town so sure we we will add that to our list and we will look at it any other questions to my colleagues any no Riley you're good thank you all right so I'll continue with our presentation for this evening

uh so uh I'm getting a message that says turn up volume not hearing anything oh I think um commission if you could just hold the microphones closer talk okay thank you okay it might be me also so I'll make sure I speak up louder uh some of these slides you guys have seen previously I'm using them to just kind of refresh uh wh so General overview of the are the primary area we've been looking at that is not the entire downtown area uh and then this look at kind of uh sites and land use across the center which is repeated from last time also just once again to provide context as to the land uses going on uh as you see there chairman our previous discussion around the police station uh if you see the bubbles in blue those are all public facilities Andor you know institutional facilities like churches and that always becomes a challenge within Town centers is that they're Civic locations as much as they are kind of commercial Andor residential locations this is and we are building upon this this is kind of the uh oh no I'm confusing no that is I'm sorry part of my screen's being blocked by the people uh this is from the Tiff plan and it's kind of a graphic representation of the recommendations that were made within the Tiff plan for the town center and we are still working from that and building upon that however we created or I should say dusty uh created a further iteration of

that to provide some kind of big picture context as to the center overall uh and how we're building upon the Tiff uh without going into this in detail since this file will be available online there are handouts here available in the room and commission has them but uh I want to take this opportunity to thank Kevin Goff for his comments while I can't say we incorporated every comment you made uh your comments did Force us to kind of think about things and consider things uh and I do want to show that now we do have the Green Way and its Passage through the town center represented also the idea of future connections we don't know exactly where at this point but future connections to things like Philly Park and stuff from a green space perspective that was uh a recurring theme within our community outreach the idea of proximity of green spaces and the need for better connections between kind of the center and those spaces also highlighting the importance especially in the context of the focus area along Jerome and also uh the winon bberry park block uh that things like sidewalk improvements uh and those pedestrian connections and so forth be made through that area so then zooming in on the Block in Focus uh just reor orientating everyone since I believe the last meeting uh the do released their study related to the intersections uh at Bloomfield and park AV and Winterberry the

five five Direction intersection there and their study uh we generally reviewed that study uh we don't think anything we're doing is inconsistent with it we think some things we're going to do are going to be beneficial to it but considering we were sourcing traffic Counts from kind of multiple sources uh we decided to utilize the traffic study that the dot did it was 2022 in which they did it uh so it falls within the postco realm which is good uh it wasn't during covid and generally the traffic counts are similar to those of the ones we were sourcing elsewhere uh but we've added them in here so where you see 8500 up on winon Berry 8100 on tungus and so forth those numbers do represent the traffic counts uh in this area and I'll mention the traffic counts again at a later point in this we wanted to just focus on this block tonight that doesn't mean we're ignoring other stuff that we presented last time or other areas uh but it was comments from Uh Kevin God sorry and also Dave man uh the two of them actually provided kind of extensive comments to us and we're appreciative of that comments made by both of them forced us to start kind of relooking at some things and I want to know the comment by David man uh if I actually go to I'll come back to the slide in a second David was critical of The Brownstone row just kind of hanging out there on its own and also obstructing the visual kind of view of the

commercial development behind and in the world of kind of retail and site selection obstructing the views of things isn't necessarily good um what I want to explain though is what we were struggling with is placing commercial along the frontage of Park where the Brownstone row is would create a circumstance where you'd have a one-sided commercial District that is the town hall is the primary use on the other side and within the realm of retail single-sided retail strips don't tend to work very well uh once again I'll rest on West Harford Center uh the vibrancy of West Harford Center is greatest on Farmington and on laau where they're two sides that grows and the vibrancy wanes a bit along South Main Street where you have the church and the library and the other institutional facilities across the street so that's why we were playing with The Brownstone row out at that location but David's comments forced us to reassess that and really forced us to kind of one we questioned whether or not we could do retail on one side uh after internal debates uh we came back to we don't want the retail there we think we set it up for weakness but we also became sympathetic to the idea of it obstructing views of the internal development uh the commercial development so this uh image here actually shows a realignment of roadways through the site and how we're conceptualizing it and

it'll make better sense when I head to this next slide here which is the kind of reimagined uh reimagined design of the center one of the key starting points of this was that idea of the visibility of the commercial development number two was was the fact that from a traffic count perspective you know this site was surrounded by traffic counts on three sides 6,000 Plus on Park 8500 on winberry and 2500 on Jerome and then the big intersection out at Bloomfield have with those traffic counts in the 8000s and 9000s those traffic counts were already distance and separated from the town green so we started thinking about how could we better orientate this and better facilitate visibility which also can be interpreted as traffic house uh we also took into consideration some other things that arose I think both in the last meeting and also from comments that we had received uh some of it was existing utility and other easements drainage easements along the rail corridor the East Coast Greenway or the greenway Corridor along there uh which started to cause us to question a little bit our orientation of the depot site which is the apartment building uh so we then started looking at the site uh through a different lens and ultimately after playing with a few designs that Dusty worked through uh we

landed on this design I think the key thing to note here is that Jerome now bends and comes straight through the site if you follow my cursor there hopefully it's not the most visible but comes straight through the site and up to winberry we've dead ended winberry here at Bloomfield with a turnaround essentially that we think is a Us's traffic Improvement and that it eliminates the fivepoint intersection which has been one of do's concerns uh facilitating traffic through the Five Points also what that does is it forces the 8500 traffic counts on Winterberry to actually pass through the development and actually pass the commercial development which is to the interior of the site so we ultimately improved that we address that kind of visibility and also we put traffic counts uh much needed traffic counts uh right into the site the entrance way uh on Park AV Remains the Same as it is today it would be aligned with a new entrance way into town hall on the South Side as shown there the long block that was referred to as uh Brownstone row has now been reorientated from an eastwest direction to a north south Direction it's these two buildings here so the entrance way from Park comes up the middle between those two buildings as an entrance way into the interior both the commercial development

to the interior and also a Boulevard leading up to the depot site so it's a more formalized entrance way from that direction uh still maintaining approximately the same number of units within the Brownstone buildings probably approximately 38 uh in total this also allows us to pull some of this commercial development to the intersection of Jerome and park providing greater visibility that we didn't previously have because of the brown Stone row uh in addition we still have an expanded Town green area reorientated a little bit Shifting the uh the entertainment Focus over more to the north side rather than the South side and these two building locations here and the building locations here are conceptualized as retail entertainment uh restaurant style space uh that is proximate to and kind of interrelated with the uh the functional area of kind of entertainment within the town green we have some other renderings here that I'll get to uh that ultimately show some of that kind of interconnectedness and visibility the depot site the apartments here in the North Center of the site uh is still 120 units it's still three stories it's been pulled more towards the center of the site providing more room for the structured parking uh back to the rail uh Corridor but not right up

against as it was previously ample surface parking between it and the parking structure and ample surface barking in the front of it as you will see there is is also uh parking throughout the interior of the commercial sections sir what in regards to the retail both in the layout the concept and um the sizing of it um we related it to Somerset Square in glastenbury and to the Evergreen Walk in South Windsor it's about 2/3 the acreage of both of those so it's those are two things that you can kind of associate to that uh retail concept actually thanks for saying that also and uh I also want to know in the previous design I believe we had a little more than 100,000 square feet of retail space shown and we've contracted that back to about 85,000 Square fet uh not that we want to take take away retail uh as we know right now the mall is has high levels of vacancy I believe it has about 120,000 square feet uh we think that the 85,000 square feet is kind of more in touch with Market realities moving forward so the 85,000 would provide for just a general assumption here of relocation of existing tenants uh from the various sites into uh that space and still provide additional space for further tenants uh so we could still maintain a

uh a sizable you know commercial retail footprint on the site d Can you um kind of walk us or me it's just me the orientation where retail is going to be is it uh toward winberry Avenue with um wberry I think right just kind of show us exactly where's that going to be actually Dusty if you're available I can be in two places at once sure I'm sorry if you could just ask the question again to make sure I'm addressing it properly trying to trying to get a feel for the ation of retail and understand housing right uh we went from uh East West to north north south orientation for the brownston then and towards the back of the development we have the M housing three the three story structure so U show us exactly where will where will the retail be located so those areas in the center and actually I like the way you said it the reorientation of The Brownstone rooll and we appreciate the comment that encouraged us to head that direction we feel now that that curb cut cuts across to what we propos as a second curb cut at Town Hall to create more of an auto Court in front of town hall and possibly consider looking at putting a light there but a very pronounced as you see in blueback square or um Evergreen Walk other places pedestrian Crossing there so to Don's point we're no longer creating kind of a fortress wall to block the retail or the accessibility we're creating kind of a foyer into and guiding people towards the retail the retail in general are those buildings that you see with a crosshatch underneath the uh the coloring so the

Brownstone row are those two buildings similar on either side proposing and you'll see in the sections in a minute one on one side might actually be taller than the other we're responding to some comments we've heard about some of the other apartment buildings in the area uh varying the Heights and giving some undulation to the elevation so it doesn't look like such just such a box um so those two yes thank you those two buildings are now kind of the foyer and the um almost Brownstone stoop Sesame Street looking kind of introduction into the uh retail entertainment area the buildings behind there um are that are hatched we see those as various levels predominantly single story uh similar to as Al Alysa said uh Evergreen Walk where you see a lot of shops long one single story runs um if you could drop down please to the uh the oval at the Green previously we had looked at designing a stage in the middle of the green that the surrounding cafes everything could look at Denise um brought me up to speed that you guys have a very impressive and very practical um portable stage that you use so what we've done is we took out the stage and we built an Amphitheater for seating where the stage could be still be placed in the oval and those two little buildings right there are also proposed single story like Cafe pizza shop uh pizza parlor coffee shops with rooftop kind of like Elbow Room in um uh in Lal and Farmington in West Harvard Center um so you can actually be roof and now all of a sudden between the Amphitheater seating the restaurant the al fresco dining and the roof top you have perfect seating of whatever might the event might be in the oval if you jump across the street to the more retail um Center up there that one building in particular is shown as a two-story building with rooftop and um in a second we see a section that actually shows the view lines that people standing on those rooftop Terraces and in or those

Amphitheater areas it really Builds an ex an extended Amphitheater to view the oval we've heard how successful your food truck um festivals are your musical festivals and everything else um and we want to really be able to give this community the opportunity to fully enhance and embrace that as it happens if we could also drop back down to the Brownstone buildings similarly the balconies the open space and everything on the back wall of the first building um to the west and the upper levels of the building to the east which would see over that one can see that as well um real quick before we go on the sections back to the depot block so the idea is that we're kind of surrounding that as Don said um 80 some thousand square foot of retail multi levels multi-purpose and traffic flow throughout um bookending them with residential so it really kind of provides a very live work play entertainment um pedestrian friendly um circulation and when you do zoom out and we also looked at uh even down to um heirloom flats that a very walkable Community to this entertainment retail restaurant Zone and trying to make it so when you do have your downtown Town Center events um that you have created a a population that the majority of people attending will actually walk there from their own homes the uh as Don mentioned also the parking deck single single level parking deck um the simplest and most affordable version of any kind of parking structure you can build but acting as a physical and um sound barrier to the train tracks um so that's kind of the layout and proportions as we've laid them out that the retail and the restaurants are essentially located and accessible from as much of The Pedestrian um accessibility and residential population as possible and if you don't mind uh don if you don't mind have a jump ahead real quick and Alysa if we just take a look at the next slides to show what we were just talking

about on the The View lines yeah just give me one second Dusty I just want to re just want to reiterate quickly for the committee and the chair so this building here this building here this building here this building this building these buildings up in here and these two buildings here are all the commercial retail the 85,000 Square fet these two buildings are The Brownstone and this large building is the apartments so thank you sir and and as you saw that as Don highlighted which ones were which that those buildings afford a variety of size and scale everything from like a one-off Starbucks to um you know something larger like you might see at Evergreen Walk and or blue x square so um this section is drawn through um for orientation purposes the little building to the left is a representation of that portable stage in the middle of the oval the the first uh buildings farther to the right then you see little bit of a beige on the ground plane that's the Amphitheater seating um and handicap accessible ramp up to it um and then that is the single story coffee shop pizza parlor or whatever with elevator access to the roof there's a little person right there on the front there you go and you can see if they were a six- foot individual from their eyline to the stage they have full visibility of the Performing area as would anyone on the amphitheater area across the street and into that retail area that larger um retail multi-story that we showed if that one's a two-story with elevator access and stair access from the auto Court to the parking side then on imagine that being the Elbow Room in um West Harvard Center or an equivalent here or something bigger and better for Bloomfield that even that building has visibility over the coffee shop or pizza parlor at the amphitheater to the oval so you really are creating almost kind of like a stadium scale

Amphitheater progression so imagine being out there on concert night or performances in the park uh or any festivals that really offer the opportunity and it's a great marketing piece to any restaurant tour retailer or somebody who wants to be there to think of the uh foot population that they're going to be able to service and accommodate even outside of their own seating capacity because when those festivals are in full swing everyone is a customer and if we can go on to the next slide please this one um oh I'm sorry did we have the other one from the Brownfield or The Brownstone row yeah uh I'll go back to those two slides when you're done thank you I'm so sorry about that but there you go then that's similarly on on that same line of thinking if the Brownstone roow that as we discussed creates that foyer into the retail from across town the across the street from town hall um even the back balconies the rooftops and the rooftop of the taller of the two buildings similarly provide that same visibility into the park so and I I'll just further explain this here so the entrance way from Park AV is here coming between the two buildings so then up top here is the profile between the two buildings and in the previous presentation we talked about a uh a three-story brownstone design you would have the two stories and then a setback Loft area uh back from the edge so that it removed that kind of not looking like three stories and we also showed you a four story example of that with a second step back Loft area in this layout we have now conceptualized using both so the three story concept would be the Western one this side and the four story concept would be the Eastern one this

side and what's being shown here once again is the sight lines from this roof deck and from this roof deck and then also from this roof deck there would be sight lines ultimately into the uh entertainment area of the green just like we're showing over here with the amphitheater uh location so pulling the four story Into The Mix and orientating the three story to the West gives us that ability to have s lines from both of the buildings I'll go back to here these were the r the renderings of the three-story layout that the Brownstone would be floor one floor two and then the third floor is the setback Loft area the four story rendering from last time floor one floor two floor three is step back and then a loft area for fourth floor that step back further and once again in this orientation we see them here one 2 3 4 and 1 two 3 4 and then you see in the buildings you have the two stories up here and then the setb to the third you have the two stories up here the setback to the third and the setback to the fourth floor so that you're not a sheer three stories or four stor right up the front facade of the building as is done with heirloom Flats so that's what was conceptualized in the design of those this then brings us uh back to just kind of showing the structured

garage uh this angled parking is no longer part of the development so you can ignore some of this but this is the upper level and the ground level of the one-story garage so you would have surface parking on the ground level covered over by a one-story uh deck where the efficiencies come in in this or the maximization of utilization is the fact that the ramp the up and down ramp would actually uh be parked with vehicles so you're not losing space in that area and then just those final renderings and this is the last slide from the slide deck I will go back now to this main bird's eye view uh and turn it back over to you chair and the committee for any prior questions uh concerns thoughts and any new questions concern concerns or thoughts yeah I had a question here um the church the church is you hear me now all right the church where the church located at you're roundabout um are you going to have problems there because it see like you you pretty much has two roundabouts you have a circlular you have a double and I'm sure is the double really necessary or that's going to become like parking because I'm not sure it's going to be one lane or two lanes or how you have that set up yeah the best I could say right now is this is conceptual and I think we have to think through that down there uh I think Dusty wanted to maintain the roundabout uh I think I wanted to get rid of roundabouts and somehow Dusty slipped in a second roundabout on me uh I think it's a good concept to have it out in glb double so you go round double but I'm saying run at the end I don't think it's it's it could be more space for what we were actually and we're

completely open to suggestions and if I might also kind of interject that while this might look like buildings and a site plan it's actually not it's really massing in an envelope study so we can study the square footages the circulation requirements and everything else so whether what you see there as rooftops are either new construction or repurposing of existing structures or existing buildings that's all yet to be determined but right now it's more about kind of figuring out what is the flow and everything else that goes with and what we tried to do in respect um that last roundabout is kind of a respectful Terminus to the end of winterbury Avenue by which we will try to respectfully removing one of the legs of the five five orner intersection knowing that's always been a headache for DOT and everyone else so the roundabout with the trees around it is kind of the Terminus of Winterberry AV that second little Loop is really more of a courtesy drop off for the limousine to drop off the bride and or anything else that would be ceremonial to the church that right now is dead center into the steps into the church that leg of that leg that goes up from the roundabout with the trees is the existing curb cut that would go to the existing parking of the church so we did not uh put a cork in any bottle that prohibits or blocks any of the existing parking to the church um and still wanted to offer a respectable uh drop off in front of the church so if you can almost imagine that that leg that goes from the actual roundabout on winterbury to the circular Drive in front of the church would be the signage and everything for the church so that's really more of the church's driveway and drop off than actually continuation of the road system Mr chairman could we stay on that topic when I have a question relative to that absolutely thank you the other thing there is is that is the main access for the main Firehouse apparatus to move up woodb Avenue and I would suspect uh that Center District is going to have some serious concerns about that

access not being available okay yeah that that would have been one of mine because the way this is and you're looking at you look at the traffic counts where is that 8500 daily traffic for Whitten Berry gun go if you're terminating it somewhere higher right um because you are at that point and I know it is just a conceptual plan but you're blocking off the church you're blocking off the fire department you've got 8,500 cars that now have to rroo potentially through Jerome AV uh I'm not sure where else right even if the do is thinking of this where else are they thinking that that traffic is going to go so I hear on all that I just want to make a few quick comments uh one is the the traffic count for winberry is actually to the east of the rail line that's where the 8500 number is I don't think we have a good number uh or anyone has a good number for between Bloomfield AV and Jerome I would say the majority is going to Bloomfield so no I I I get that uh I also do know from looking at some of the traffic count num is that a portion of that 8500 is the 2500 that's currently on Jerome so the number in between I would say drops a bit now I'm I'm not dismissing your guys concerns over the fire department are real I actually wasn't I I was just thinking about the two churches I forgot about the fire department uh and so forth uh when we thought about this so I'll be I'll be honest you know this is why this is needed because we can't think of everything in every moment uh so we will reassess this but the idea just the concept was that yes

you'd be taking probably about 6,500 vehicles that are currently going winberry and putting them through Jerome and to the intersection at Jerome and park so that means the dynamic of what's coming off what's coming through the intersection at Park in Bloomfield uh would be increased traffic flow along this first leg of park in front of the Town Hall in front of the site uh and increased traffic flow through the Jerome now some of those feel and sound high but as a signalized intersection at Jerome as a signalized intersection at Park uh we don't think and there's most likely a signalized intersection here at uh Jerome we don't think there would be you know any issues in accommodating that uh we also do feel it solves kind of the biggest problem that dot struggles with is the five directional signalized intersection it would reduce it to four and do would be able to set those uh those rotations on the light cycles much more efficiently to move traffic better through that intersection but all of that maybe for not now as we go back to the drawing board and think about this I'd be happy to have a conversation with the with the folks at the fire district if that helps and U they do it is it is a double door station so I don't know what what accommodations they can also make but I'm you know I think that on the and I understand what you're trying to do and I and I endorse it uh in terms of trying to improve the Town Center what not but I think that's going to be a challenging one yeah be joh I'm looking at the map right now and um if if the alignment of Jerome were closer to the fire station

or if it aligns with the fire station they have access onto tungus and they have access to jome more of a straight shot okay you would alleviate having to cross over winberry to tungus with them and you give them two access points and egress points well one I I I think a meeting with us with John and the fire district is probably warranted uh I think maybe an internal meeting to see about realignment based on how you said it with Dusty uh just some Blackline drawings and see if we can work through this and figure this out so thank you John and thank you Mora for that I had another question um now that I see a direction you got North and I I was looking for that and I found it uh the two buildings story this called 3s and 4S to the east and west of those buildings are parking now now before I recall you had park underneath under these apartments do you have parking underneath anymore no I do not believe the Brownstone buildings have parking underneath anymore okay so actually Don I'm I'm sorry they do actually uh the ground floor we have the two-story Lofts it could if we needed to programmatically so it's okay again kind of being that envelope study um as is with the depot if we needed to and that's kind of the next level of what do we need to provide for for parking and everything else um say both buildings could either be retail Andor units on the grade down to grade and or parking or Subterranean so we designed them where they could accommodate them um so we're open to any suggestions and programmatic requirements that would kind of steer that next decision okay okay the other question was the parking the Privacy section meaning if you're going from the south going from south to North across uh Park Avenue from town hall going across and more likely be a light there or some caution you go straight across um what's going to leave at people from parking in those

apartment you going to have some type of gate there so they won't Park their public parking because this this or is this goingon to th th those final details would have to be worked through uh I think at the end of the day uh residential units within the center whether at the Depot or whether at the Brownstones will most likely have designated assign would have designated assigned spaces probably some type of numbering system and so forth and other spaces would be available most likely for public parking I would assume the passage between the two buildings would be considered more like a road than it would like a parking area so those would more likely be open to public parking and access whereas right now at 38 unit count each one of these Lots is is conceptualized at 40 parking spaces so each of these Brownstones could have one designated space in one of these Lots they could also theoretically have a designated space in the structure or elsewhere or just you get one parking space and then the other is part of the public parking format but all that that that parking program would have to be worked through uh and probably goes beyond the conceptualization at this point for the plan yeah because it does not look to me like there's enough of that commercial parking and people would be constantly parking in the apartment yeah that's that's what I mean that first row right against those two buildings yeah to the east side yep yeah y that would be you'd have to designate that as retail parking I i' service I'd agree with you if we did maintain the parking ratios that were shown in the previous game and this is basically just breaking that longer building into two and putting it side by side those parking spaces in that single row of controlled Park controlled gated

parking underneath the building that we had the previous um scenario did provide for the uh 38 units in the structure so if we were to go per this kind of this conversation if we said we were more comfortable going back to that we could accommodate that in those Footprints and control and maintain the um private parking for the residents separate from uh the street parking and the uh lot parking okay that another question I had was uh these are walk ups but is there any AA compliance normally when you're doing infill construction it's going to be some ADA compliance or elevators to get to the Upper Floor so there's no uh so in in a and correct me if I'm wrong with this dusty but I believe if you do a three-story building it doesn't have to be elevated doesn't need an elevator uh provided the units uh on the first floor the percentage of units required throughout the device velopment can be provided on the first floor to meet Ada once you go to four stories you have to put in elevator and then you could disperse the ADA Compliant units across all floors which brings me to another thing I want to throw out there so we've got approximately 38 units in The Brownstone we have 120 units in the depot block the apartment building and the depot blocks designed at four at three stories so it doesn't it can be a walkup it doesn't have to be elevated as long as the Ada units are met on the first floor that being said at the end of the day density and critical mass of development uh to me and I think to others at Gan York is extremely important here and that's not just for this site that's for the center overall kind of what you've started adding the heirloom Flats then adding the phase two across the road now hopefully an application coming in for phase three the other developments in the Center I

personally would like to see more apartment units in the depot building now I know Heights are a concern I would love to see that building go to four stories and that could add another 40 units go from 120 to 160 but going up one story to four stories uh is going to kick in a requirement for elevators which is a large cost uh and with that said then the thought of going to five stories which would add 80 units and push to 120 to 200 units uh that may cause changes Dusty you probably know to maybe more robust parking in the structure but at the end of the day trying to figure out a way to get more residential density into this site to me I believe would be beneficial that being said I also know without even tur around when I say numbers of stories Kevin's eyes are burning into the side of me uh and he's not the only one I was confronted by many people during our public input sessions uh concerned over what I've been calling the heirloom effect uh that tall structure stuff and we've been trying to avoid that I think the step backs on the Brownstones work they're smaller structures uh overall their Footprints are smaller I think you can get away with three and four stories there easily without them creating that heirloom effect uh but in the depot site I think it'd be a bit more challenging but I'd like to throw that out there for kind of your guys at least thoughts and considerations as we move forward uh please two things one have you are you considering affordable housing as a as a percentage of the

housing and two where would you Transit touch points be at this point I can say we're just considering housing whether there's an affordability component or we're just considering units right this this is about massing this is about you know density this is about what can be accommodated uh I think it's at a later stage uh that the consideration of affordability in accordance with the town's affordability requirements uh be considered uh once again I will also say that we had feedback in the public sessions uh I remember a specific I don't want to say elderly woman but older woman uh who approached me and who emphasize you know she would love if there was a more affordable uh living product in town center and so forth so it's on our radar it's just not conceptualized in this so it is sorry it is 650 I need to exit so I'm going to pass the microphone and the laptop to Justin and see you got a you have a microphone down there so thank you guys thank you Don all right d before just one quick comment um that I appreciate the creativity of you and your team you know know we are trying to come up with ways to reimagine Our Town Center because currently it's not working so I like the that we have some questions but I do like the the thought of you coming up with a whole new concept and I think that's that's very creative and bold and I I look forward to more conversations around that the uh and don't before you leave I know you as you walk out just think about that now

one of the comments we make about our current Town channel is the uh AB absence absence of the towntown because it was built for the 70s or whenever it was built uh I just want to keep in mind as we move forward in designing a new town center you know keep in mind the flexibility of future change I things are changing faster now than they did from the 70s to the As and 90s now every five 10 years things are changing so keep that in mind as we design a new approach to Our Town Center make sure we are able it's flexible enough where we could adjust it on the Fly um based on What's happen happen in the marketplace absolutely and thank you I appreciate that very much I do have some questions your boss did the right thing man he pouch he left we will do our best go ahead the um one my question I know this is conceptually all right so do we have enough parking sorry just one second perfect thanks guess well I'm sorry and this is country it's still evolving so I'm pretty sure we will have enough car just point uh what we're seeing right now doesn't look like there's enough parking Y for the commercial site but I'm sure there will be sure could I could I jump in on that one real quick absolutely Dusty go ahead just to let you know sir again I do appreciate your comments on that it is still conceptual and it's kind of right now everything you see in front of you is Playdoh and we're still trying to push it to where it needs to go to fit but we will let you know that in our first pass and with respect to the concerns about the heights of the residential blocks and the numbers there um so for example just having had just having 38 units in the Brownstones and they were self-parked underneath in the

first concept um with the parking deck back by the uh Railway um yes sir for the ratios that were required by town code there are the right number of parking spaces and a little bit of extra um on the um site plan based on the square footage of the 880,000 foot of retail and the number of units provided in the two residential blocks the concern the question right now is is the parking in the right places and that's kind of the next step and that's the kind of thing where again with the input of meetings like this um one thing you just said that I really compliment is that as you are looking at the new town center and the new what it is I think be honest one of the biggest impacts that this effort is going to be able to afford the community is the realignment of the roads I think the realignment of the roads is going to take what had been a portion of the Town Center that people either drove around or drove into to go to what was there but by realigning Jerome and possibly realigning what we've been calling the cica extension through the parking up to the deck uh to winterbury and whatever might happen with Winterberry and again respecting the station and everything else when we can work that new layout out what had been in the past driving through parking lots and drive aises of this thing in the middle of town suddenly they become extensions and flows of the existing roads from one part to another and connectors of roads that in the past you used to have to drive through or around something to get to and I think that's one thing that exactly what you just said about redefining the town center and giving it more of a def Town Center that's going to be our first major step if Jerome as Denise said something about where we might reorient Jerome again and again it's all Plato So we bent Jerome from going almost straight up to as you see it arcing to the left of the page now if we need to take that further down

and Jerome becomes a boulevard between the portions of retail that we currently see clustered with little parking lots between them that's great and if we do that that might help the traffic count flows everything else um but but that's when we can get into the level of exercise that yes to answer your question there are the right number of parking spaces for the residential and the retail that shown now the question is how do we get them in the right places to best serve the people that are coming to attend whichever buildings they're headed to does that make sense uh yes it's a work in progress yeah Dusty I just want to interject on that work in progress we should they should look at what the road system was before this because this road system was put in when mall was built right I was going to ask was it before windberry Mall original Road system where the road this was not the system dy I am looking at your concept and it looks like the fire department driveway is a straight shot to Jerome so you would have Jerome and you would also have Tung not based on what you were talking about with where the church steps are with that second okay because this the first one at the second roundabout which if you can move the cursor that is that's the that's the church parking lot that's the driveway into the church the one more to the north is the one into the fire department well technically there's two into Sacred Heart and there's a SE right the fire department yeah I guess on the concept you would just widen that you would widen that and you could do a straight shot the other thing is that you are going to eliminate at the end of Winterberry the um traffic light that is there with this design that always backs up I know I used to sit in it so many days um but so you could move that further to the other the back

driveway on tungus for the fire departments and have a lot of fire departments do it where they have the automatic lights that go on as they have to leave so it would shut down that intersection immediately for the fire department to enter and exit that that would be something to discuss with them John yeah yeah give the better access on that side yeah the other thing Dusty it might be helpful when we do uh the next parking map if we put a key in as to the each of the parking areas and this is going back to my days of running shopping centers sorry if we put the actual number of parking spaces in so people can get a feel because I'm looking at the one on um if to the left of the Brownstones and there's um you know you've got what 10 20 30 40 or more parking spaces to each of those buildings yep so okay so that might be we get used to looking at them all the time but I think if we put the numbers on it might be easier for you to also with 38 units you leave two open essentially yeah well that's and again that's actually if you see the little driveways at the bottom uh that's where these these two Brownstones are still showing gate controlled access and there is parking underneath the back half of either one of the Brownstones yeah so there is currently parking shown underneath the Brownstones um for the building itself right so you have right now there's a parking space for each unit underneath the building yeah so you have 80 plus exterior and that and would work for there I mean I just don't know how utilize the parking deck would necessarily be con because it is so far away from the retail your main users would potentially be the depot residents right that have all of that other field

of parking there as well so I will tell you when we were here for the U food truck festival how far down the people were parking and walking to the town green because they have to right not by choice of convenience if you're looking for retail you want easy you want easy in and out you want parking where they want it and need it and it it's almost if you could back the depot up more to that parking and it reorients jome again POS potentially which could cause other problems but that could create that little bit of extra depth for additional retail parking closer to where the concept has the retail yeah go ahead you know at that point it becomes I agree with you because at this point you know you have the retail up front people have to walk around the the apartment building so it it becomes you know a balancing act of trying to get the parking in the right places where it's going to be used and then the aesthetic nature of the area to have it maintain that sort of town center really vibrant feel um so I think it just takes another look from us to figure out where exactly we could potentially relocate some of this and I understand this this is similar to how Somerset Square works today and how Evergreen does but nobody wants to be in that back park in the back parking exactly yeah so you know I think with the you know as Dusty mentions the parking under the Brownstone units you know takes care of that question yeah that up that parking but it's yeah right so I think yeah Dusty next time around if we can add just the you know either the numbers over the spots this is this plan is going to change of course so it'll you know it's a moving Target but just to include that in the future not a problem thanks I had one other question I think I agree what you you talking

about um Ry but I understand the parking rage in my opinion it should be back but decorative right in the back well lit yep they have it in in Blue Back Square they have the remote garage too you got to walk all way across so I think that's something they have to live with but you want that in the back but it got to be well lit that's the thing and I'm not sure it's going to be a cost Factor as far as the pay will you you know parking pay I don't know that's down the road other question I had on the west side of the double uh roundabout normally what you probably can do it done in Harford uh for emergency vehicles only you can have like a hump there like a hump for emergency vehicles so you can keep that and that way that way the fire department they have on emergency they don't have to go all the way around they can cut through right so if you have the emergency hump there I think they'll love that at least they can get through yeah the you're right you can do that even like breakway ballards and things where exactly your point it controls the general traffic but still provides for emergency access yes y with some of the larger equipment roundabouts are still a problem regardless yeah making as straight a shot as possible out of both exits from from the part from the fire department is going to be the best bet for us and tungus is the main exit they use from the department but the only one obviously but it's the main one yeah it is yeah and in terms of your first comment with the you know the screening and whatnot of the garage yeah definitely um we've sort of looked into that with some of the if you look at the very last sheets on your uh in your packet um you know oh yeah right I have the computer now um oh I see yeah y yeah so the green Walls and so if you want to jump in Dusty if you just want to maybe take one second to explain the concept of walking through the depot block I don't think we

touched on it but sure and asy I appreciate that listen and for your consideration and I think it was Mr Mr chair you might have said something about about it being well lit and decorative so one reason that we actually have what we called cica extension being that drive that goes through the parking between the building and the parking garage right now is we were looking at the option what if on the grade level of um the depot block we had some retail coffee shops convenience things for the the residents dry cleaner drop off that kind of thing and we were thinking if that back Extinction could be something that didn't feel like a back Alleyway didn't feel like a dead zone if we had anything there and in trying to test that and running some uh some comps on it it just we just feel it would feel more like a dead zone if you put any retail back there it just would not be successful and one thing we had thought about and it sounds like from the input of this meeting that one thing we might be considering is actually pushing the depot block we want to keep the depot block as far away from the train tracks as possible for sound buffer and everything else but if we did push them back and if you look at the ends of the driveways into those little side wings of the building we put um driveways into there also thinking that we could do similar to the Brownstones um private garage parking underneath this one as long as we're not pushing the building too tall for concern but that could even be partially Subterranean where we could drive down a little ramp and have enough venil and view visibility at the top that we don't have to ventilate the parking garage um and not push the building up much higher but one thing we might look at is pushing the building back to where it actually engages the parking deck and had parking on that um lower level of it so those are the things we are taking a look at now to where to your point make it safe connected bright architecturally appeasing and then also to more of the U uh user parking into then to Alyssa's

Point um I'm assuming all of you have been to the main lobby or the uh communal space in heirloom Flats very open open air a lot of light and very um um very engaging space and that's one thing that that rectangle that kind of cuts through the center of the uh Depot block building we were kind of proposing it being kind of more of an Atrium space an engaging Lobby space that when people come out of the parking deck they don't have to walk around the building or feel like they're having to go back to the perimeter um sidewalks that that actually is kind of inviting foe into the district the retail and the entertainment zone so people could park in the back stop at a coffee shop walk through the lobby come in and engage and not feel that they're having to trespass around someone else's home just because they had to park in the back alley so that's one thing we're looking at with the engaging and that actually something that could be further enhanced or better engaged if possibly we did push the building back to the parking deck Dy it's almost the same as what Winterberry currently has when the um theater was open so you could park on either side of the mall and you could cross through and that right so so part of the functional space actually became kind of the transition between the two right thank you any more questions to my colleagues in the commission we know it's a lot to digest so we have another meeting next week you know feel free to go through it again any questions that come up obviously we're we're here next week too so I guess one General one general question that I have uh the retail space seems a little bit fragmented is is that normal right and then if that is normal then how is the walkability of that space all right uh and how would that affect um potential customers okay

speaking of someone that ran the shops at Farmington Valley for 10 years um it is very walkable the shops at Farmington Valley if you look at it in um when I ran it it was built on 130 Acres 69 of those Acres were the shopping center um it was kind of a built it's almost like two shopping centers but people would walk and park and go to the various buildings it's set up almost exactly like this is with the separate buildings that people will walk to and from and again more on this scale it kind of relates you know as Alysa brought up to the um like the Evergreen Walk and South Windsor where you know you kind of Park once and then you walk throughout the rest the idea with this is to really create that town center vibrancy where it's going to be pedestrian friendly you're going to have the activated outdoor spaces as well um that's really what the goal is here so totally understand your question I think that you know the way this is designed you're going to have that interaction between the buildings that you might not otherwise have if they were further spread out that kind of thing I have a question I know this is a concept but uh once you start putting the sidewalks and everything else in has that is that accounted for uh for gray square footage is it counter for in here that will fit all the sidewalks and all that is it yep Incorporated in this yep you know we don't show like the crosswalks or anything like that we're not getting to that granular level but all of the sidewalks are accounted for you can you can kind of see them throughout in some of like the the more tan areas Dusty if I'm speaking correctly here uh yes sir yeah but that's the uh sort of concrete you know sidewalk pavement there and and also in case it has crossed anyone's mind we also have Tak into consideration the prvious versus impervious requirement of the regul regulations so uh in addition to the expansion of the oval or the green the additional Green Space you see

around um the developments does comply with the necessary um pervious um acreage requirement okay any more questions from my colleagues in the commission need more time to process this I got a lot of questions I'm good don't have enough information for me on here yet for me to ask the question so it looks good though looks good like it Mor any question at this point no good at this point and we have another meeting next uh next Tuesday and uh will there be updated or is this the final draft of what we're going to get no it's not the final draft we can make some changes to this um I'm not advocating you I'm just asking a question I'm not saying you have to yeah no absolutely um no some of the comments we received tonight do make a lot of sense so I think we would want to adjust these accordingly um certainly with the firehouse we're going to want to see how that plays out um yeah whether that will be ready for next week I'm looking at Dusty I don't know it may he's saying yes he's saying yes as long as as long as we can get the right input from the right people the last thing we ever want to give you is just a pretty picture that can't be built and that makes no sense so this input and we appreciate the guidance towards those other entities that we need to engage as long as we can get the right input or information from say the fire department police anyone else that might be looking at this we welcome that information and it's much easier to change the drawing than it is to change construction documentation or Construction in the field later so we look to the opportunity to update based on these comments thank you and Dusty I wouldn't uh close the door and having um some type of businesses behind the um the the uh buildings on the north

side of town simply because if you have the right the right service there cool thank you use it you know like a dog dog sitting you know anything on that long where people will come and use the service yep work so don't don't be uh I wouldn't be so quick to shut the door on that thank you sir I appreciate that and we have't talked to about some of those destination there's quite a bit of an office space and we've actually heard from people in the community that if something like this were to come through that they would they would consider very much moving their offices medical office that kind of thing tax advisors to um something like this to be part of that and you're right that's exactly the right kind of place where people will seek them out it's not walk by retail it's more of a destination and and I think you're right if we could pull that off that'd be great so we'll have some updates for you for next week uh one of the things we're also going to recommend is put an executive session for next week to start talking about some of the costs that'll go along with this type of thing um so Lynn if you wouldn't mind putting that for the agenda is it for next week or the meeting after next week no next week next week okay so next Tuesday yep we will have an executive session yep it won't be the full meeting but it'll be sort of the second half of the meeting it will not be the full meeting because the started meeting you're going to present updated version of this correct for quick conversation then we're going to do executive session that's right to talk about cost um then um we have a number of meetings scheduled for late January February because ultimately the mayor and I have talked about this she's looking for recommendation from this committee to the council by the end of February at the latest so it's a very aggressive timeline but I think we could we we could hit that timeline if we schedule it accordingly it is aggressive but I think it's always been sort of our goal to have it ready for you by end of February early Mar we got to have a number of public meetings uh before we goes to before we vote on it and

ultimately recommend to the council right just keep that in mind okay um if there are any further questions or comments from my colleagues uh I will entertain a motion for adjournment oh there be more question there seem deep into the into into the stuff so I probably have one suggestion I'm I'm in the construction industry and I uh I'm learning a lot about but I'm thinking if you want this to really go you got to show more sections in the building so people can visualize like 3D walking in go more detailed section in inside of the uh the apartments and also in the depot that's a nice section but what you have here when I look at I know it's pretty quick but I mean you need you know I know you know D he's an architect he knows what I'm talking about a better detail of what you're looking at inside so people can visualize where they are like a side profile view right right y more little more detail and and um I think that'll work thank you sir can do going once going twice more anything else you good okay so again now willing to t a motion for adment we moved moved by Lenny second second by Miss Riley and um all in favor of a journ signif I I hi the chair v motion Cas unanimously thank you all very much and happy New Year to all appreciate it you thank you hi folks Gman thank you very much all right very exciting to get this where we are right now thank you very much thank you all good night Dusty