Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

April 20th, 2026 here at City Hall.

This is a roll call of members. So, Ms. Lovett, would you please call roll?

Chair Ottenberg?

Here.

Council Member Preston?

Here.

Council Member Albers? Here. Council Member Bockert?

Present via Zoom.

Council Member Farmer? Council Member Kranz? Here. Council Member McCutcheon? Here. Council Member Trottier? Here.

How many present? Six? Five? All right, great. We have a quorum. So next order of business is approval of the minutes from the February 24, 2026 meeting. Does anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minutes? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion for approval. Council Member Preston makes the motion. Council Member Kranz seconds. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Okay, minutes approved. Next. Minutes from the March 24th, 2026 meeting. In this particular case, we did not have a quorum that night. So do we... City Administrator Lee, do we still go through the approval process?

Yeah, if we don't mind, we could have that. That'd be fantastic.

So since there was no meeting there, I guess there's really nothing to discuss. So I'll entertain a motion for approval of the March 24th minutes. I'll make that as well. All right, Council Member Preston, seconded by Council Member Brands again. All those in favor of approval of the March 24th minutes, will you say aye? Aye. Opposed? Extensions. All right. That's approved. Next, we go to public comment. Director Gwynnage, do we have anyone online for public comment?

Mr. Chair, we do have one person online. And if that person would like to speak, if they could do his hand feature, we'll promote you and allow you to speak.

No, sir.

No raise hand.

All right. Next, we have two gentlemen here who I think are interested in the topic of quick service retail. And I think they were involved in some recent discussions with the city. And I wonder, is it more convenient for them to speak now or would they or would it be more appropriate for them to wait until we get to that topic? I don't think the committee really has any preference with when they speak. Director Boonage.

I know one has a previous engagement with their son at the National Honor Society at 7 p.m. Now would seem to be the time.

Except for his mother. So gentlemen, if you would like to introduce yourselves to the group, please tell us a little bit about why you're here, and we would appreciate your input.

Sure. My name is Mike Pettit. I'm the Executive Vice President, Location Commercial Real Estate. We are a retail-only commercial real estate firm, the only retail-only firm in St. Louis. Other firms have office and industrial. Some have all three. We just do retail. We lease several shopping centers up and down Manchester Road. We redeveloped Town Country Crossing and put REI in there and Corby Parker and Cooper's Hawk and others like that, Chase Bank. So I do retail brokerage. Typically true third party. So from anything from representing Dollar Tree across seven states to leasing these shopping centers I just mentioned to new ground up development, which we do a lot of. I came from Santel Group for the first eight years of my career, and I've been with location ever since for the last 12 or so. And then Craig, we're actually neighbors. We live in Homestead Estates. Chris used to be a neighbor. Craig is my developer and has been since 2014, particularly on Dollar Tree and the grew into large power centers in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Kirksville, Missouri, anchored by Hobby Lobby. And, you know, I think Starbucks is on the out parcel, Wendy's, cell phone providers, things like that. So Craig's a retail developer. So, you know, being a true third party broker, I had to utilize folks like Craig's Development Company to bring these to fruition. And I've probably done over 100 with Craig. And both being residents of Wildwood, we've just driven by it quite a bit. Kind of started with the macro perspective with Joe of, hey, I like Manchester and 109 across from Lafayette, that kind of empty corner across from the nursery. That seemed to have some merit. Traffic counts and the retailers love to be by schools. The kids typically frequent over there after school, sometimes before. um that one didn't go over as well because it wasn't in the town center which i totally get and then so we moved to the town center it's okay we're the we're the best traffic counts i mean it's very factual our clients you know from chase bank to club car wash full disclosure as a client a very busy one um to you know any qsr quick service restaurant you'll hear me say qsr a lot but they all chase the traffic counts. You know, when you go to the town center, you're picking 100. But if you go to 100 and 109, you get the benefit of both. And the retailers have scorecards, like I could pull up a club one, and they take the traffic counts of both roads. So it's highest there. Whereas if you took the traffic count of the street coming into the town center and 100, it would be less. So that's why we gravitated towards this intersection. And frankly, I started working on it for Primrose School. And that particular franchisee passed. And then I started talking about the crag. I said, you know, there's a real need here. Being out where we are, which is pretty peripheral Wildwood off Rieger and Pond, it's 13 minutes to any drive-thru. So, I mean, selfishly, we were like, we need some drive-thrus. You know, we're on the go. I work 70 hours a week. You know, I'm running back down to St. Louis. I just came from Clayton, so... Not a lot of time for sit-down restaurants. I've seen the Facebook posts of, like, requested restaurants and retailers, and I've hit many of them with no success. But there are mainstream quick service restaurants, and there are two car washes that would have interest, among many others. But I think first and foremost for Craig and I, particularly for Craig, who had to cut a check to get into all due diligence and civil engineering questions, a wasted effort um i think everything craig does is first class um you go to any shopping center he's developed and you'll see like he goes above and beyond i mean you can drive by his home and see the same thing um so you know we just uh am i missing anything i'm rambling i'm sorry i'm trying to give you some background like i didn't just like throw a dart at this was a research effort with Joe's help to kind of quarantine where it's an acceptable area because, you know, the city does have a bit of a reputation that it can be tough to develop out here. So I wanted to kind of come in not as a bulldozer, but kind of like as a community advocate, I was on the Baldwin comprehensive planning committee at the request of mayor pogue and i think if you talk to him he'd tell you like yeah the guy's you know trying to do the best he can for the city um so it's no different here i like the health where i live and i mean as craig said on the way out here on a phone call he's just You know, we're here to do good. If people want it, if they don't, that's fine too. But we think we have the experience to bring in first-class development. I think whatever retailer we interact with, we can reinforce the architectural standards to make it blend in with the city. I mean, there's fancy buildings of everything. I do a lot of work in Northwest Arkansas. Rogers in particular is a very hot community right now, and they have all the latest and greatest concepts. Like, recognize I see that and I can tell that retailer, like I saw what you did in Rogers. We want something like that or nicer here. So we can kind of leverage it and be an advocate too. But, you know, at some point we do need some support that, you know, all this time and money that's about to be invested as a worthwhile venture and, you know, kind of a lack of blindside so long as we adhere to the process. So I'm sorry if I just rambled a bunch, best way to get it out there for you. Great.

So what suggestions would you have for us going forward of things that we might do?

Does rezoning the land so that it's compliant to being able to have those uses there would be great. You know, part of our idea, and I don't know how much of this has been related or not, but there's a parcel south of the tree line and across the creek that we're just writing off. We could do an exit 11 coffee there all day, like size-wise it would fit, forget zoning, just it would fit. But we're saying we're not going to do that. We'll leave that entire thing, whether it's City park, green space, it gets incorporated new trail extension. We're open to all that as far as we're concerned. That is the cities to choose what gets done with it. And also serve as a buffer, but with that tree line filled in now, I mean, it's. Pretty good buffer to everything to the South. The folks to the West. I get it. We're closer. The thing I struggle with there is there is a car wash there in the gas station that's significantly closer to the one that we had proposed. And I can tell you with 100% certainty, the president of Club Car Wash would love to be on that southern lot. He asked me about it frequently. They're a client, so I'm totally biased. But I do think they're like the Chick-fil-A of car washes if you've never been. uh, let me know. I can get folks pass and experience it to see if they think it's good operations, but their, their real estate's very stringent. And I know the rest of it, uh, equally as tight. So, um, trying to think of anything else for leaving off, you know, there were questions about stacking coming off the roundabout. Um, we're fine with the curb cut being up close to one Oh nine. Um, or further back off of 109, or maybe it's both. You have a front set of curb cuts and a back set, but there seem to be kind of mixed reviews of where that would be placed, but recognize all of our site plans will accommodate full stacking at full capacity, so we don't design them to spill out to the street. It will not happen. Yes, we did have a double drive-through lane proposed on a QSR, And that is the market standard in which they operate. So to go to a single lane, a couple of things will happen. You're going to get them out of their proto and then you're going to stack really deep. That's where you will start to spill out if you don't allow them that double stack. Just, you know, it's obviously been proven. play in town has been remodeled in the parking lot to accommodate that same kind of design. You know, after COVID things changed drastically. So there are noise and light concerns and sound concerns. Craig's big landscaping guy. So I'm fairly certain we could help address that. The lighting LED standards these days with shades, we can direct those pretty well. We can even turn on the temperature. We can turn it up. Um, but you know, as you can imagine these days, everything's fully adjustable. Um, you know, he's built entire shopping centers. So to do two pad deals, no offense, but it's not like, you know, uh, a huge endeavor for him. He's had a lot bigger problems on his plate. Um, but I don't,

Go ahead. I'm sorry. I think you covered a lot there. Sorry. Summarized everything very well. So my only comment that I was going to, that you didn't touch on, but you just touched on was landscaping. So just provide the buffers and extensive landscaping plan. And the lot closest to the car wash, obviously that has a grade that slopes down towards 109. So we'd have to do some retaining wall up front. we'll have to do our calculations, our cut and fill calculations, and there'll probably be a retaining wall on the back. And we would over-landscape that top area buffer that's closest to the residential neighborhood in the back there. We were going to clean up the, I would say, fence line along, was that Canterbury? Yeah, Canterbury. Canterbury. We're just going to eliminate the whole stretch because it's kind of like... All overgrown. Oh, it's nice. Sorry, sorry. on top of the line, top-notch quality and workmanship. We'll build to the city building specifications. Like I said, we just received a lot of, I would say, opposition from the public over the past several weeks. The way we felt like we were starting to spin our wheels. Our intentions are are good and we want to do good. But if we want opposition in the process, review approval, time and money. And it's an expensive endeavor. I mean, we're probably 2, 2 and 1 half million before we even build buildings. And you're probably looking at a total of about 9 million building cost. So this is going to be anywhere between 10 and 1 half to, say, 12. project. Yeah. When everything is said and done. So we just want to make sure we're calculating our approach and aligned. If we can find alignment, then we'll deliver.

Are you able to address the issues with the residents? Let me go.

Is it Canberra people? So just so everybody knows, a little more background. I've worked a little bit here with Mike got them all the HOA emails, and I said, I was right, wasn't I? Yeah, you're right. I said, they're not going to be kind to you. But people in, there's a double-edged sword here where we need the QSRs, but the people in Canbury and Main Street, the two that we're talking about are those first two coming off. The roundabouts, right? Yeah, on the Main Street, right there. And they're all sensitive to that because they were told that they basically have office buildings there. I know Joe's shaking his head over here, but that's what they felt. And, you know, I'm just telling you what they are saying. So they're sensitive to that. And they were going to have a meeting. But I guess, did you say your people backed out all the way on this? They don't want to go through with it, I thought. I mean, you're talking to the people right here. It's us. Okay. I mean, you canceled the meeting because I thought you said... I canceled it. It sounded like the proposed people didn't want to mess with it.

That's true. I mean, after I left that meeting, I felt like we had zero support. You know, in hindsight, I think the attendance group may not have been representative of the city. And spoke with joey mentioned this meeting was tonight and like i said i'm i'm here to help i mean we have plenty of other deals we could do be working out we want to do it here like we're trying to help um we think we have practical users it may not be what everybody wants but for this project we're trying to target users that are sustainable that years, not three years. Every restaurant that opens here, not every, but a lot of the restaurants here struggle because we don't support casual sit down because we have young families that don't have time for that during the week.

I think all of us realize that stuff. I don't know if a car wash fits a QSR lot. And I think, and I basically told a lot of residents that I didn't feel like there was any way that would go through with the planning and zoning and everything. I just didn't think that had a chance myself. And obviously the right restaurant, cafe, whatever, you know, you know, has more of a chance there, I think. And I could be wrong, but I'm just trying to feel everybody here, what I've been involved in a little bit with these being in Ward 8. So that's all.

Thanks, Cliff. Jim, you were starting to make a comment.

All right.

Yeah. What's the hang up with the residents? I guess they just don't want noise for the blowers.

It's fair, fair. So car wash is more of an issue. Yeah, I think the car wash, the speaker boxes with the drive through has been mentioned, but we put that on the far northwest corner. So basically like a roundabout in front of BP to try to alleviate that. Also, Craig touched on it, but just to be totally clear, that QSR on the north pad, so just south of BP, would be significantly below Canberra. That site has more hill in it than you would actually think. The southern pad up against the creek is actually pretty flat, but that northern one goes up pretty good. We'll have to cut that out so it'll be sitting down. Like if Canberry's over here, it'll be sitting down quite a bit. So that alone is a pretty good sound barrier, but I did notice the berm when I was sitting on site kind of Shapers flatter on the north side. So maybe we can kind of equalize it out to create like a uniform buffer. But so sound is one concern. The lighting we've addressed, you know, LEDs are very controllable. So I get it. The old halogens did flood out a parking field, but we can control these better. None of them are 24 hour operators. And I wouldn't even frankly try to do that short of like a first class C store whom I'm not speaking with just to be clear. I don't think anybody's going to loop through Canberra to shortcut around. What they might do is they cut through the QSR from Main Street through the QSR to Canberra. They might shortcut that, but it'd be inefficient to go through the neighborhood, I think. There are concerns about that happening. Hopefully, if Main Street gets connected or when it does from Crestview, you know, to here to there, you know, there is going to be some traffic. I think that's the point. But I think it's also obviously, you know, speeding will be regulated because it'd be more of a city environment. But I think that's hopefully the point is to kind of connect the retail nodes.

What about the water pressure? What about the restaurant? Do you know, is it a Chick-fil-A or a McDonald's or? So McDonald's is absolutely looking.

They are looking at another site too. I am their broker, but not in Missouri, in another state. So a friend of mine has Missouri. So I'm at the McDonald's broker summit in mid-February where he enlightened me that we may not be it for him. It might be another site in town. So that's why I was little. There were a lot of assumptions. I was definitely McDonald's. It was definitely on the site plan. Those are just conceptual test fits. I think if you look at the site plan, it was like December when we did that. So it's like four months old. So it's undetermined. Correct. Undetermined. So what kind of feedback? So Chick-fil-A told me no. Chipotle told me no. Seven Brew told me no. Chase Bank told me no. I got several no's. Well, can that fit in there without an issue with the residents, the restaurant? Yes, it fits real nicely. I don't know if conceptual plans on hand, but we're happy to throw it up there and discuss it.

What did everybody feel they saw McDonald's on your plan and assume that you were going to?

Yeah, and I should have clarified that was on me. But if you check the data, it's pretty old. I didn't, but that's what everybody was saying for you.

I can reply to them too. So question here. So you've been in the business doing this for quite some time. Yes. This is probably since the first time you've proposed a project in a particular community and gotten a lot of pushback. Yes. So how do you go about overcoming that pushback?

I think, what's your recommendation? I mean, we're certainly happy to have open forums with everybody, but I think we also want some guardrails on like, if we invest this time and this money and we adhere to the guardrails, you know, do we have a path towards approval? Because right now it felt uncertain.

So one of the issues we've run into in the past is when somebody has a particular proposal, people already have preconceived notions in their mind of what it's going to look like. So when the subject of QSR comes up and they say, well, what's QSR? And you finally get around to saying that it's fast food. They're picturing the old style McDonald's with the garbage cans overflowing everywhere. or if you mentioned car wash, they're picturing a bunch of kids out in the parking lot and a couple of them have boom boxes going while they're, you know, drying the cars. So, you know, are there, I mean, did you have conceptual drawings of what this might look like that you would be able to show to the residents or maybe like examples in other communities?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and like I said, the, typically the larger the retailer, the more apt they are to really jazz up the facade, uh, to make it blend in with the community. Um, you know, there's a, uh, all masonry club car wash in Wentzville. There's a two story fake, completely fake two story false facade. And, um, Spring Hill, Tennessee, where I just did a Dollar Tree next to it. But it is a completely false second story, just to blend in the architecture of that community that has false second stories. But if you're saying they need to match the masonry of the town center, they'd probably do that and then some.

So I guess that's what I would see as a strategy for overcoming or sort of nipping some of those preconceived notions in the bud right at the beginning would be pictures of what a typical town project like this might look like so they can see, oh, they're not going to be garbage cans overflowing. Oh, it's not going to look like the traditional McDonald's that I saw 30 years ago, or whether it's McDonald's or something else. I don't know if that's something that could be provided to us that we could show the residents. I mean, is that making sense?

Yeah, you want renderings of it. We can send you renderings. We have brand decks on most of these retailers.

Tell me when. We've talked several times and I thought, you know, I told you that the high traffic one, like a McDonald's, you know, or Chick-fil-A would be obtrusive, I think, there in those things. But now I was going to say Chipotle, something like that. They're not a real crazy drive-through thing. I think I mentioned the roast beef. Lion's Choice was there at a gas station. I think that'd be perfect there. I don't see those being real overflow to back up. onto Main Street and then the 109, which is one of the concerns you might have with a McDonald's being real high traffic. Just me thinking out loud.

Well, the difference there is that Chick-fil-A probably produces, what, four plus million dollars in annual sales, where Chipotle might do two.

Right. Hey, guys, quick question. I've had my hand up. I actually have three questions. One, on the car wash front, what's the estimated annual revenue? Two, how many people does it employ? And three, what's the fail rate? It seems like Club Car Wash has been a huge success. I'm a big fan. So, again, estimated revenue, people employed, and fail rate. I'll have to get you estimated revenue.

They'll be 300 strong by the end of this year. Their ground leases are coveted by every publicly traded real estate investment trust. So their investment grade ground leases, they traded a 6% cap rate. I'm trying to think of what else with them. They're headquartered out of Columbia. I'm happy to give anybody a tour of their headquarters. I mean, these guys are a well-oiled machine.

Yeah, they just seem solid as a rock. And again, we've had a lot of businesses come and go. I'd love to see a business come and stay.

And that kind of goes into another comment is like modernizing amenities. What does the city look like in 10 years? You know, is the wash behind the gas station, the best wash and the most vibrant one that'll be here? I don't know. I think it would probably be a tunnel wash because most washes are at least a hundred feet in length these days. The best ones that clubs likes to do is 150 because they can put more components in and deliver a cleaner vehicle. So, you know, Things do turn over stuff closes and stuff opens. It happens. But I think it's also about providing the best amenities to the residents. And right now we may not have that. I don't know. And I'm not, I'm just saying in general. But how often does Club Car Wash do renovations? Club renovates it constantly. I was on a tour with them, and their building was two years old, and the president, actually the chairman, thought it was looking faded, and it was not. He had the whole building repainted. And what I always tell landlords about Club, or sellers, whoever it is, whether it's ground lease or sale, is go on Street View at any location and tell me if the landscaping looks bad. And they're all like immaculate, you know, green stripes, except for like Texas where we're in the desert. So they're just really run groups, run groups. So thank you. But I've never called a city and they're like, Oh, thank goodness. You're bringing us a carwash. You know, like nobody really says that they all want, you know, typically a chick, a Chick-fil-A or a, you know, grocer, which I totally get and endorse as well. So.

Hey, thanks for clarifying that with filet on the end. That's my joke of the night.

So are there any other locations you looked at in Wildwood?

There were not any where I thought I could get approved besides where I'm looking right now. Okay. Like I said, we kind of started a wider net. By talking about Clayton and 109, I thought that had some merit. There's a tree line back there, so you could argue you leave that alone. You got a nice kind of buffer there without disrupting everybody's pretty nice old trees in that little patch of woods there. And that was not zoned correctly. It wasn't really part of the town center. And I think, you know, trying to embody the overall concept. general idea of south of 100 on the town center and chasing traffic counts. Like somebody said in the meeting, what about old Manchester? There's a bunch of land for sale over there. Well, yeah, I get it, but it's 4,500 cars. That's why there's a bunch of land for sale there. And I'm going to be backing up to homes there as well. So by the college, isn't there some property there? There is, but it's access challenge and there's a creek on the west side of 109 on Old Manchester. That's why one of the parcels on here, my colleagues actually list that we're talking about. I think it's 12. Oh no, excuse me. 25, 21. Basically the Northeast corner of Manchester, old Manchester and 109. It's got a pretty good Creek going through it and some topography. So getting your convenient access there from 109 is impossible because of the Creek. You got to loop around on the bridge and come back on old Manchester. So that would probably be pretty inconvenient in a retailer's mind. And then, uh, If you go any further south, you get away from that 100 traffic count, so you get too far away from it, and you're really banking on the old Manchester traffic count at 4,500 instead of like 20,000 on Highway 100. So that gap from old Manchester to 100 is a big deal just because of the traffic. The retailers go straight to the traffic count and look at it.

And with the retail, it's my best. Uh, would the retailers suggest, uh, would they look at it all the way down south to Manchester or is it past like before that? Pretty much is this the site you were looking at? Is that the most southernmost site they would consider both traffic counts? Probably.

Do they have to go off the nearest cross streets?

All right. Um, councilman Preston.

Yeah. I, um, I think I just wanted to bring up a number of points here, just that, um, I mean, I think this kind of goes in line with why we wanted to get that apartment complex approved. And I think, you know, no offense, Cliff, but the people in Canberra seem to be pretty much anti-development no matter what. And ironic that they live in the only area in the city that's zoned for development. They're anti that. And everything in that area is dated as hell. I mean, the car wash on both the BP station and the Phillips 66 are closed half the time. And when they're open, those things, I mean, not only they've been touched in 30 years. um you know we have a big beautiful neighborhood being built right there we're at the confluence of the two major two of the major um you know roads in wild in wildwood coming from eureka coming from gray summit um we have what five schools within three minutes of there um with a huge population base that's growing from both the new neighborhood plus the um apartment complex that'll be done in the next 18 months um I mean, I just think this is one of these things that this should be a no brainer that this is the type of development we want. I mean, having a QSR there from someone like Mike who lives out kind of, you know, in the fringes of Wildwood, that would be a godsend just for convenience for families who are all in the same position as all of us. And it's I mean, we have someone local who wants to invest local and. I mean, if we're trying to, you know, bolster EDC in the city, I mean, think about the tax dollars that we'll bring in from this in a period where we're facing diminishing tax revenue from our sales tax. I mean, I think there should be a no brainer that we look at this and say, we need to do everything we can to pave the way for these types of developments to take place. Otherwise, what are we doing? So, I mean, I just think there should be a no brainer. And if, you know, we have to do some convincing to make the, the, public's you know opinion of this go but i mean these are the types of things i don't think we can just let the squeaky wheel from a few people be indicative of the city i mean i think everyone in ward one would love something like this they're not going to they're not going to show up to complain or support it because people generally don't do that they'll show up to complain not in support so i just think this is something this committee and should recommend and i think we should wholeheartedly support it otherwise i just don't think we're being quite honestly like sincere about wanting to bolster economic development so so i'm going to wrap up

Did you want to make, okay, Council Member McCutcheon.

Yeah, my concern is we need public input, like an open forum or whatever, maybe some conceptual ideas of what it might be. We need to know what the public wants and what the public's going to support. And, you know, a survey, you know, having... residents from all the cities and not just the ward, but it's going to be in. We need public input. If we don't know what they want, then if we come up with something as a committee or as a council and the residents aren't going to support it, they're not going to use it, then it's going to move out too. So I think public opinion is critical for this.

Perfect. So I'm going to thread the needle a little bit here between Councilmember Preston and Councilmember Albers. I agree with Councilmember Preston. We need something over in that area, but at the same time, we can't discount the concerns of Councilmember Albers here. So Councilmember Preston mentioned the town center project that you probably have both seen just down the street here. When we first announced that the town center project would include high-end rental apartments, the immediate image that everybody had in their mind were the apartments that they moved into when they left mom and dad and moved out or that they lived in when they were in college. It wasn't until they saw pictures of what the actual project would look like that they started to develop a particular comfort level with that particular project. So that's why I go back to any pictures you would have similar projects that you've done elsewhere, that goes a long way towards nipping some of these concerns in the bud, because you know what happens when somebody hears car wash, then they start talking to their neighbor and they say, well, my aunt Millie lived next to a car wash and it was horrible. She could never sleep at night. And if we can address some of those concerns upfront, we might get more serious consideration of a project like this. And then also, if it can be sort of demonstrated maybe with some bullet points or whatever, how you would address the concerns that council member Albers mentioned, that would help us well. Is that a fair thing to say? Fair thing?

Yeah.

Sure. Okay. Yeah. I'm not being critical.

I'd be a little more sympathetic to these guys. your emails back to them didn't go very well, you know, on when I was, when you guys were trying to set up a meeting and, and to be argumentative with them, wasn't the right way to way to go. So, you know, if we would have had this meeting tomorrow, we would, we might need extra security here. So it was going, that's, I'm just being, I've seen what we go through here when there's opposition to the projects.

I, I appreciate the transparency. Uh, when I was 26, I worked on the Walmart Nellisville. So I've been escorted out through security for the residents that care for us too much. Right. Uh, but yeah, I appreciate it.

There's a need and I'm on your side and, and, uh, it's just got to be a good fit, that's all.

I think we've honed in on such a wide net. I mean, we even talked about 109 and Wild Horse where they did the new roundabout behind the gas station. There's some homes on larger lots and it Topo drops off a little bit, but on the wild horse side, there's maybe a flat acre or two. I said, what about here? That was under the guise of the Primrose School initially at that point. That was even in the mix. We've scoured every corner of the city trying to find something to do. I don't think you can find a bigger gap than Wildwood for most of these QSRs. It's like a glaring hole.

I'm sorry, Joe. I think I talked to you about this one. Some of the banks that are empty, they could not be switched over to a restaurant if, or would it take a rezoning thing? There's several banks that have drive-thrus and they're here in the town center on the outskirts and up in the West Glen Village. Village Plaza. Yeah.

Central Banks there and then Electro Savings. Electoral savings has a prohibition and the site specific ordinance that says it can only be a bank. Okay drive throughs or an office building. Either of them seem.

Viable right now that would have to go through a development, I mean the the owners of that facility changing Council would have to run the ordinance.

But the reason it was placed in the ordinance is homes back directly to that common boundary. And there is no buffer.

So Council Member Frans has a question. And then I think one of you gentlemen has a commitment, correct? Okay. Council Member Frans.

Well, we've talked about a drive-through a while with And we need one, that's what the public wants. That's the way it works today. Both spouses work, but now I'm finding out we don't have room for a drive-through. So where are we going with that? I mean, it's a dilemma. These are really two lots that can't do something. I'm being told this is probably the only spot for it that makes sense.

It's a great location for it, too. I mean, that's where, I mean, how many, think about the number of schools where the people are going to pass by that every day. Yeah. Well, we're facing the reality of Wildwood right now. And there's nowhere west of here that's even a potential.

Right. So I guess what I'm going to do, unless anyone else has any other questions or comments, Director Brunich.

So just to be clear, the feedback that we received was at the public hearing the city initiated. John Gerstle, i'm sure if the developers had proceeded forward with the rezoning it would have been a much more refined proposal, they would have had the drawings the landscaping plan for. Tom and I were basically following the direction of the Economic Development Committee and doing pre-zoning to try to start the process, kickstart the process, and hopefully use the project these two gentlemen were proposing as a template to see, okay, how do we refine this and make it work better? So I'm afraid we muddied the waters more so than anything, and that wasn't the intent. Tom and I have talked, and unless the EDC, you all as the committee, tell us differently, we're going to proceed forward with the rezoning proposals and try to address the concerns. And the last thing I'll say, Mr. Chair, is one of the concerns I think surprised us all, and it was everybody didn't like the roundabout at Main Street and Route 109. They were all complaining about people not adhering to the rules of the road, the concerns about just speeds in it. And that's something I think our Department of Public Works can address. I can assure you they did reams and reams of research as we proposed the first one and followed up with all the others we have. But that was surprising to me.

I think it's fair for me to also acknowledge too, I don't think it's the wrong path that we've taken. On my end, I look at cost too. And just my civil engineering proposal alone was $125,000. So before I put that first initial payment in play, I want to make sure which I understand what my likelihood is, and hopefully it's good, that this will ultimately be approved. Or I'm just wasting time and wasting a lot of money up front. So.

Council Member Mopetian, I kind of had an idea that maybe coincides with your thought, is get a survey on the city website. We have nothing to hide. Let's see what everybody likes, you know. I mean. Like you said, we're here to try to help.

At the end of the day, we're not going to be able to please everybody. We've been through planning and zoning. We've been through opposition. First and foremost, a lot of things we're talking about during this topic is, one, you only have, I think, two tracks of land that is suitable for drive-thru. Two is, you've got to be able to You know, I want to hear what everybody wants, but can I deliver what everybody wants? The likelihood is no, right? Because it's going to be up to the retailer or the QSR, right? And, you know, like Mike said, he's already been doing a lot of marketing and getting a lot of no's. And I mean, as a developer and someone that's investing his time and dollars, to help economic development within the city, I can't. Time will kill deals, right? So it will eat me up in cost if I decide to take the property down, even with one user, right? So you really need two users to make this thing work, especially during the economic climate that we're in right now from a developer side things to a residential side things to a end user retail side things. Everybody is pinching pennies right now. So can we get retailers to pay a little bit more for the building material specifications or architectural, if there's an architectural review, which will be, and we typically go by what the city guidelines currently are right now. So there's a lot of different factors out here that is challenging, but we can know we've overcome them throughout the past 24 years I've been in development. So I just want to make that clear too. We've always done what we can. to appease neighborhoods, residential properties that's abutted to commercial property. At some point, there's something that's going to be developed there. There's reasons why it hasn't been developed yet. I think what the city has done initially with this pathway that we're on, what we're trying to bring to the table is the highest and best use for the city. sales tax revenue, and obviously beautification. There will be, I guess there's gonna be some buildings there, but we will beautify this above and beyond city standards.

Perfect. So I think you gentlemen realize that this is a new thing for us. This isn't Baldwin or Ellisville where they're on every corner, quick service retailers. So we're sort of moving a little slowly here and we appreciate your patience as you come to us with a proposal and maybe it didn't have the result that you were hoping for in the beginning, but we certainly want to keep the conversation going and learn from your expertise and find out ways that we can accomplished what council member Preston referenced while at the same time addressing concerns that council member Albers raised. And I think council member McCutcheon, you had one more comment or question.

Yeah. Who has said yes, that they're interested in developing this property?

Called carwash and quick quack carwash. Those are the only two that have told me yes. Well, quick's not even a yes. Quick quack is a maybe. They asked me for a CAD file to do a layout. Club Car Wash's president told me he would do this deal. But he's reluctant, kind of like we're reluctant because we don't know the path.

So it would be a car wash only and no type of quick food?

No, we could do... We have two paths, basically. One on the south side of Main Street and one on the north side. So there's an opportunity for two. I mean, we looked at it and we were looking at three, but it really got tight and trying to... minimize, like we dropped the pad on the south across the creek, and then we could still probably fit two on the southern parcel south side of Main Street because it's deep enough. We could probably fit two users, but we're just proposing one there and one on the other to try to kind of keep it closer to 109 than it would be to Canbury.

So in short, Mike has a firm commitment with Club Car Wash Now, the QSR, there's no firm commitment there, but we're working towards that.

Is an approval for the car wash, would that make the opportunity more desirable for a QSR? I mean, do they complement each other in any way?

Yeah, they complement each other. Club will seek out QSRs. I can't testify if QSR seeks out Club. Um, and I've had to get back to Jason. I can get you counts on how many people are there and workers too. I just don't have it handy and they're updating their brand deck for 26 right now, but I can get you guys on that.

Were the, uh, buildings face main street or face? Well, nine, one Oh nine.

We even, uh, on the wash, we put the tunnel as far away from, uh, all the homes as possible. We angled it towards, uh, 12, or excuse me, 2521 State Road, basically the wetland area, because nobody can ever build there. So there are a lot of tweaks to our plan that we didn't get a chance to bring up yet, but we think mitigates some concerns. The hours operation is also 7 to 7, so it's not like it's going to be on at 10 o'clock. If you're an early bird, we might be annoying with the club car wash or quick back, whoever it ends up being. Quick Quack's a big national chain. They're not here yet.

They're coming here. So you're trying to figure out, you haven't taken this, the Planning and Zoning Commission yet, and you're trying to figure out whether or not they're going to pass it, right?

Yeah, we're just trying to, you know, are we throwing good money after bad, or we have a... Do people recognize these are kind of some amenities we lack? I get we have car washes. I think, you know, perhaps they could do a little more modern job with things. I also, you know, wonder about some of the existing gas stations if they will be approached by competitors in the future for a more modern concept, you know, like particularly the BP.

A lot of these end users are going to a smaller footprint building-wise and adding drive-thru. So I did a lot of development for Starbucks to across the Midwest and they're going to a smaller building. And that's just because they're also trying to compete with Dutch brothers and seven group. Now that I have smaller footprints. Right. I think several 600 square feet. I think Dutch brothers 900 were building 18 50 square feet for Starbucks, right? Starbucks total development cost is 3.5 million, where Seven Brews is 1.2, and the profit margins are a lot better, right? So you're seeing a lot of that going on in the retail and QSR world too. They're fine-tuning their prototypes.

Exit 11 said yes too, that they would have interest. It's a coffee kiosk.

called Exit 11. On one of those labs? Yes. Go for it. Yeah. I think that's what I've been talking. That would work.

That's Exit 11.

It's like 7 Barula. Scooters.

It would not be round. So we're talking about the next 50 years.

Sustainable, 50-year, rock solid. Yeah. I think users, while folks may not like them, I do think they'd be one of the last ones standing here for you. Particularly a QSR like a McDonald's.

And I'll just say this. I mean, I... I just think the car wash would be a very hard sell through everything. And I mean, everybody think about it. You're maybe talking about a half a mile to your house and there's a car wash there. And I mean, the light and noise pollution is going to affect a lot of those houses, I think.

That's just what I think. Does the BP wash run that often? I don't know. No. And that was there before those guys anyway. That was a little bit of the irony that perturbed me during the meeting is that it was there. They bought a home knowing a wash was there and now they're complaining about it.

Well, I won't say anything about that later. You mentioned earlier something about the water pressure. Yeah. So my lead civil engineer has had conversations with American Water. I think we have a proposal for another Power, right? Yeah, it works. So there's plans in the works to make that. It's going to be a few years, so. Oh, yeah, I know.

But I'm hoping, like, maybe our development. So what do you need from us? It sounds like a survey may be a good idea of the residents to really understand. I mean, I don't know anything about these meetings, but I don't know that those were representative of our community.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, we'd certainly be open to it, I mean the more we can understand it, the better I don't know how that gets administered or police.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, Well, you gentlemen may be interested to know that that is something that we will be discussing tonight will be reviewing some of the results from previous surveys work that we've done. and try to refine that down to specific types of businesses that the residents would like to see here in this city.

That would be a great guide. I mean, I've been in retail my whole life. So, you know, as a retailer that they have interest in, I'm, you know, I'm, I may miss somebody. I'm happy to reach out. If I don't have the contact, I could probably get it pretty quick. There's a group called international council of shopping centers, ICSC, and they have a directory and, you know, haven't been in the industry for this long. We have guys that work for one retailer moved to the next retailer. So we have pretty vast contacts, you know, we're all for ideas. It's just, you know, When there was a recent Facebook post on the Wildwood community page and it talked about what restaurants we want. And I did not see one on there that would have been realistic for me to land. But despite all my best efforts, you know, a steakhouse, you know, casual sit down restaurants like I like it, but they got to have the convenience component, which usually means a drive through, especially after. has changed. I mean, you talk to any restaurateur, we represent Gerard Kraft. He's one of the nicest restaurateurs in the entire Midwest. And he'll tell you the same thing. So it will be curated, best effort approach on our end to try to bring the city to the best retail we can, but it may end up that it's just mainstream retail. But it's a sustainable amenity. I think they'll be here for a long time.

But activity breeds activity, right? So, you know, I think eventually you might be able to get some of these banks or some other, you know, banking space leased up with maybe the sit-down, right? I mean, they want to see more traffic coming in to town center and bringing that synergy and traffic generation in, so.

I apologize, but I'm happy to keep coming to these. This is a good form of spitball.

I know I speak for the entire committee here. When I say, you know, thank you both for coming in here, spending so much time with us. I think, I don't think there's anybody here that would disagree with the statement I'm going to make next to this. We would love to keep the conversation going and try to find something that's going to fit the for some of the things you're looking for in terms of traffic volume and location, that sort of thing. And at the same time, addressing some of the concerns of our residents. There's got to be a way that we can address all of those things.

So one of our takeaways is some of the worries.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. All right. That closes public comment. So, and I apologize. I think I referred to you earlier as council member France or the council member. Oh, you're still hurting from that. I wrote it down here, by the way. All right. Very good. So closing on public comment, we move on to discussion items here under for information. Letter a which is an update on business changes and other business news and for that I believe we will turn things over to the city administrator.

Thank you, Mr. I just want to call a couple of events one item we already discussed today, but that development proposal. over at uh 17191 and 17194 main street those uh they have withdrawn uh police notified the city that they're gonna not be proceeding so that said that seemed like the discussion may continue but it seems like they have withdrawn this time you speak up a little yeah not a problem um the properties over on main street that were just here those have notified the city that they have withdrawn consideration at this time. But maybe after this meeting, they can go back to their folks. But there was no official submission on file with the city. So it never did go to the planning and zoning. Nonetheless, there was also, I did want to invite everyone to Cattails Lodge, Luxury Cat Lodge over on Clayton near Strecor. They'll be having their ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday, April 23rd. And that's going to be at 3.30 to 4.30, but the ribbon's cut at 4. So if They actually opened up early December, and they've been doing decently well, and they started taking reservations around Christmas time, so it's been working pretty well for them. I also wanted to point out that we had this on the report a couple months ago, but I just wanted to give an update that one of the owners of Three Kings Public House is looking at the city of Wildwood. They don't have necessarily a full-on plan to move in just yet, but there is a concept that they're going to start working some of our farmers market events, hopefully, and they're going to try to test out some new products, they wouldn't be opening at Three Kings. And while there's not really the space or a proper location for it, but nonetheless, they have somewhat of a new idea to start a new venture. The idea could be moving into the retail component of the apartment complex, but there's a lot of time between now and when they open, but it just goes to show there is some interest in the retail place.

I just want to point out, I suggested a bakery, I think, in the write-up. We got to get that downtown somehow. I just think it's.

Yeah. Overall, their idea too has some really good synergy with the city. They just a little history on the request. I mean, they had the woman that owns this and her husband, they have a daughter that has special needs. And the idea is to kind of synergize with the village green, the all-inclusive playground that should be built here soon. And that, They're trying to create a community gathering space on Main Street, practically, and have a bakery or possibly have some type of food that isn't necessarily cooking enough. They would love to have an oven, but there is expense that goes with that. So nonetheless, it is good to see that there's that interest. Supposedly there's interest at the end cap, too, but we don't know who that is. It's good to see. Just wanted to provide that update because they are going to try to participate in our farmer's market, which they'll try out some products and have several clicks. And that might be what we need to convince them to stay around for a little longer. Yeah, nonetheless, good news on that front. A couple more updates. There was quite a bit of a long update about the properties because we will get into the pre-zoning effort and the results that we've had. Also wanted to give an update about the Route 66 weekend, some of the business activities that are planned. There's a... pop-up concert from the city's perspective on that Friday, April 17th, I believe. Actually, yeah, April 17th. And then Saturday, this is all business-led, but I wanted to point this out for some synergy and cross-promotion. There's going to be different events taking place. We're going to probably host it under one special event permit for multiple businesses, but all along Manchester Road, Route 66, there will be different pop-up tents and things along those lines, classic cars, etc. The idea is to help promote all these businesses. This is kind of the day that we're going to help really celebrate Route 66. Right now, we're working to publish a We have actually a link now for the website, like a dedicated story map for all the events that are taking place from the business perspective. So businesses that are Wildwood, licensed in Wildwood, they're able to reach out to us and say, hey, I'm planning this Route 66 themed whatever. And as long as it has a tie into Route 66, we can put that on the feature list and put it in our e-newsletter. So good news on that front. Joda, do you want to add anything to that? I know. Okay. but nonetheless that's the first portion and then Sunday that of that weekend some of the restaurants are going to be trying to have kind of like brunch themed promotion so just making sure that you know if anybody's listening in tonight they take a look at it check out the city website because some cool updates will be coming there's just the scavenger hunt that's about to go out too on the mobile app today get published since we have a route 66 scavenger hunt it started Friday

Afternoon, we've had two people completed. We've had 50 people download the app. That's great news. Most of the locations are local businesses on Route 66.

Get some synergy going. Okay. Then also just a couple, you know, smaller business updates, but first before jumping in there, I did want to note the community college and chair Ottenberg had actually spoken with the present campus president over there and had some very enlightening news that they have about 800 students registered for the spring semester, which is a really, Nice boon from what they had at their single building. Just from year over year, it's an 18% increase from last spring. So just to show some growth over there. Obviously, with more students, you have to have more teachers and staff and faculty. So all that leads into kind of growing that self-supporting ecosystem that we have over off 109. That said as well, Another big update the width of the apartment complex. I wanted to note this that we've been keeping an eye on the development performance agreement with the chapter 100 and one of the provisions that were included was that you had to have the 40 they had to have the footings and the foundation for July 16 issue very quick turnaround. given that it was approved in September. That said, that's now been inspected and the footings and foundation have been poured. So they're going vertical. If you go near the, you'll actually see it. If you go near the theater over there, you'll see vertical construction taking place. So good news on that front. Obviously they're talking with tenants, potentially seeing how that could work. So successful in that front and they are compliant with the performance agreement. So good to see there. Did want to note that One of the Wildwood Pub, they are adding in their patio that was approved by council. So just follow up there. They'll be adding in a sound wall. So that's actually getting beautified as well. So good news on there. Good news there. Last one. Yeah, that sums it up. Available for questions.

Yeah, I see here with Casey's bar is wanting outside patio area. But aren't they the ones with the neon sign that they won't get rid of. And so there, so.

Almost every business in town has a neon open sign. So we're not going to make an issue of it right now. In fact, we have regulations that we'll talk about later tonight that would give them a free open sign. and regulate the rest of the window signage.

Well, this is the big neon business sign. And since they've done it, there's been several more in that same area.

Two signs have backer boards that were not called out in their submittals. I approved those submittals. We're working with them to address them as best we can. Signs are expensive, so they have a point. Approved it. What are you going to do about it? Certainly, we're trying to figure that out. A mistake was made on my part. Like I say, I don't feel comfortable telling them to take it down because this state that perspective, we're working with them.

Does that include Casey's sign?

Casey's and the hairdresser. That said, I will add a note there that Josephine is taking a little bit of the crutch here, but when you looked at the submittal that came in, that backboard is white, and that's what causes a reflection. It's not necessarily called out. We could be happy to come down and show you. It doesn't have like a clear boundary behind it where you'd be able to call out and say, oh, what's that extra portion of plastic here that adds surface area. So nonetheless, it was somewhat faded into the background almost as an afterthought. So you didn't necessarily think it was attached to the signage. So there's a little bit of a two sides of that coin. That said, the permit did get approved for both of those. And those are the two that have that backer board that's causing a little bit of a

And how long is that permit for?

Perpetuity. Well, until they ever had an issue.

Well, and what we do typically is when they need something else, that's when we address it. So like?

Certainly. That said, the question, though, this is very preliminary. They have not submitted anything on this, but it's also a question of how far can the patio go out? You know, there's that water level. Yeah, so there's going to be some questions that would have to be answered. I just wanted to make a note in case any rumblings were heard. The committee was well informed.

Thank you.

All right. Any other questions on the business update? Seeing none, let's move on to item B, which is the update on the Space Museum and Grissom Center relocation.

All right. Thank you, Chair. So we were going to talk about that briefly, but we got a little bit more info since then. Mayor Joe Garitano, Chair Ottenberg, and myself, and Joe Vunich actually started, and Ms. Nye actually started the direct conversations and kind of moved into a site visit. But overall, we were approached by a resident that lives here in Wildwood that has a relative that knows folks in the Bontair region and was somehow plugged in with the museum center for this space museum. It's kind of a hidden gem down there in Bontair. That said, we were told that this space museum is looking to possibly relocate, that they had a lease that was coming due, and that, you know, did we have space in Wildwood that they could easily kind of just transition into a couple spaces that ring to mind, you know, possibly the LaSalle Retreat Center, maybe that they could find a way with them. It's a lot of Hail Marys, if you will, the Marianist retreat center. But overall, if you go to this, if you look at their site or if you go to the actual museum itself, it does seem like they need a little bit higher ceilings. They have some pretty tall items, portions of ships from the Apollo and Gemini space missions. So it is something where they probably need about 10 to 12 feet ceiling, feet high ceilings. And when we went there after a couple of discussions with the resident kind of brokering the idea, Uh, the idea was that they would maybe come in and they'd build whatnot, but it does seem that they would need some type of private investment into the city. So we thought, you know, let's go ahead and get the community college involved, see if they would be interested in possibly housing some of the artifacts. Did they maybe have a connection into the STEM field where someone might be willing to come in and build a museum here in Wildwood or make it a part of the community college? That was really the best bet we could have just considering we don't have the space to easily transition it. So we went there, we visited. They do have some really cool artifacts on the site. It's nicely displayed. They've actually done a really good job down there. And the idea is they would want to come to a place like Wildwood, but also closer to a metropolitan area in general, because they're going to be able to get more foot traffic, get more people to visit. Nonetheless, the visit went well, but it seems like they'll need about $21 million to build their facility. So that is obviously difficult, finding the private fundraising for that. It was a tall mountain to climb, but nonetheless, we still work with the community college. We recently talked with them and as they concluded that they have kind of pulled their students, especially with the expansion they've done recently, the growth that they're seeing. The students are asking for upgrades in the classroom and technology, more offerings, you know, with what they've actually been doing with their new building. And the community college right now, they kind of looked at it and said, hey, you know, we'd love to help, but with the immense amount of money they need, they need a 50,000 to 100,000 square foot facility. It just doesn't, they don't have a place to put the artifacts right now and to invest in that would be taking money out of the budget for those capital improvements that would help with the students in the classroom. So they were They were saying that their target audience, their clients, if you will, are not necessarily pushing for that. So especially given there's some state budget cuts within the schools, community college areas, they have decided that, you know, might not be the best choice right now. There's some other cities that are kind of jockeying for the relocation. So it's something that they're needing answers really quickly on. So we wanted to provide an update to the committee tonight but without having some you know private investor come in here and say hey i'm going to build it here in wildwood it does seem pretty infeasible at this time just given the costs and the limited space we have but able to answer any questions uh it was great just wanted to give a shout out to the resident for bringing it to our attention because it would be a really cool asset to have um i think it would help kind of And we've got a lot of folks that work at Boeing and, you know, have a part of the aerospace industry or engineering industry here and well with a lot of professional services. So I think there's a lot of interest with the schools we have too. It could work. It's just more so a dollar and cents sign of can it actually.

Thank you.

So when I read this, and it's been a couple days, the other municipality or other city in Missouri that is entertaining this, do they have an investor that's willing to?

So there was this one, and there was also, from our understanding, there was the city of St. Charles City, possibly. Cape Girardeau, and one of them had actual college space. I think Cape Girardeau, they had the Southeast University, Southeast Missouri University. They actually had kind of a closed down portion of the college that they were going to be able to move them right into. And I guess St. Charles had potentially a spot too. But when looking at what the city owns, we don't have anything that could easily transition because they almost need something to get them by and improve upon what they already have. for the next couple of years while they hopefully find fundraising and figure out a way to fund it because their true desire is to see it become that larger facility, which is quite a bit of money. But nonetheless, it does seem like some of these other cities may have some of the assets already in place to make this transition a little bit easier.

Do you want to touch on? Yeah, I have. They discussed this with Boeing and maybe it'll get some funding.

That was. Yes, supposedly they had reached out to them and they were trying to make some inroads there, but they didn't really let us in on it. They weren't given it. Since they're talking to multiple cities, they were kind of close to the vest on who may be willing to privately fund it.

All right, thank you. Moving on to item number C, or letter C, I should say. Informational update on planning and zoning commission consideration of pre-zoning select properties for quick service USR restaurants.

All right, well, we already talked about this a little bit tonight, Chair, but we'll give it a quick rundown. we uh back a couple months ago the committee after the planning and zoning commission and subsequently the council and uh proved that change that allowed drive-through facilities on those 10 properties on 101 some would have to be converted but um nonetheless We looked at it again to see if it would be possible to pre-zone six properties along 109 to create almost a quick service restaurant corridor, if you will. That was endorsed. And then we had this development proposal come in. It was happening all at the same time. We think actually what triggered that was that change. So it does show if you make a signal the market does respond that said we did just want to provide a quick update because last the committee here had talked about it it was to take the pre-zoning efforts to planning and zoning and then also with that proposal if that actually came in and got submitted we would create the boundaries for what we'd be looking for for the pre-zoning the six properties and we'd use that as a backdrop for what the architectural standards would be and what it would look like how it would work and kind of learn from an actual live example. That said, the most recent meeting, we had quite a few residents that were against the idea of having, a lot of it was towards the car wash, but we were really not having the public hearing about that development itself. We were having a public hearing about the idea of, zoning this as a whole for those six different properties so that if someone were to come in in the future like you know a quick service restaurant it is different than the car wash that would have to be treated separately but if a you know a vendor that wanted to operate a quick service restaurant came in they would almost have all the the framework and the legalese down of what that guidance that he was mentioning they would have that down pat a framework for approval but the city council would retain ultimate approval authority with the conditional use on the drive-through. So there was still a decent amount of control. The department believed and committee endorsed that that seemed to be a decent approach at this juncture if we want to really see that area have a few QSR restaurants open. That said, there was some comments made that the residents may not want to see something like this go in. So we wanted to provide the update today that it does seem that the commission was a little bit concerned the comments weren't all positive they think that we might want to treat these one by one as they come in versus pre-zoning the six at the same time so we just want to provide that as an update no action tonight the plan right now is that proposal did come off the table so that motion to kind of do them concurrently unless they proceed that may no longer be feasible. But still, I think it would be a good exercise to go through the pre-zoning effort. If it gets rejected, then we at least kind of have a better understanding of what would possibly work there. Because the idea is, let's set it up so we know what architectural standards are going to be met. Because this is something we don't necessarily build on a day-to-day basis. And I think setting clear expectations up front You heard it from those developers, and we don't know if the exact costs are perfect, but $2.5 million to plan it and $9.5 million to execute it. These are really expensive projects, so to actually get someone, we'll talk about it with the one-sheeter tonight, to get someone to come out here, we have to give them some type of path to seeing approval, whether it be USR or whatever we would like to see here in Wildwood. I think That would be a good approach. But it does seem we might want to go one by one based off the most recent feedback. So. Yes. You can go first.

No, you go to the council person.

Oh, of course. So if they were pre-zoned, I think I agree that we should go one by one. But if they were pre-zoned for QSR, a car wash doesn't fit that, right? Okay. And then also, like a daycare wouldn't necessarily fit, would it? Or would it have to be changed for a daycare? Right?

So the intent was to rezone those properties that are designated non-urban to C8 and create general parameters for that C8 and put into place requirement for the conditional use permit. Could we consider other uses? Certainly, they're designated workplace right now. So a daycare or child care center could be a component. An office building could be a component. Brick and mortar retail could be a component. So I think we could do other uses under its current land use designation in the town center plan. What we're doing didn't take it off the board.

I think it's better to do them as they come up.

And certainly that may be the ultimate outcome. But unfortunately, we've posted it. We've had a public hearing. We've got to take at least the next step. And the next step to the committee members was the planning is only wanted to understand better the traffic component, particularly the roundabout at Main Street. They wanted to understand lighting. and noise abatement. And we'll come back with answers. The suggested approaches. If they want to proceed, great. If they want to, as Tom said, kind of cull it down and wait, we can do that as well.

So is there something unique about that roundabout versus other roundabouts that's raising these concerns? Do we have a feel for this?

According to Mr. Brown, That roundabout is as functional as any would be. And it was planned with a 20-plus year window. And it was planned knowing that workplace abuts that east side of Route 109 and a portion of it on the west side is workplace as well. So HR Green did the overall ground center traffic analysis as part of the update in 2021. We gave them the regulating plan. We gave them what we thought would be changed in that timeframe. And we asked them to go 20 years out. Council Member McCutcheon.

Yeah, I've gotten comments about how confusing it is to go through there. And a couple of suggestions that were made was the arrows on the pavement are a little hard to follow. And knowing where to come in, where to go out, that kind of thing. I mean, pass that along to you before. So that was one issue. And then my understanding was Canberra residents were concerned about the noise with the roundabouts. And so, but I, the big thing is it's confusing is what I've been being told. You know, now if you live somewhere else with roundabouts, then, but you know, it may not be, but yeah.

Is that where, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe my memory is faulty, but when you enter that roundabout, aren't you entering from two lanes going south and then you're reduced down to one lane going south when you get on the other side? There is a transition. Okay. Okay. All right.

I meant, you know, on the other side of those two QSRs, there's one on the other side, right?

Yes.

Has anybody looked?

The two development entities that were here tonight, they were given the list of all of the sites. And Jim Brennan, the owner of Calvary Homes, said proceed forward. We think this is a great idea for their outlot because obviously they're focused on the residential side. But I don't think so.

Because then? There's a lot of road space before you hit homes that that lot wouldn't interfere with any residents.

And it's a big lot, so it could easily accommodate it. Does everybody know what I'm talking about?

I think a lot within the larger reserve lot that is serving as...

Well, on the other side. Right. Right. I was thinking the same thing.

Yeah.

Why can't we do something on the other side?

That's part of the pre-zoning effort. There is one there. Yeah. So this, for the city's perspective, this is part, it was, that outlot was included in the pre-zoning effort. But these guys didn't like that. And the roads got to be too on the other side. Yeah. They didn't, they didn't specifically call it out. I think there was just too much contingency with the fact that they're building homes and, you know, the fact that it might just take more time to build on that side. But, Structure, but it's coming together out there.

That's all. Thanks.

All right. Anything else on this topic? So that closes out the four information items. We move on to ready for action. Letter A, review of window signage regulations section 415-400E4.

Thank you, Chair. And tonight, just providing an update, but also we are going to be requesting an endorsement of the initial framework. But we came to the Department of Planning and Administration, came to EDC a couple months ago, had a little bit of an issue we had. Well, after review, we found that our current sign code, it has a list of exemptions. And before, it seemed practical and normal to have window signage listed as one. And it definitely was, if you look at the principles of new urbanism, it fits right in with that approach. That said, over time, we found more and more businesses don't necessarily have a ton of window signage cluttering their window stores, but their window for space, but They do have the open sign that flashes, not flashes, but turns on when they're open and turns off when they're closed. And residents typically, at least anecdotally, will say that's a surefire indication whether or not they're going to frequent that business for that night, especially with some of our businesses that don't necessarily stay open every day from a certain amount of time. They have adjustable hours. So we had an instance where we got a few complaints about some of these signs that were lit up. We wanted to make sure we could differentiate between just a simple open sign and bring that back because we were about to have a situation where quite a few people you know, citations were going to be issued or warning notices were going to be issued to businesses that didn't necessarily have a, you know, a big flashing sign, but just had a small open sign in their, in their windowsill. So after review and Mr. Vunic is here to provide a little bit more input as well. The department has provided to the planning and zoning commission, some initial thoughts on the framework that could be put in place. It's moving window signage from, you know, exempted sign category to an official sign category. And again, From the department's understanding of it, you would still have your 30% allocation for window signage if this new regulation would be adopted. But then this additional signage, what we're calling the illuminated hour of operation signage, if you will, that would not count towards your 30%. So that would almost be a given to the business community. If you need that sign, obviously with site height and size constraints, you could have that. And then also making sure that we double down on the site line because it's, I forget the exact, it's from four to seven feet. You almost want that to be cleared out so that if an officer needed to, or if something were to go on, you could easily see into the business to understand what was going on. So tonight, I mean, I guess I'll pass it off to Mr. Vunich if you wanted to add some things into your department. So may I mention something prior?

So back in January, some of you may recall that I called some of the members of the committee regarding the fact that code enforcement was getting ready to go out and start reviewing sign code violations, you know, at various businesses throughout the city. And that's when it was brought to my attention that our current sign code did not make an allowance, as instantly mentioned, for simple open signs, which are one of the most basic promotional tools that business use to advertise the fact that, yes, we are open. So it was recommended that we pass a motion requesting code enforcement to pause the enforcement of the sign code while Director Boonage and his team took the pause in order to put together some recommended changes to the sign code. So prior to the actual committee meeting, I asked Director Boonage, I said, how much time would you need to do this assessment of possible changes to the sign code? I said, would 90 days be appropriate? And director said, no, 90 days would not be appropriate. 60 days would be appropriate. We can get it done in 60 days. And director actually delivered on that in 60 days. So anytime somebody takes exception to a requested period of time to direct, to develop a report, they don't always ask for an extension or a longer period of time. I just wanted to compliment Director Brunish and his team for delivering . It doesn't surprise me. He's always on.

More of an outlier these days than normal. Thank you.

Pardon my aside there and Director Brunish, please take the floor.

Just very quickly, We've held the public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission. We were expecting to be at the Economic Development Committee meeting in March. We didn't have a quorum, but we had already posted it because we have to do a minimum of two weeks in advance for the Planning and Zoning Commission. Planning and Zoning Commission was very favorable to the direction we're heading. And tonight, I think Tom has a request on the last part. Thank you.

Overall, There is a, in the report, there is a kind of a table and two definitions above it. That is the preliminary framework that we're kind of facing it off of. And it's going to build from this, but these are almost the, these are grounding principles within what's going to be presented to the planning and zoning commission for formal review. So the idea tonight, and we can read through this if you'd like, but would be to endorse the, uh recommendation for the framework here tonight and then we bring that as an endorsement to planning and zoning as they get into their first recommendation and then final recommendation two months

So would you address two specific parts of that table? One is the maximum percentage of window space that signage can take up.

Yeah, so it would be similar to what is technically allowed right now, but you still get 30%. It does not include the open sign. That's the new addition.

So the open sign does not count towards the 30%. That's correct.

Okay. And also it wouldn't count, we don't count your Proud Wildwood business sticker as well. So you're allowed to have two allocations under this code that aren't counted towards your 30%. And you can also add in something that promotes your business with that 30% you have left over. But the other big thing here is you have your open sign, you have the Proud Wildwood business sign, which are two kind of separate things, but then you can do That 30% is one other sign that you would have under these regulations. So you can't have 15 different signs that make up 30%. It's one plus the open plus the .

Is the open sign neon? Can it be neon?

It can be neon, but it can't flash. It has to be a static. And it can't, I mean, the brightness will still enforce our illuminance code to make sure that it's not like a crazy bright . Yeah.

So let's say duration, a limited seven days prior application, but no more than once a month. I mean, that's extremely difficult to enforce. I don't think we have enough co-enforcers to enforce that. Our police department certainly can't enforce that. So can that be adjusted somehow?

That is for temporary? Meaning, let's say there's a sidewalk sale and they want to put a sign advertising it in the baths of the actual sale itself. The permanent ones, those obviously will stay as long as the business is in operation. What I'm finding in talking with Frank and Brian, our two code enforcement team members, They drive by most of the commercial businesses every day. And so with Katie and Dawn now, we're basically creating a list so that they can check on this, check on that, check on this, because there's timeframes. So we actually are getting better at it. And I think in part to the funding that you all approved for my company, it's working.

Make a motion to approve the as this is recommended by the planning and zoning.

You certainly may.

Do we have a second?

Okay. So we have motion and second to approve the recommended changes. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to letter A, establishing a council endorsed target business profile for market focused recruitment. I guess we turn things back over to the city administrator. Yes, thank you, Chair.

And this actually is following up on a comment made by one of the developers today, which we got that having a kind of a list of businesses or business types that would be desired by the residents would be beneficial, but also having something endorsed by the council Like, here are the types of businesses that we'd like to see in Wildwood in a one-sheeter format, not, you know, a cool booklet. Something that's very simple for us to, you know, we get a call from a broker. We get a call from a development entity. We get a call from a business that's looking for space. We're able to send them, like, hey, by the way, the council reviews this every year. Here's a list of business types that they'd love to see. And then the staff can do the research on the back end. It doesn't necessarily have to fix the cost of building these things. But we can at least tell you zoning-wise. Here's your easy play. Like if you want, like right now, those properties that are conditional use permit can get you a drive-through. They're currently workplace district, which allows a whole assortment of uses. And I think also seeing that may help the council realize maybe if we're out of date in some areas, like, oh, that might not be the best use at that property because we haven't seen it for 15 years that we've had its own that way. We haven't had a bite in that. It's always been a different type of use. so that's the idea behind this tonight i also wanted to go through with the surveys we've done they're a little bit dated but i think they it's actually really good because they both saw almost 800 responses each from the whole wildwood community and each time we went out two different times in 2022 we did a questionnaire to the whole city the same for the business survey uh the next year which was a little bit of a smaller sample size but nonetheless we got quite a few responses that are very similar um One, you know, the three businesses, when you look across, you know, these surveys and what we hear anecdotally to back that up is that residents want to see more retail dining, specifically sit-down dining is more preferred, but dining overall, quick services included. And then they also would like to see some type of entertainment. Entertainment's defined, at least from the survey, from like, you know, escape rooms for having, you know, axe throwing, like these types of events that are more community gathering. You take a night type thing out there and it can fit into a retail block. So it That's how it was defined that was third So just from order ranking perspective you had for both surveys, really, that the dining came in top place. That's what's missing in Wildwood. And then down retail was second. And then third in both was the entertainment. What our residents had seemed to indicate we already have enough of to an extent is the professional services and the personal services. And when I say personal services, more so like haircut, haircutting places, nail salons, et cetera. Nonetheless, we're taking that info and we provided kind of a breakdown of, given what the residents have told us already, I look at that as sit down dining, QSR potentially specialty retail, possibly have an entertainment or community gathering space type businesses. And always something that gets thrown in when we talk about what businesses we wanna see is outdoor recreation oriented. So bike shops, hiking shops, REI type staff. When looking at those, this report tries to kind of touch upon without going too much in depth of how feasible it is to bring some of these here. Nonetheless, I think if we'd like, the department's more than happy to go through these kind of one at a time to kind of go through the challenges we've identified and then go through the kind of the the good things we have going for us here. But when we were looking at this, there's, you know, select properties that seem to make sense for the QSR component. I think that there's also some, you know, there's another question too, and we can come back to the other items next, but yeah, During the master plan update group meeting, we had discussed the industrial property and there's also a rezoning request. I mean, a change in land use request for that to allow a different, a couple different types of uses down there. And the question was posed, which is a fair one. You know, it's currently zoned industrial. And what does that actually mean? That means there could be a manufacturer that could come in and build there tomorrow. And what does that mean for the community too? And so just asking that question as well, are we comfortable with a large manufacturer or some type of large business coming in there You know, running trucks, usually we can accommodate it by running to 40. You're not going to take that up 109, but there are some unique considerations to take in mind there. Would you want to include an industrial component on our target business profile? Quite frankly, when you look at it from a revenue standpoint from the city, unless they're using a ton of utility, we're not necessarily going to get the tax revenue from it because those folks are not going to go shop in Wildwood. Typically, they're going to go to the Valley. So we're not seeing and realizing any gain from that revenue source. And then on the flip side of that, they're going to be using more utility than residential development. That's for sure. Same with commercial. Industrial use always will outpace others. but we don't have a property tax. And that's typically with an industrial use where you would see quite a bit of return. So the question, I guess, is, I mean, we need to have a place for it in our city, but it is something where you would have this, it would bring jobs, which is a positive for us, but those folks may not actually be visiting or frequenting the city as much as one would think, just given the the unique location of it. So I wanted to touch upon the, almost treat the industrial use separate, but looking at the other types of businesses, and there's examples in the report, different sit-down types of dining, QSR, specialty retail, entertainment slash community gathering type businesses, I would say Good News Brewing does a really good job about that. It's a retail, not retail, it's a dining option, but also a community gathering space, kind of hitting two for one, and it's done very well. uh and also outdoor recreation almost creating its own category for that because i know past councils and also this council has always always been adamant about having a bike shop here so i think just saying that out loud and having that put on a piece of paper that then can be distributed to all the different developers that come by my desk joe's desk staff's desk all together and the council having that their back pocket too it'd be something that's almost like a promotional flyer that says hey Here's what we would like to see. And then, by the way, here are the property addresses that fit that current zoning classification. So the department's just wondering, are these businesses fitting that need? And if so, would you like staff to do that research, put together this one sheet, or we'd come bring it back, we'd get approval from the committee, and then we'd take it to the full council for final approval. And we'd probably look to update that annually.

I think that's a great idea. Why not facilitate the whole, you know, process and stay ahead of it. I think that, you know, goes to help our reputation is, you know, maybe being a little better to work with and having everything up front. So people know what they're getting into and say, you know, this already has our support. So if we're looking at these types of businesses, you know, the process can be streamlined. So I will make a motion that we approve that. Okay. So I have a motion on the floor.

We have a second. Council Member Krantz, seconds.

Any discussion? And then real quick, can I add one thing before? Absolutely. And just to confirm, Mr. President, as we were saying, we're going to treat the ones that were mentioned, but we're going to kind of, let's put industrial. Yeah, I agree with the industrial.

There's very little to be gained there, so that's not nearly, almost nothing to be gained. In fact, that should be handled separately.

probably venture a guess that 75% of the residents in our city don't even realize we have that industrial.

Yeah.

I mean, no one, unless you went back by me, you'd never drive by there. So, so one observation I'll make here, I'm taking a look at the 2023 business survey. And I'm noticing a dining sit down 53%. Let's call it strongly agree. Dining quick serve 36%. As I recall, when the two gentlemen were sitting out here, they seemed to feel that quick service retailers were more the trend these days that sit down dining, not that it's lost its appeal totally, but it isn't as...

popular as it once was yeah i think well yeah and the data here shows that residents would rather see the sit down dining but i think what they're making the case for which is consistent with what we've heard from other development groups that aren't necessarily interested but they you know call wildwood to figure out what's new they just stay in the buzz uh sit down dining you're not seeing outbacks being built really anymore you're not seeing NEW CONSTRUCTION, SO CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS BEING PLANNED FOR SPECIFIC SIT DOWN USE. WHERE YOU'RE SEEING NEW CONSTRUCTION, TYPICALLY IT'S USUALLY GOT A DRIVE THROUGH COMPONENT TO IT OR IT'S RESIDENTIAL. THAT'S WHAT'S IN THE DEVELOPMENT. AND IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT DEVELOPMENT THESE DAYS, THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE TYPICALLY SEEING. ALL RIGHT.

VERY GOOD. SO THAT WAS THE ONLY COMMENT I HAD.

SO WE HAVE THE MOTION AND WE HAVE SECOND. SO THERE'S A LONG LIST HERE OF EXAMPLES. Are those examples going to go on?

That would be, we're going to kind of work through those and have, you know, the best case scenario, but the ones that accept industrial will have that kind of prepackaged, the best way to encompass all those types of examples. If any of these don't sound good, that's the idea tonight is please call those out. So we'll make sure to mark them off and they won't be kind of covered by the summaries we put together on this. We're going to have to, it's not going to be like a, you know, a normal, report type document. It's, we're going to try to create something fun that is like more advertising focused that doesn't necessarily say each individual one, like here, you know, have an Americana different type business, have a Mexican type restaurant. You're going to have, you know, all of those restaurants kind of summarize and maybe pick the top three on that.

Okay. So I thought the bowling alley was a really good idea. The one, down there is closed. And I thought that might be a good draw. So if you put that on your sheet, I'd appreciate that.

All right. Any other discussion, questions, comments? Okay. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. Very good. Moving along here, we move to item C under Ready for Action, potential gateway signage installation on State Route 100, pedestrian bridge. All right. So back to the city administrator.

Thank you. And this was back at the February meeting. We didn't have clear guidance. We almost had like a, we had talked with MoDOT and they kind of cut us off. That is why we were putting this report together. But then we heard the opposite report back. So I wanted to get this back to everybody because we have different potential outcome. So originally we had planned to talk with the committee master plan group and talked about it having a gateway signage potentially enhanced on the eastern edge of Wildwood as you drive in. Originally we thought we could put it on the bridge. MoDOT said no, but then MoDOT talked to their engineering team and they came back and said, as long as you have a civil engineer seal, whatever design plan you put together. And this is just an example. It's not necessarily what it looked like. It was a quick, here's what it would kind of look like. But we'd have someone, you know, someone along those lines kind of design it, even kind of play around with the idea of what it would look like. But the idea is now that the bridge is back on the table, is this something we would like to look at? We do not have funds budgeted for 2026, so this would be 2027. Available for questions, but I can go into more detail if needed. Was that the cost previously, something like $20,000? We could probably do it for somewhere $15,000 to $20,000. So it's not cheap. It's a little bit more of a pricey thing.

Yeah. Once we get approval for that, can we put that under the docket to when we think we have the necessary funds? I just don't think we have the money for that right now.

Didn't we already... pass a motion. In fact, I think Council Member Krantz made it to delay consideration of the sign until 2027. Yeah, because it's not written in the budget.

I think it's a good idea, but we don't have the money.

And the motion, just so you know too, this was brought up just because before we would report it back that MoDOT said just can't do it. We were almost in the aspect of we're not going to do this regardless because we didn't have space to do it. So that said, I think just doubling down. We need to do it. HAB-Jacques Juilland- Eventually, but yeah keep it on the docket for future. HAB-Jacques Juilland- Actual duration, we can do that in that case, I guess we wouldn't need a chair, we wouldn't really necessarily need a motion. HAB-Jacques Juilland- All right, Terry. HAB-Terry Palmos- This question.

HAB-Terry Palmos- wasn't the other example like. HAB-Terry Palmos- Like a maple would sign, where it was going to go all across the. Yeah, that could be. I mean, this has to be obviously a little more cost effective here and might get the same. This looks pretty nice here.

No?

That was the idea behind it, to make it kind of, if you put it, and also the thing is, MoDOT, we'd have to get a civil to approve it. I think we could, even if you had it all the way across it. That said, you know, the more the sign ways, you have to kind of put a backer on there, too, because you won't be able to call it out. If you just put the lettering in there, it can look a little questionable because it doesn't stand out as much unless you use a high contrast lettering. Either backer or, you know, different color for the actual font. This could even be a little bigger. Yeah. That said, they did want to have us, just from MoDOT's perspective, they wanted to fit the sign. They don't want it to be higher or lower than the bridge's largest width. So we want to keep that in mind. And then also... They really didn't want to see it over the road. So once it comes up, it needs to kind of be off to the right a little bit. I don't know how you see here. That's really the case. It falls off. That's where they need to sit. But it is, I will say that, you know, even though I do not have the money for it right now, it is nice to see because I mean, Joe can attest to this. I think that MoDOT back in the day would have just absolutely slammed this type of request down.

I think they did. Many times.

So the fact that they were willing to concede here pretty, without too much pushback on this is a good sign for the future, but also this. That's exactly right. That said, this comes along too with, there's a lot of capital improvements MoDOT is doing across the state right now. And a lot of cities have been installed. These welcome to signs are becoming popular. All right. I think it just looks a little.

since it's not in the center.

Well, just so you know, this is for reference purposes. I'm not a landscape architect. It's artist rendering. Yeah, artist rendering.

That's a great way to put it. All right, very good. So nothing needs to be done on item D then? Yep. Okay, so moving on to not ready for action. There are no items listed under there. Miscellaneous. Does anyone have any miscellaneous items? We had one last item.

We're not talking about booze?

What happened to D? We got D. 24 hours. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. You're right. All right. More than one. We got it.

We got it. But we have an endorsement to D that we get Brett Hall out here.

Yeah. All right. So under Ready for Action, a letter D, consideration of local policy response to state authorization of extended alcohol service hours during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Thank you, Chair. So this is coming from recent state legislation that was passed with regards to the FIFA World Cup and also from a couple of requests that we got from folks. bar owners or restauranteurs here in Wildwood to say, hey, what's the city's approach to these changes? Because right now, just the way the state law reads, it's an exemption for a very specific amount of time, in about two weeks, where typically, and we follow state law with our liquor license process, where you can sell most of the time. I don't want to guarantee that, but for normal wine and alcoholic beverages, you're usually from 6 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. It's a hard cutoff. What this new Two-week exemption period is during the World Cup, some bars will be able to, if the cities endorse it, will be able to sell alcohol from 6 a.m. to the next day to 5 a.m., so it's pretty much 24-hour service. Where they thought this would make sense is it's going to help generate additional revenue for those businesses, but also tax dollars going into the state and also the local municipalities pocket. But in the same vein, a lot of different businesses, I guess, approach the state with they're having different kinds of events and promotions that are going directly with the FIFA World Cup, especially since we're having some events be hosted in Kansas City. So tonight, the department just wanted to bring this up since we're getting a couple questions from the business community. We don't necessarily have to do anything. If we don't do anything, our code remains at 6 to 1130. That's it. We'll enforce it per usual. The bars close at 1130. They stopped serving alcohol. Oh, sorry, 1.30. I'm so sorry. Yes, 6 to 1.30. We would have changed that.

So 6 a.m. to 1.30. And then they want to go from 1.30 to 5 a.m.? Because it's over in Europe, and it's to account for the time change. It's not so that we have a 24-hour bender. We did check that.

All the games this year, there's going to be some pre-matches, which are in other countries. But all the official games... Are in Canada, America, and Mexico. Mexico, that's right. So that said. Some of the pre-matches are going to be here in St. Louis. So we originally thought the same thing that, oh, it's going to be planned around those weird hours. But truthfully, it's just they may want to have a full party.

Does somebody actually drink at six o'clock in the morning? Nobody should be drinking at five.

The state will allow it.

Yeah, the state says, yeah.

They need help. I think so.

Yeah. Soccer fans are pretty. Soccer fans are intense. You've never been to a St. Louis SC game.

Yeah. We were here at Amsterdam. A rowdy group.

is so do we have any indication of any of the surrounding municipalities we've actually been looking at this and maybe it's everyone's kind of catching up to it but sunset hills is like the only bit uh city that we could see it clearly indicated on their website but we could do some additional research and bring it back um just from a quick review going to a couple different websites seeing what their liquor license says usually their muni code would update within a couple months of it being passed to show like they have this new exemption listed there haven't seen it elsewhere so it it could be just cities thinking it automatically goes into effect but it doesn't it right now our code would supersede their new exemption it's we would we are able to be more restrictive than the state just not less restrictive um so that yeah nonetheless i can't confirm any other city in the nearby area that has passed this law okay so

So have local bars and restaurants reached out? Yes, we've had a couple. How many or which establishments?

Casey's has reached out. I know Larry's would be interested. Larry's.

A lot of soccer fans there, yes. My two cents is I do not think there's any economic benefit to doing this. I think it looks bad. And if no other municipalities have moved forward with it, I would just let it go.

You're going to be doing that in Ireland. But I'm not going to be driving. I know that.

Well, if we do that at Casey's, I'm so happy that I'm terming now. Where's Casey's? Because I would get tons of calls from the residents who live behind me.

Brothers or whatever? Nonetheless, I mean, like I said, if no action is taken tonight... Well, we would appreciate some direction so we can get back to these businesses and say, hey, we're going to stick with our normal.

I mean, I think our main benefit from this will maybe become from just increased alcohol sales at the grocery stores.

That's true.

You know what I mean? I mean, I think most people anymore are going to be watching that at their house. Who's going to be like, yeah, let's go out and do it. Larry's and get drunk while watching. I think it'll just be self-service. Don't do anything like Matt said.

That's fair. The department's not necessarily recommending. Do you need a motion from us directing you to not do anything? A motion to enforce this code as listed.

I'll second it. We have a motion and a second to basically... take no action and continue enforcing the existing liquor. Oh, I guess I don't want to call it a better term. Director Boonage.

And I did contact Mr. Casey, who kind of initiated this discussion and advised him that we'd be talking about it tonight. Okay, perfect. All right.

So we have a motion and a second.

We'll make the motion.

Does he really anticipate being open to 5 a.m.?

I think what it is, it's not even necessarily, and we could have gone in there and kind of minutely said, okay, instead of 5am, we're going to make it, we're going to give you an extra 30 minutes. We're going to give you an extra hour. I think that's what the state is thinking. I don't think anybody's... I mean, maybe they could, but we're not thinking that they're going to stay open until 5 a.m. I think it's more so pushing it back to like 2, maybe 2.30. And some of the communities that really have that outdoor scene, they're hoping that that extra couple hours is just more people...

I mean, I can see an urban, this doesn't make sense here.

We're a unique community that one 30, we should probably be closing the door. And there's other sound considerations that come in. You know, we probably want to look at, and the thing is too, if depending on how the committee spoke tonight, we were going to bring this up, but the staff time to go in and make these changes to the code possible legal fees, we'd have to incur if we wanted to really check it. Cause we can probably want to control like if you're staying open until three now, you know, we want to make sure that you're, That activity staying inside the building. You're not playing music till three. So there's a lot that go into it. The safest bet is to just enforce the code as listed. Yeah. All right. Very good. All right. So we have a

have a motion and we have a second to basically continue with the existing um clicker code i guess i'll call it for like a better term so um any further discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions okay motion carries no oh cliff would you break the bad news to larry's tonight when you're after the meeting

They would need soccer to have people drink till 5 a.m. there.

Two-week referral.

They only sell beer anyway, right?

Yeah.

All right. Moving on here. Now we can move on to not ready for action and there is nothing listed there. Miscellaneous items. Does anyone have anything? I have two items. One is council member McCutcheon will be departing us from the council entirely after this term is up. And that's after how many years on council in total? 14, 15. Wow.

I was appointed in 2011, so I don't know where you cut the time off. So was it 15?

So we are going to miss you. I could get 20 years on the council if I played it all out.

Well, no, I got grandfathered in. That's what happened. I'm going to miss every one of you, too, and I'm truly going to miss serving the residents of Wildwood.

So I think she deserved a round of applause. And then I also want to recognize Councilor Preston, who will be finishing up his term here and has decided to start enjoying life again with this. He's making basics. So thank you for your service to the committee. It's been an honor. Great input, and we enjoyed having you here. All right. All right. No other miscellaneous items. The next meeting date is Monday, May 18th, 2026 at 5.30 PM. And with that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Made by Council Member McCutcheon. That's her last official act on this committee. Second by Council Member Kranz. Non-debatable. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. It's been a great year, and we'll see what this committee looks like next term.