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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05/17/2010 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, MAY 17,2010 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, May 17,2010 at 6:00 p.m., with Mayor Leiken presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Leiken and Councilors Ralston, Lundberg, Wylie, Leezer, Simmons, and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, Bill Van Vactor from the City Attorney's Office, City Recorder Amy Sowa, and members of the staff. 1. Bob Jean Presentation, University Place, Washington. Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery presented the staff report on this item. Bob Jean, retired City Manager, was here to make a presentation to the Council about the planning, design and initial construction of a Main Street and Town Center for University Place, Washington (pop. 31,500). Earlier in the day Mr. Jean lead a workshop for key staff members centered on his experience. He focused on the lessons learned and the strategy for moving such a project from concept through policy approval and implementation. The Development Services Department had invited Downtown Advisory Committee members to attend this work session. Mr. Towery introduced Mr. Jean and gave a brief history of Mr. Jean's experience at University Place, Washington. Mr. Jean spent three hours with staff this afternoon on this topic regarding the technical aspects of this project. Tonight's discussion would be more on policy. Mr. Jean said he would discuss some of their successes and some of their mistakes. He noted that he had been asked to look over the work done by Crandall Arambula, but said that wasn't really what he did and had chosen not to comment on that work. He was here offering his experiences. His discussion was accompanied by a power point presentation. Mr. Jean said he understood some of the similarities between Springfield and University Place (UP). Springfield was looking at how to revitalize downtown and Glenwood, and how they interrelated. He described University Place, its location and size. The main downtown at University Place was off of 1- 5 and standard retail development went best on the 1-5 corridor at key intersections. University Place town center was not a natural place for developers to come and invest. In order to bring developers in, the City needed to remove the obstacles to their investment and increase their reasons for wanting to invest at our site rather than a more natural retail site. The reasons for downtown Springfield's location was historically solid, but were not relevant today to a natural retail environment. To do something downtown, they needed to have a plan, but also understand the economics of redeveloping in a place that was not a natural center. He discussed University Place; when they incorporated, their population growth, and location to other larger cities. They had to plan for the State's growth in.the future within their own growth boundary. The only way for them to accomplish that was to build up, not out. They were focusing their future growth in their town center area by creating a 'place'. When University Place incorporated, it lacked a University and a Place. They were working on both now. Councilor Ralston noted that he had lived near that area from 1977-1982. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes May 17,2010 Page 2 Mr. Jean said there were some community colleges in the area. They were trying to get a University by partnering with Pierce College, Tacoma Community College, a private University, and Washington State University. The goal in the town center area was to create a place. Staff had asked him why they had taken the risk on the town center. In 1995, they incorporated and in 1999 a State initiative caused the loss of one-third of their General Fund. Their fmancial forecast was that they would go down to just core services and could never go beyond that unless they did something. They had fear and a drive for a sense of place as motivators. Mr. Jean said their goal was"to create a Main Street and town center that would provide visitors and residents a comfortable, convenient, efficient, safe, secure, welcoming place to shop, play, live and work. They wanted a walkable town center. He referred to a timeline from incorporation to the town center opening in the Fall of 20 11. He discussed acquiring property from 40 property owners for 17 acres of property. In 2006, they made public improvements. He referred to a photograph of Bridgeport Way before and in 2009 after infrastructure improvements. He described the changes made to Bridgeport Way, including flare u-turns that were used instead of left turn lanes due to the limited amount of right of way. Mayor Leiken asked who owned the road. Mr. Jean said the City owned the road, but the Washington Department of Transportation (Wash- DOT) did have some say. Councilor Leezer asked if the utilities were underground. Mr. Jean said they were. They had a franchise agreement with Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU), an independent board and subsidiary of the City of Tacoma. When University Place incorporated, they had a franchise agreement which stated they could require TPU to do one underground with major road development. Anything further than that, the City would have to pay. Councilor Lundberg asked what the flare u-turn looked like. Mr. Jean drew an example on the chalkboard. University Place got the idea from the City of Bellevue. He noted how traffic safety had impr<wed with the changes to Bridgeport Way. The speeds had been lowered and the number of vehicles had actually increased. He discussed the process of the plan evolution. It was important to be clear about the vision from the beginning. The plan was not the same as the vision, and needed to remain flexible because the market factors and timing issues would change. He referred to a slide showing Concepts A and B and described aspects from Concept A that had continued into Concept B. Mr. Jean discussed the Town Center Team, which included the City Council, Planning Commission, Economic Development Committee, City Manager, 10-20 city staff, and outside consultants. The consultants needed to be part of the team, but not the lead. The City needed to be the lead. Mr. Jean discussed the partnerships with this project. They included Senators, Congressmen, Federal Highway Administration (FHA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the Washington Department of Commerce, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Pierce County Library District and Tacoma Power and Water. The federal partners were much stronger early on, with the State catching up later. About $9M of the funding was from the Federal government audabout $8 M from the State. The City contributed about $22M. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes May 17,2010 Page 3 Mr. Jean said they took site visits to places with good mixed use projects. Some of those trips were paid for by the City and some of the trips were people taking vacations and checking out the sites. Some of the best projects were in Washington DC, such as Rockville Town Center and Pentagon Row. He said the staff of the representatives often lived in the mixed use areas in Washington DC and were great resources. They understood mixed use more than anyone locally and were often stronger allies for this type of project. Mr. Jean said University Place needed to acquire 18.3 acres for this project. They kept 12.6 acres to sell, and would retain 5.7 acres for the pad for City Hall, Market Square and the street grid. This . project was transit oriented. He discussed the transit line in their area and said they were trying to talk Pierce Transit into a bus rapid transit system such as EmX. He referred to a slide showing the street grid for the whole town center and described the grid. All of the businesses in the 12 acres generated $40,000 a year in sales and property taxes. When Town Center opened in 2011, it would generate about $2-4M a year. He referred to photos showing Market Square and the progress they were making with the Library/Civic Building and parking. The ground dropped off from Bridgeport Way to the street below and he explained how they had utilized that with their parking garage and Civic Building. Mayor Leiken asked how these things were funded. Mr. Jean said the parking was funded through Federal grants, the rest were project costs. The Library/Civic Building was a General Fund Obligation. He discussed the previous location of the Library and how they incorporated it into City Hall. The Library was part of a separate district. He showed a graph of the steps taken for the University Place Town Center. During the process, they had to take a break when the fmancial situation bottomed out. They learned that they needed to be patient and not to over promise the community. He suggested telling the community it would take ten to twelve years, although it could take only seven to ten years. Those on the team understood what was going on and the community was very involved, which helped pull them through the tough times. I Mr. Jean said when they went through a rough time, they did a performance audit to see what they might have missed. They learned from that audit that they needed to do a financial analysis with the developer, not only to learn what the City return would be on the investment, but also what the developer's return would be. It really needed to be a private/public partnership. They also needed to understand the best case, worst case, and most likely case. That helped them through the rough time. Now they were positioned right for the recovery. It would be about a year or two before Springfield was ready to look for the developer partners, but could be positioned right for the recovery. Mayor Leiken asked what the median income was in University Place. Mr. Jean said it was about $42,000. He noted the changes in Springfield over the last thirty years since he had last been here. Mr. Jean showed more photos of the Public Atrium and Police Station. He reviewed the lessons learned. Public/private mixed-use projects were very complex. He noted some of the complexities. The City was going to have to invest about 20 to 30%, with the remainder from private investment. It looked like Springfield's plan was at a 90/10 ratio and that would probably not be enough. Springfield was going to have to buy the parking costs down. There could be some assistance from the Federal government and there was transportation money available. Senator Wyden was in a good position, as was Springfield. They needed to know when the project was going forward, and what the City would be investing. He discussed the differences between a master site developer and phased development, the benefits and disadvantages of each. Springfield was not likely to find a master developer in the Northwest that could take on the whole project due to costs, but could find two or three that could work in collaboration with the City team. They may need to talk with developers City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes May 17,2010 Page 4 out of state. In this type of project, Springfield would want to. stay true to the vision, but remain flexible in the plan. A strong project team was needed and partnerships. Mixed use and transit use areas were not common, but were popular. Oregon had good land use planning, and the Federal representatives would be the biggest allies. There would be a lot of staff time involved for those working on the project. It was important that those staff that were not directly involved did not feel left out. Without their work in keeping the rest of the City running, the project couldn't be done. Everyone needed to feel they were part of the vision and implementation. Mayor Leiken said he appreciated that Mr. Jean pointed out that they shouldn't focus on the specifics. That told him to continue to be flexible with the changing economy and not miss an opportunity. Mr. Jean said their current Mayor had run a small business. He was frustrated because the project was taking a long time and he wanted to sell the property to an outlet mall developer. He had asked his Mayor if that stayed within the vision of a town center place where citizens wanted to come day in and day out to meet with friends, and shop. It wasn't consistent with the vision. The Mayor was still pursuing that so they would be going to visit the shopping center conference to have him talk to mall developers. They would likely tell him they didn't want to put an outlet mall in University Place due to a number of reasons. He described other changes such as going from vertical mixed-use to horizontal mixed-use. The main thing was to preserve ten percent of the visual of the building at street level. When building a commercial building, they needed to give the illusion of a second or third floor in the height. They could adapt the vision to the economics and the plan. Mayor Leiken referred to Mr. Jean's comment about the 70/30 or 80/20 ratio. He had heard from smaller developers that thought City Hall should stay out of this type of project. He had heard from a larger developer that they wanted to know what the City's commitment was before going forward. He pointed out that it was an election year and it could be a good time to approach Senator Wyden in these conversations. Mr. Jean said that was correct. Federal representatives loved transit oriented, mixed-use developments. Councilor Leezer asked if they had seen an increase in pedestrian activity both day and night. Mr. Jean said they were still in the construction phase. Tomorrow night the theater group would be announcing the private development. The theater developer wanted to move ahead now. He and the City would work on getting restaurants going and activate the Square. Councilor Ralston asked about the regional partners. Mr. Jean said those would include the Utility Board, Transit District, County, and Health Department. They could also partner on the private sector side, including not for profit groups. The City would need to facilitate many of those partnerships. It would be City driven, but would require regional, state and national partners. Springfield had a real downtown with great architecture and old buildings. There were some gaps in the model and they would need partners to help buy down the cost. Parking was expensive and Springfield would need some structures with liner shops and streetscapes. They needed to level the playing field in order for developers to achieve this vision. Councilor Lundberg asked who ran parking in University Place. Mr. Jean said they were going to create a condominium parking group, but currently the City owned the parking. There were federal spaces currently under the Civic Building, but those would be moved City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes May 17,2010 Page 5 to the basement level. The public plaza would be kept in pUQlic ownership as well as the Library and Civic Building. Mayor Leiken thanked Mr. Jean for the presentation. He would like to invite Mr. Jean to come back as we moved forward. Mr. Jean said the questions from staff lead him to understand that they understood. The elements he saw in Springfield were similar to University Place. Staff and the consultants understood. He reminded them to keep the community involved and not overpromise. He felt they were on the right track. MayorLeiken acknowledged Planning Supervisor Linda Pauly and said she did have a good understanding of this. Mr. Jean said Ms. Pauly would get a lot of the heat through this process. Constant unyielding pressure was a huge force. They needed to keep moving forward and manage the community's expectations. There were going to be rough times, but they could get through them by keeping everyone involved. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned 7:02 p.m. Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa Attest: ~~ Amy So City Rec der