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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-06-16 Special MDC Meeting ,/c/i°1 -411 Edevelopment corp. ALI �` • : -�.-' REVIVE•RENEW=RE AMENDED SPECIAL JOINT CITY COUNCIL AND MERIDIAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION MEETING AGENDA City Council Chambers 33 East Broadway Avenue Meridian, Idaho Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 4:30 PM 1. Roll-Call Attendance X David Zaremba Joe Borton X Charlie Rountree Keith Bird X Genesis Milam Luke Cavener Arrived 5:06 PM Mayor Tammy de Weerd X Jim Escobar— Chairman X Keith Bird — Member ODan Basalone —Vice-Chairman 0 Kit Fitzgerald — Member XDave Winder— Secretary/Treasurer O Callie Zamzow — Member X Tammy de Weerd — Member X Eric Jensen — Member O Calvin Barrett— Member X Todd Lakey — Counsel X Ashley Squyres —Administrator 2. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted (pg 1) 3. Downtown Placemaking: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper Project Priorities (Pg 2-17) 4. Pine Avenue, Meridian to Locust Grove Project Update (pg 17-21) Adjourned at 5:45 PM Meridian City Council and MDC JOINT Meeting Agenda—Tuesday, June 16, 2015 Page 1 of 1 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation June 16 2015 A joint meeting of the Meridian City Council and Meridian Development Corporation was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 16, 2015, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Charlie Rountree, Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Joe Borton, Genesis Milam and Luke Cavener. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jacy Jones, Bruce Chatterton, Caleb Hood, Brian McClure and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll -call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Joe Borton X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird _X_ Genesis Milam _X Lucas Cavener X Mayor Tammy de Weerd _XJim Escobar – Chairman Dan Basalone – Vice -Chairman _X—Dave Winder– Secretary/Treasurer _XTammy de Weerd – Member _X_Eric Jensen – Member Calvin Barrett – Member Todd Lakey – Counsel _X Ashley Squyres –Administrator _X—Keith Bird – Member Kit Fitzgerald – Member Callie Zamzow – Member De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and start the City Council portion of the special Council meeting as we wait for MDC members. Just to note that we also have Board Member Winder here. All Council are in attendance with the exception of Councilman Cavener. Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda De Weerd: And so I will go ahead and move to Item No. 2, adoption of the agenda. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we adopt the agenda as published. Bird: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 2 of 21 MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 3: Downtown Placemaking: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper Project Priorities De Weerd: And I will ask if you will, please, speak up, make sure the mike and -- Dean can hear. Item No. 3 is the downtown placemaking. The MDC board has seen this presentation, so, hopefully, they will be here for the discussion part of it. And I will turn this over to Caleb. Hood: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, members of the MDC board, members of the business association downtown. Thank you all for attending today. have a packet -- there is probably two, because Brian's presentation is next. But I will be working for the action plan that product for public spaces and Idaho Smart Growth recently completed. As the Mayor just mentioned, the MDC board has received the presentation, as did the DBA here recently, but the City Council has not. We thought it would be a good opportunity for all the parties that are most closely linked to some of the recommendations in this report to get together and discussion some of the recommendations within it and the priorities and a little bit more on that. So, to jump into the presentation. So, Ada County Association of Realtors and Idaho Smart Growth won a grant from the National Association of Realtors and they have hired a public -- Partnership for Public Spaces this last year and -- in March -- on March 19th and 20th they held a two day workshop with various stakeholders downtown. You all came together and -- with the idea of looking for lighter, quicker, cheaper placemaking opportunities in the downtown core. So, without getting too much into what lighter, quicker, cheaper is, just sort of within that name they have trademarked, but it has to do a lot with activities and minimal investments that you can do almost immediately to create successful places. What is a successful place? It's where people want to gather and be, essentially. So, I'm going to run through that report. Excuse me. That -- that placemaking team held interviews with the stakeholders, various folks that attended various sessions of that two day workshop. They conducted place audits. They created the report that you all have in front of you right now today. Some of the things they heard was -- there is a need for more places to go downtown. They need places -- there is a need for places to display all art and culture. There is a need to make a process of showing art easier. City Hall plaza was identified as a place where potentially more activities should occur and downtown needs more places to sit and hang out outside. We need to find a way to bring more millennials downtown. That's something we have heard before. There are a number of strong assets downtown, but they are spread out and disconnected from one another. So, as you will see in the report, there are various recommendations to connect these nodes to each other through these various activities that are identified. So, there are 14 sites that were selected based on -- I did an audit, the walkabouts downtown, the stakeholder interviews and these sites were selected for potential lighter, quicker, cheaper -- what they call interventions or improvements or activities. They also went as far as -- from these 14 to recommend four initial priority projects and sites. They identified team leads, support, and, then, potential activities for those first four and I will highlight those. Today what we would like to do is, again, have you all get together and talk about what sites make the most sense to do Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 3 of 21 projects on and, then, talk about what potential projects are or other improvements. Identify who would take the lead in making sure that those sites and projects move forward and, then, who would play support roles and, then, finally identify potentially other resources or partners that may need to be engaged to make that a successful project. So, if you can keep in mind that they are supposed to be lighter, quicker, cheaper -- mean that's the idea with a lot of these placemaking is something that should be relatively easy to implement and see on the ground. So, I'm going to just take a few minutes and run through the 14 sites -- or at least 13 of the 14 sites, but I'm not going to go into a whole lot of depth. If you would like to follow along I will start on page five of the handout and just highlight some of these things, but, again, I'm going to move pretty quickly, because I would like most of this meeting to be a discussion amongst you all about what sites slash projects, activities you like and who should be the lead and move that forward. So, the first site identified was City Hall plaza right out -- right outside. This is one of the top four priorities. It was number four recommendation from the action plan. Initially Shelly Houston and Brian McClure were kind of identified as team lead and support. As you can see some of the recommendations have already taken place. The tables and chairs Brian has been very diligently putting those out, a little support from Information Services staff on Tuesday and putting it away every day, but the table and chairs and umbrellas outside were one of the things that were -- that we are all implementing. Some of the other things are periodic social events and we already have some, but they recommended some more there. Another example would be to bring like Cable One movie night downtown into the City Hall plaza. Site two is the parking lot between City Hall and Main Street. So, just a little bit east of the plaza there. Some of the potential activities recommended there would be to remove a handful of spaces -- parking spacing at the corner of Main and Broadway and incorporate them into a small open space area. May have some food trucks with tables and chairs and umbrellas in that location. Site number three -- and I have got a map also on the -- on the overhead that corresponds with the sites there. Site three is also identified by Idaho Smart Growth and is a priority project, it's priority number two location, the parking lot between the Bank of the Cascades and the MDC buildings, including the alley. So, there is kind of two different places, but they are connected there to make sort of an L shape. Activities for the parking lot include trading spaces to be programmed by MAC and the library. A potential time to do activity nights, programmed at the City Hall plaza and, then, alley -- using the alley for seating and tables, food, coffee vendors and maybe a fruit vegetable produce stand at that location and there are, again, potential other activities that could occur at those locations. These were just ones that were identified in those two day workshops. 2nd to 4th parking lot behind Harvest Church and the alley. Potential activities here include creating space to be programmed again by MAC and the library. Movie Night. Children's Theater. School band or recital areas. Those are just some of the things that I'm highlighting there as potential activities. Site five is the southeast corner of Main and Idaho. Some potential activities include events with food trucks and music and, then, during the weekend parklets. For those of you that aren't familiar with or it's been some time since you heard the term parklets, that would just be basically taking over again temporarily the -- the parking stalls there that are angled parking on Main Street and converting it to outdoor seating potentially for dining or other activities that would be to, again, repurpose parking and so we can for public use other than parking vehicles. Site number six is Generations Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 4 of 21 Plaza. This is the number one recommendation from the report. It's the center of downtown was one of the reasons it was the number one recommendation. A lot of the stakeholders and people that participated in the two day workshop identified it as a strong place to connect. The businesses downtown, it is sort of the -- I mean it is in the core of our downtown. Some of the potential activities there would be more seating and color umbrellas, wrapping the utility boxes and other walls that are there with some opportunity to play games or paint them with chalk. Magnetic word wall. And, then, a need for more shade in that location. Site number seven is the other -- other one that was in the top four. This is recommendation number four to do a project and this is Idaho Avenue between Main Street and 2nd Avenue. So, this is a full block length and, essentially, this one is a -- they recommend right sizing the roadway, so reallocating some of the on -street parking and travel lanes, for wider sidewalks and cafe seating in this block. So, a continuation of that thought is to move them across Main Street towards Meridian Road and do the next block of Idaho and, again, right size that and maybe -- they even maybe recommend starting with just doing a parklet next to the Sunrise Caf6, but, essentially, doing the same thing on that block to right size the street to match what's going on just to the east. Site number nine is 2nd Street south of Idaho. Potentially activities included here weekly food trucks with VRT and COMPASS having a workforce for there. Tables and chairs and perhaps umbrellas. A fence. Creating some kind of lighter, quicker, cheaper foreshadowing of a future water feature in the street along the side, so that water feature, obviously, wouldn't be a lighter, quicker, cheaper option, but maybe painting something that would represent water and, then, in the future getting a full blown project that would incorporate maybe a water feature there. Site ten is Centennial Park and the community center. I hear some potential activities just are more activities and, then, some summer food truck events in the location there of the park. Site 11 is to improve the link on Idaho between 2nd and 3rd. So, this is similar to Idaho where it is some right sizing of Idaho between 2nd and 3rd. They didn't recommend this as high priority right off the bat, but identified it as a potential project in the future. Site 12 is the alley and Broadway between Main and 2nd Street, although most of the recommendations have to do with improving the alley. This one some of the potential activities or actions would be improving the alley on the western side, making it sort of an artist space. They likened it to Boise's freak alley potentially with some of the art, hang flag and canopies. Also enhancing the appeal of the alley, so restaurants open their eateries out onto the alley, rather than walling it off. So, that's -- those are the top 12 sites. The other -- and this one -- the last site I'm going to talk about is site number 13, across from the feed mill and City Hall parking lot here, is private property. Up to this point all of the recommendations occur either in the public right of way or on city or agency owned property. This is a private property recommendation. Hold some events here related to and tying in with the Zamzows mill and markets and eventually Meridian's heritage and history there and, then, also extending the theme of the antique store potentially across the street with a flea market or other seasonal activities similar to that. The last point I'm not really going to talk about, because it's kind of outside of the scope of the downtown area. It's on the other side of the railroad tracks, but it is there if you want to look at it or prioritize. So, with that, Madam Mayor, that's just to kind of get everyone comfortable and familiar. If you want to jump more into what is -- what is placemaking, what is lighter, quicker, cheaper, we can certainly have that dialogue. But Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 5 of 21 we wanted to as staff -- you know, we get criticized a lot of times for a plan just sitting on a shelf, we are not doing anything with it. So, we wanted to take this to the elected officials and decision makers and the business owners and other stakeholders and hear what should we be as staff working on, if anything. If you don't like any of these sites, any of the recommendations, that's fine, but we want to make sure that we get it in front of you and if it is something we should be working on, we hear from you so we can start to implement some things. So, again, with that I will conclude my remarks, unless there is any other questions at this point. De Weerd: Thank you, Caleb. Any questions from Council on the presentation? Okay. I will -- Rountree: Madam Mayor, I do. The term quicker, cheaper, lighter, was there any definition of what cheaper might be, as compared to not so cheaper? De Weerd: I would give a great example and that would be Idaho Avenue between Main and 2nd. There has always been this desire to extend the sidewalk to encourage outdoor dining and they said instead of going through the expense of doing that, try it out first and see if -- if your community comes out and supports it and it answers the -- the desires that have been expressed by the property owners, you can -- you can show that parking doesn't necessarily go away, it's just a more narrow street, so you will answer the -- the question or concerns that are expressed about losing parking. So, instead of doing that hardscape, you try it out first. Another example is on 2nd Street with the -- the painting of the water feature. It's been discussed at some point, usually by me, is that -- the need to see that as more of pedestrian, because it's book ended by the school and the UP property, but that could be a High Street Park type of thing and you said, well, instead of a major investment of the water feature going down the middle of that street, paint water in, let people envision it and -- and expand it if that's something that the community is interested in. So, those are two examples that -- staff, you might have others. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Can we take -- can we open up the -- we have got a quorum now, so we can open up the -- De Weerd: Yes. I will note on the record that MDC does have a quorum with five of its members. Member Bird, Member de Weerd, Member Escobar, Member Jensen and Member Winder as I noted earlier. Did you have any -- any additional examples? Hood: Madam Mayor, there are other examples. I don't know of what I heard when Gary was here giving the presentation if there was a dollar amount or a cap for what constitutes cheaper or not cheaper. I think if it has to be in your capital improvement plan it's probably not one of these projects. It doesn't mean it will be free, but I don't remember him saying, you know, 5,000 dollars or less or anything like that. So, I don't think there is Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 6 of 21 a cap. But that's the idea that you should have the resource on hand, it isn't something that needs to be programmed for. Not to say there isn't any expense, but something that you can fairly easily put into a budget. De Weerd: I think Bruce might have something to add. Chatterton: Yes, Madam Mayor, Council Member Rountree. I think a great example we actually are familiar with from a couple years ago when Brian created the parklets using a lot of his own labor and design work and donated materials and helped the -- help with parks and recreation and logistics. So, we -- you know, we found a way to make that -- make that happen. De Weerd: Okay. So, just to bring the members of the MDC up to speed, we just watched the presentation that you had at your last meeting and wanted to have a conversation about the things that have come into this report and if there are priorities -- and we are looking for community champions to maybe be that point person, the person that makes it happen. So, I guess I would ask Board President Escobar or Ashley, if you could kind of give us an overview of what was discussed at MDC. Escobar: I was absent at the last meeting. De Weerd: Okay. Escobar: Fortunately I was on a family vacation. Fortunately De Weerd: I will ask Ashley. Squyres: Madam Mayor, Mr. Bird, we basically received an overview, similar to what Caleb gave, at our board meeting. Unfortunately, the board did not have much of a discussion and -- knowing that this joint meeting was forthcoming, chose to wait until this opportunity to have a further discussion. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Zaremba: I'd like to hear from the Downtown Business Association a little bit of what -- what their thoughts are on it, because they are the actual -- the ones that are involved downtown here and it's their property and their businesses that we are looking at and so if they -- if any of them's got something to say I would sure welcome it myself. Kozlowski: I have always got something to say. Bird: We know that, but -- De Weerd: You will have to -- Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 7 of 21 Kozlowski: My name is Joe Kozlowski, I'm president of the Meridian Downtown Business Association and I have canvassed Idaho Avenue and talked specifically about the Idaho Avenue improvements that were part of this lighter, quicker, cheaper report and there wasn't anybody that was against that and they see that as a positive. So, I mean that's just something I would love to see and parking is always an issue. You know, if you were to ask every business, hey, what's -- what's your number one issue and they will always bring up parking and so maybe there is a way we can -- I don't know -- try to save parking or add to the parking by, you know, a combination of extending the sidewalk for cafe type seating and maybe having other areas where instead of parking parallel you park at 90 degrees and I would be open to looking at something like that and I like the idea of having this be not a permanent -- you know, not a highway district permanent extension, but something we can experiment with and see what works and what doesn't work. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think -- I agree with Joe. I think that's probably the easiest and the cheapest way to -- route to try something and I think it's fantastic. We -- we can do -- and if it works out we can have something like 8th Street between Idaho and Bannock. I mean -- and you could still drive through there. Kozlowski: Or the Basque Walk. Bird: Or the Basque Walk. Yeah. You can still drive through there. As far as parking, I think people will find -- I mean we have got some parking lots around there and stuff that -- and it's not too far in the evening, so come and use City Hall parking lot and walk over there. Kozlowski: Right. Bird: We have churches do it on Sundays, so -- Kozlowski: But even the existing business -- and we have hope for what new business is going to go in, but having that cafe seating and extending the sidewalk is an easy thing and, you know, you add to that the trees that are there and the planters that the city puts up -- I mean it's just -- it's an excellent opportunity. That would be the first one I would jump on. Bird: Yeah. I would agree with you. De Weerd: Other comments, thoughts on priorities, those kind of things? Escobar: Madam Mayor? Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 8 of 21 De Weerd: Yes. Escobar: I just wanted to -- to share a thought that if -- I know that they have identified team leaders, but I think that's going to be the real impetus to making sure something gets done is making sure that there is a leader that's accountable, whatever is our goal. So, if we set a goal and make sure that we can identify a volunteer to become that team leader for the project -- I see too many other projects that are great ideas that never get done, because there is no accountability associated with making sure it gets done. Just a thought. De Weerd: No. It's reality. Escobar: Yes, And I would share that, unfortunately, it looks like we see the same person's name -- same two or three persons' names many time over and over in this document. It would be great if we had members of the community that wanted to step in -- and I don't know how we promote to the community that idea of having them come in and take charge, but there is great numbers in our community that could make some of these projects come into fruition. De Weerd: I believe the hope is to have the conversation today to maybe put some priority ownership to -- I don't think you can do all of them all at once, but to give a priority, then, you can seek people that might have an interest in championing these -- these events. Even the downtown business owners that -- if it's in Generations Plaza you have some more obvious people with Flatbread or the businesses on Idaho Street that might have an interest in -- in being that champion. I know Flatbread and Rick's and Karen Atteda had talked about kind of a wine event and that they would run it and that's exactly what -- we want the business owners to have skin in the game and to see that they have partners around the table that will help them promote it or let people know that it's happening, that -- that they take a lead. Other thoughts? This is a very quiet group. Jensen: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Eric. Jensen: I will throw out some of my thoughts from, you know, looking at these different opportunities that are out there. I would agree with Joe regarding the -- the Idaho Street, you know, that's always kind of been a passion of mine. Other areas or projects that I think have been identified would be -- and it's not high on a lot of people's list, the Centennial Park area, I keep -- when the library held their food truck rally here in the City parking lot, I recently returned from a trip to Washington DC and there were several little parks like that around Washington DC and they -- every day they had food trucks that were just lined along -- and I realize there is a much larger community base, but they were lined along the -- the edge of each of those parking -- or parks and people would just grab something to eat and sit in the park and do that. I think that there would be an opportunity to do something like that or make that easier to happen, as far as be willing to bring them in. The other area would be the -- site number three, that space between the two Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 9 of 21 buildings that MDC owns and the Bank of the Cascade parking lot. I think that has some easy opportunities to create -- especially with the library what they are doing there and creating kind of a -- and there is some simple things -- just simple things that you can do, like removing some of those really big bushes that are there that need to be pulled out. The curb that separates the two parking lots, pull that out and open it up a little bit and just pave that little piece over and you can -- that opens up that whole parking lot between the two spaces. I mean it would be great to see something big happen there at some point and -- but if we are talking lighter, cheaper, faster, I think that would be an opportunity as well. Really just my thoughts. De Weerd: So, Autumn Kersey and perhaps even -- I don't think Gretchen is the point person. I can't -- Jensen: Nick. De Weerd: Yeah. Nick. Nick would be a good person to also give a challenge to team up with one thing and the same with Autumn, is finding that one space that -- that they could do -- commit to for the upcoming year. I think as the Ventures Lab has had -- has opened up the area across the street from them of Harvest Church, I think they could almost be in charge of -- of something either there or the parking lot on either side of City Hall and we can certainly challenge them to -- to do something like that, too. But, yeah, it is trying to find the champions or we can give it to Lori Jones, because she makes things happen. Let the record note that Councilman Cavener has joined us. Escobar: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Escobar. Escobar: One other item that seemed really simple and could have great turnout in the long run would be the relocation of the movie night into one of our parks in downtown. And the reason why I bring that up is as a parent with little ones running around the house, it would be great that they could sit and watch a movie while I could enjoy the opportunities offered in downtown Meridian night life. So, it could bring that foot traffic and I don't know what our dedication is out at the park where it's held now or having a second opportunity in downtown, but that seemed like one of the suggestions that was pretty cost effective and could have high traffic. De Weerd: That's the Parks Department, Mike Barton: I'm listening. De Weerd: They didn't send you here to defend? Barton: No. I'm all ears. Milam: Madam Mayor? Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 10 of 21 De Weerd: Yes. Milam: Do we have a park downtown that's big enough to hold the number of attendees that go to movie night? Or would we be adding a second move night for a smaller -- De Weerd: I think it would be more of a second movie night and when I -- what I heard from the consultants when they came is that it's not to replace the family movie night in Settlers Park, it was to be something different and unique. So, whether it's showing old films of Meridian or -- and if you have got some of Lila Hill's presentation on the irrigation -- now, I thought it was interesting. Maybe you're not going to fill the parking lot, but they identified City Hall plaza, the area over by Harvest Church by the old theater or Centennial Park. Those are three -- or even Generations Plaza if you want to keep it to the irrigation presentation, maybe Generations Plaza is better. But it's -- it's more that is family oriented, so maybe you go films for the millennials, you contact the independent film makers that are local and say do you want to kick off your film, this would be a venue for you, and I think the Ventures Lab might even be an appropriate -- an obvious partner to that, because it's I guess videos are technical to me. That's my linkage. But those are -- that's more along the lines of their thinking not -- to compliment, rather than replace. Milam: I think it -- De Weerd: But we know from family movie night there are costs and that the cheaper thing can quickly get expensive. So, you would want downtown business buy in to be part of it and those kind of things. Other comments? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: And I -- this has, you know, been a dream of mine for a long time is Boise has got their Alive After Five and I'd like -- we can't call it Alive After Five, but we can call it something. I'd like to see that happen downtown. But I don't think it's -- I think that has to be done by an organization like the Downtown Business or somebody like that. I don't think it should be a -- be a public entity that puts it on. I think -- I think you get something like that you will get the young people down and you will get the older people down and -- and we are -- we are a unique downtown, because we are small, but we got three pretty busy large bars, so, you know, if you're bringing a movie down here for kids, I'm afraid that our parks department is going to wind up being babysitter while mom and dad goes -- tries out the sights. But I would like to see the downtown association think about having something like Alive After Five and we could -- you know, we could block a street off or -- I just think if we got that going or we could do it here in City Hall in the parking lot or something, get some food trucks down here and get some music and stuff and get the kids coming, having some stuff, get the young people, I definitely think that that would help get a lot of people downtown myself. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 11 of 21 De Weerd: So, are you going to organize that? Bird: Tammy, I told you my get up and go got up and went. Twenty years of -- Bordon: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton, do you want to organize it? Bird: Yeah, do you want to do it? Borton: You probably don't want that. Bird: Your get up and go hasn't got up and went yet. You're too young Borton: If it's not overly simplistic, the recommendations are before us and they are all sound, they are all relatively cheap. The ones in the first four that aren't necessarily geared on a single event, but more structured to kind of create a perpetual value add to downtown, as simple as tables and chairs. I mean they are listed right in front of. It looks like the work has been done. I don't know if our test is trying to come up with things that we could do to improve downtown or just merely to have the political to say let's go forward on these first four, take action that's been recommended. I mean some of these are clearly -- for example, this is the park's obligation for something that happens in the park or at City Hall plaza and the city is going to participate, if not own that obligation to -- to fulfill it, to Generations Plaza, City Hall plaza in particular. All of the ideas are great with the exception of Stan. But -- and I don't think making a decision to act on some of these negates the ability to do what Jim talked about, which is some of those nonpermanent experiment events. Maybe we do it once, see if it works. Maybe it's terrible. It's not a wholehearted change of movie night in Meridian, but you could do one, maybe a movie that adults want to watch or have your kids watch and they go eat dinner. But you could make a decision to do tables and chairs in the plaza, wrap utility box or -- De Weerd: We already have tables and chairs in the plaza. Borton: You could add more tables and chairs in the plaza, so -- De Weerd: Get a budget request. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam. Milam: Somewhat in regards to -- well, to your comment, Joe, about do it once -- doing it once doesn't really -- doesn't get the people there. It's going to have to be tried several times before something ends up being successful if it's a new event, so -- but they at least try it a few times before we give up on it. But in regards to sight two, the parking lot at City Hall, my recommendation on that one would be to not remove any parking lot, based on Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 12 of 21 the expense that we are seeing and what a parking lot costs, but if we are going to try something temporarily we could maybe put some fake grass or something to make it seem as though it were a parkway, kind of like the way The Village does with their -- they put their grass in and their -- turn it into ice in the -- in the winter. But I don't want us to be tearing up our parking lot, but the concept I like. De Weerd: And which recommendation is that? Milam: That's the number two, removing a handful of spaces of parking. Of they have got down the outside in the parking lot. Okay. De Weerd: I'm not hearing from any champions. And now I'm getting overwhelmed on behalf of our departments, the additional work, so -- Borton: I guess I don't know what would be involved in extending those sidewalks temporarily. Are we talking about throw down pavers? De Weerd: I think when we walked through it, Joe, the conversation was that -- with painting the roadway and putting in planters and I don't know what the cost of the planters are. Ashley, do you recall? Squyres: Madam Mayor, I believe they are about 1,500 dollars apiece. The big, large ones. De Weerd: So, it's cheaper than extending the sidewalks out, but there still does have a cost to it. I know -- Justin, do you want to comment? Lucas: Yeah, I can provide -- De Weerd: Do you want to come up here and comment. Lucas: Yeah. I can probably stand a little closer here. De Weerd: Yes. Lucas: Justin Lucas, Ada County Highway District. Depending on the level of improvement you're trying to do, the cost of paint is, you know, relatively minimal, if you're adding any type of structure, if you want it to be level with the sidewalk, you know, there is a curb, so you might have to build it up a little bit, that can be done out of various materials. The only thing there is seeking a license agreement with the district similar to what you did with the parklet and I think that went relatively well with the ACHD commission. These types of improvements, you know, maybe just have to be looked at -- you know, the traffic engineers look at it for safety and things like that, but it's -- I think it's doable and something that with the right type of design is -- could be -- could be easy to implement. Certain things like accessibility do have to be looked at and I just -- you know, that would be something we'd have to design for that, let's take a look and see how that all Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 13 of 21 works out, but -- there is temporary ramps and other things you could do to meet those needs. Bird: What product can we use to build it up? Wood? Lucas: I think potentially -- depending on -- I don't know what temporary means. If you're talking about six months, a year, a month, two weeks, I think all that would depend. Bird: I think you got to leave it in for at least a good summer and fall, you know. Wintertime you probably don't need it. Lucas: I think typically as long as you're not harming the pavement underneath, I don't know if the district is going to have too much of an issue with the material being used, as long as it's safe and not -- you know, as long as it's safe. I think that's going to be the number one thing that ACHD would look at. De Weerd: Well, from what I gathered it would just be painting the -- the strip that you're trying to add onto the sidewalk and adding the planters to be barriers, but you wouldn't even out the surface, because it's temporary. It takes away the lighter, quicker, cheaper -- quicker trying to get a license agreement might not be -- that's an oxymoron or might get that really fast. Lucas: No. No. I -- Madam Mayor, we could -- you know, if once the idea is solidified and you know what you want to do -- I remember when we -- the parklet issue, I think there was some issues potentially at the lower level, but once it got in the higher levels there was no issue bringing that forward and we could get it to the higher levels very quickly. De Weerd: So, on that one it sounds like it's a priority for the Downtown Business Association and it's certainly of interest to the city and MDC. Perhaps that will be a budget consideration for the hard costs and on the city's side we can work with ACHD in getting a license agreement and -- and design elements. Mr. Nary. Nary: I was going to weigh in. Sorry. I was going to wait until you were done. I was going to say, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Board, the license agreement we originally crafted for the parklets was intended to be a perpetual agreement, so we probably can revisit that and see if we just need a simple addendum to that agreement. So, that piece of this discussion I think probably is simpler than it can -- it has been on other occasions. I think we anticipated that being something we would continue in the future, so we crafted it that way. So, I think we should be able to get that done fairly easily. Hood: And, Madam Mayor, if I can just maybe piggyback on that comment a little bit. I think that we did make good strides with ACHD with the first parklet and I think that would be a template to move forward. I will just -- my name is already on site seven, so I will just go ahead and volunteer to go ahead and lead that and I would probably get with Mr. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 14 of 21 Kozlowski as well and make sure that the businesses and just reinforce and make sure -- it's great to hear that the businesses are on board with this, but I do want to sit down with them, make sure they understand kind of the scope of what we are talking about doing, do with ACHD traffic, what can we do. I don't think we can -- probably want to -- can't afford to buy planters to -- to define the parking areas from the seating area, but maybe there is a shorter version of a Jersey barrier rail or something -- something that can kind of differentiate parking your vehicle areas from that, but we don't need to worry about all the details today. I do like sites and central projects and a lead and, again, I'm willing to do that, but I will need help from the businesses, from ACHD -- I mean there are a lot of folks and then -- but I will go ahead and -- since it sounds like that's a priority for pretty much everybody, take that one on and -- there is one, anyways, that I have heard that we can move forward with, so -- De Weerd: Well -- and I will say that because of a grant from Blue Cross, the Youth Farmers Market is starting to gain some traction. We have several community members who have stepped up in helping plan -- we will have a conversation perhaps tomorrow with Council about it. But that -- that could be one of the City Hall parking lot things with the Youth Farmers Market and there was a grant in order to get it. We do need to have one event this year, knowing that the -- the real Farmers Market will roll out next year. But to satisfy the grant there needs to be at least one event this year, which we are working on. Escobar: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Escobar. Escobar: I believe the MDC does own two planters that are sitting empty right now that could be used as part of this project potentially. De Weerd: So, we can have Caleb and Ashley and Joe kind of huddle and maybe Justin to -- to get some next steps rolling out. Eric? Jensen: I was just going to ask -- De Weerd: Mr. Jensen. Jensen: Could the existing planters be pulled down as well into base to kind of give some of that definition that's currently set up on the sidewalk? De Weerd: Well, they are connected to water lines and various things that would complicate it and make it more expensive. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 15 of 21 Rountree: You know, these are all great ideas and having been responsible and in charge on the Council with Generations Plaza, I understand the hesitancy of people stepping up and doing this stuff. The issue I see is that every one of these is going to have some hard cost and it's not much, but it's going to be something, and I think from the city's perspective what we can do is we can do things on our site with our funds. I would propose that we establish a small, quick, easy and cheap grant program that maybe we could run through MDC to grant some hard monies to buy a planter or rent some rail or whatever to get some of these things off the ground if somebody is interested in taking the lead to organize it. I'm not interested in having all of these projects having a Meridian city staff person be the lead. But if the downtown merchants want to do Idaho, I think it's great. It's fun. The picture we have here of the parklet in my mind is what it is we want to accomplish there to start. Let's do it. Let's say we are going to do it, let's figure out how much it costs and how much we are -- how much it's going to get into our pocket books, instead of just talking about it. Bird: Madam Mayor? Rountree: Because I have sat through way too many of these over the last 16 years of talk. We have got some good ideas. We have got ACHD wanting to be a partner on these kinds of things. We have, essentially, been given the go ahead, it's just a matter of getting them to sign off. So, let's -- let's do it. But I -- I'm for at least providing some seed monies to make it happen and, hopefully, MDC can do the same thing through some kind of a grant program and say -- I don't -- the four projects that are picked as priorities, I can't tell you which one is my favorite, which one ought to be number one. I think they are all good projects, I'd like to see them all happen, I'd like to see the city do something like this in our plaza, something different than Concerts On Broadway and not -- in addition to that. De Weerd: In addition to -- Rountree: Yeah. De Weerd: No. I got what he was saying Rountree: No. That's great. But that's -- that's four nights a summer and it sits idle or it provides parking for the associated churches around City Hall. So, funding, financing some kind of seed money is what it's going to take to get somebody to have -- to want to spend the energy to do the organization and the structure of this to bring it to fruition. De Weerd: And add to commitments of even the road project, which would be awesome. But you put planters out there that doesn't have irrigation to it you need a commitment from the businesses that are going to water those, because I can guarantee you our staff are not going to walk down there every other day to water the plants. So, there will be some consideration in maintenance and those kind of things and so -- Mr. Bird. Bird: Madam Mayor, I -- Charlie hit it on the head, but I just -- I think -- MDC has got special project money, we got a little bit, and it's -- we can take -- the financing I think Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 16 of 21 between the two entities we can take care of on this first project. But, you know what, I'd just like to see the first project get done on something that we have had studies on. Charlie is right, I have spent 17, 18 years here I don't know how many studies between MDC and the city we have had about downtown Meridian -- Rountree: We have spent all that money and we -- Bird: And all that money we have put out and -- you know. De Weerd: Well, you're sitting in one of them and you're next door to another. Bird: Well, this was -- this was a necessity that we had to do. So, let's -- I'm like Charlie, let's get something done. We will figure out -- and let's don't take a month to ponder over it, let's get going and get that Idaho Street thing done this summer, so we can get some people down here. Hedler: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Marty. Would you step closer to the table so our recording can pick you up? Hedler: Good evening. My name is Martin Hedler. My background is in horizontal and vertical development and I'm sorry Eric is not here, he could contribute to this conversation more than I could in aspects of retail organization. When I heard the word Smart Growth and to be proactive of the community, what I believe is incumbent for us to understand or for myself is what's done -- being done in the past and also what the future may be and I looked at the business land lately and I have centered out a couple of individuals in the board to talk with them in regards what's been done in the past. I see the Idaho project as a value to the community, as well as to the city. I recently have contracted a property on Idaho, so, unfortunately, now I'm an owner on that property and 1 don't -- I'm not here to promote that aspect of it. Please understand that. What I'm here to understand and make others aware is what the community can offer if we look at the 8th Street project in Boise. I worked on urban renewal in the city of Denver, Colorado, for over 20 years. We talked about inner core development. We talked about the heart of the community and not the outskirts of it. We started from the core and we built out and I see the Idaho project being that and, you know, I certainly, you know, offer my assistance for a champion on that project, I will work with Joe and other Councilmen and to make that happen and we could get that done in summer as a team. Anyway, that's -- De Weerd: Awesome. Rountree: Sign him up. Bird: We got the leader Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 17 of 21 De Weerd: Any other comments on this one? We have one more presentation on Pine Street. Anything -- anything further on this? MDC perhaps can have additional conversation as well. As well as the -- Rountree: Just to make sure, there is 14 projects in this document that have value. Don't lose site of the rest of them. Bird: Yeah. That's right. Rountree: I think they are there quick and easy and some of them not so cheap, but still a value to our community. Item 4: Pine Avenue, Meridian to Locust Grove Project Update De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the discussion. Okay. I will turn this over to Caleb regarding -- to Brian. To who? McClure: Madam Mayor, Members of the MDC commission, I'm here today to speak to you about an update for Pine Avenue project. Like Caleb you also should have these slides before you in case you can't see the screen. As a refresher, this map illustrates the extent of the project from Meridian to Locust Grove, obviously, on Pine Avenue. The project began as a request by the city to ACHD to improve sidewalk and bicycle infrastructure. The last time we updated Council and MDC both were in January of this year. Since then the scope has changed significantly. On the left you will see the original scope. Sidewalk repairs, some widening, parkway, landscape strip, bike lanes, some curb replacement and repairing the Five Mile Creek bridge to allow for bike lane and sidewalk. On the right you will see the new scope just highlighting differences is sidewalk widening for cross-section plan. The differences being in the ultimate size and location. Realigned curb location and formalize the edge again in the ultimate location. Resurface the roadway and repair the crown. Most people are familiar with the crown on that roadway is significant and makes it challenging to cross, accessibility issues, and, then, widen Pine from three lanes to five -- to five from Five Mile Creek to Atkins. So, you're putting in a turn lane. So, the big question is why the change? What happened? The big reason is Public Works -- for good reasons. Essentially, they want to align sewer and water projects with ACHD improvements. They need to vacate old sewer in alleys and reconstruct in Pine. They need to make new sewer connections to the affected properties, approximately 55, and potentially do some water line replacement depending on the condition after they pothole. Consequently, ACHD changed their scope. This was for a number of reasons, but chiefly is to reduce impacts on the stakeholders. The roadway condition left after Public Works makes improvements will have a lot of patches, which is not ideal and multiple periods of significant construction is not fun for anyone. And to do that they moved ahead a project tentatively scheduled from 2022 to 2026 to resurface Pine to 2018, 2019 and, then, delay this project. The other improvements now occur for the length of the corridor. Just to briefly refresh here. The Pine Avenue cross-section is before you. This was adopted by the city and MDC last year. This is typically within the urban renewal area for the -- for what you're seeing there. Briefly just to recap what we Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 18 of 21 heard from both MDC and Council previously. There was a desire to respect the impact to private property and limited conditions to prioritize first seven sidewalks, reducing parkway buffers if necessary from eight to six feet. To explore a bulb out crossing at Pine and East 3rd. As a reminder, that would be -- also would be where the city has a pedestrian -bicycle corridor plan and, then, in the future for parks to do design concepts for this in coordination with MDC and the public. So, cost to city and MDC. The first line you will see there is 150,000 dollars. That hasn't changed much from when I talked to you last time. That is for seven foot sidewalks and six to eight foot buffer within the urban renewal area. There is a couple of new question areas and I will touch on these in the upcoming slides. Essentially, there is 15 to 16 thousand for on -street parking just immediately north of the newer kind of alley loaded product and the end of the urban renewal area near the Five Mile pathway and, then, potentially 51,000 dollars for a landscape buffer and sidewalk from approximately where 6th Street would intersect with Pine to Atkins. So, we are before you today for clarification and request for information preference on a number of items. The first one here is to explore enhanced crossing at East 2nd that would include bulb outs, whether there is appetite by MDC or the city to pay for any infrastructure and ACHD did not pay for. Just a couple notes here. This will not be signalized like the East 3rd Street with a HAWK pedestrian crossing, it would just be a crosswalk similar to what you see on Main Street up and down. Staff's preference is to at least have one on East 3rd Street. If MDC and ACHD and the city will all agree, then, we will, then, push it for East 3rd and East 2nd, but East 3rd is definitely staff's preference for -- if we are going to put the money somewhere for that to be the location. In terms of on - street parking, there is a request for clarification on what the city and MDC would like to see. ACHD standard is seven and a half feet. The cross-section plan currently shows eight and a half feet. That is simply because that's what ACHD and MDC did for the COMPASS VRT building, seven and a half feet, though, is adequate and that is what ACHD standard is and, then, cross-section priorities. From approximately the 6th Street intersection to the county parcels, there is a significant bottleneck of right of way available there and what those priorities would be for Council and MDC. We can look at wider sidewalks, six to seven feet, entryway and placemaking, aka the parkway and, then, on - street parking. The on -street parking would come with a -- and this goes back to the previous slide -- the cost to MDC within the urban renewal area of 15 to 16 thousand dollars. For whatever reason, we were unable to figure out why those properties when they developed did not have to install curb and gutter, they did have to formalize their parking edge and they did not have to donate any right of way to be consistent with the rest of the corridor. So, the question there would be what would MDC and City Council's preference be for the ultimate -- we are not going to go here again cross-section in that area. I will just pause there before I go on anymore if there is any comments or direction. De Weerd: Any comment? Escobar: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Escobar. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 19 of 21 Escobar: I will put some of my thoughts out there and I speak for myself, not the board. But exploring the enhanced crossing on East 2nd to me seems obvious that it would be a yes. In my research traffic strives to be the safest and these bulb outs provide that opportunity for traffic to recognize this is a pedestrian area and with our discussion about trying to connect 2nd Street and making it more pedestrian friendly, now is the time to be able to do that. And, then, on the on -street parking width, eight and a half feet is more comfortable, but I think staying with ACHD standards is fine. I don't -- I don't see why we would want to vary from that, unless there is a particular instance where it is too tight and cross-section priorities six county -- I don't -- I don't know that I would want to address the 6th Street area at this time. I would just -- I would save that for future. I don't know -- but I don't know the specifics about it, whether or not it makes -- there is a reason and impetus as to why we would do it now, rather than with future development. McClure: So, Jim, in response to that question, this is kind of an opportunity to finish the streetscape and street to its ultimate improvement and we are probably not going to revisit this again. The location in question here has redeveloped. Those are those alley loaded homes and it is not likely to redevelop anytime soon. So, the chance of coming back to it later to add curb, gutter, parking if wanted, a parkway if wanted, is unlikely to be revisited within any of our lifetimes. Escobar: In follow up? De Weerd: Uh-huh. Escobar: It's not a big price tag in comparison with the overall project. If it makes sense to do it now, then, I would leave that in the hands of the ones that are developing exactly what those plans should be. I'm not against it is what I'm saying. De Weerd: Other comments? Borton: Madam Mayor, I agree with Commissioner Escobar. I think it's reasonable. It makes sense. De Weerd: Me, too. McClure: Thank you. Moving on. For the county parcels just east of the one we just discussed, the cross-section priorities there, there is several considerations here. Consideration for the right of way for the landscape buffer and detached sidewalk and for the wider sidewalk and, then, in the larger scheme of things from the 6th Street to Atkins what that looks like right now is with a six foot sidewalk and a six foot buffer, which is smaller than what we have been doing west of there, because of right of way issues, that would be a 51,000 dollar cost to the city, because that is outside the urban renewal area. That would be consistent with ACHD's livable streetscape design guidelines, similar to what ACHD would require of new development. Alternatively we could ask ACHD to hold off on doing anything there and wait for redevelopment. And, again, just a reminder here, pending redevelopment this is the Pine Avenue entryway corridor. Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 20 of 21 De Weerd: Brian, what budget year is this needed in? McClure: I'm sorry? De Weerd: If Council was interested, the budget year the money would need to be budgeted for? McClure: I believe that's 2018. De Weerd: Any thoughts from Council on this? Rountree: I think we ought to do it. Bird: Yeah. I do, too. De Weerd: Okay. It looks like Council is supportive of the recommendation and budgeting -- get it done. Bird: Get Public Works to get their drawings and stuff in there, so they are not holding up any construction, because once ACHD starts let's get it done. McClure: Okay. Thank you. Lastly, just the next steps here. ACHD is working to generating some initial design concepts, hopefully to be done this fall. Design submittal is scheduled for November 11th. Parks will then coordinate, if agreeable, to streetscape design options based on these concepts. Public outreach needs to occur and, then, begin construction in late 2017 or early 2018. And just for clarification here and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that the bridge would likely come first before the rest of the corridor and that's why we have 2017 here. With that I will stand for any other questions or put you on the hot seat. De Weerd: Any further questions from Council or MDC? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Okay. Well, thank you, Brian. Have we answered all of your questions? McClure: You have. Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Anything further from Council or MDC? I would like to thank MDC for being here and on projects of this magnitude in terms of Pine Street, but also in moving forward on the recommendations by PPS, it's very valuable sitting in the same room and having a discussion. So, if there isn't anything further, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Rountree: So moved Joint Meridian City Council - Meridian Development Corporation Meeting June 16, 2015 Page 21 of 21 Bird: Second. De Weerd: All in favor say aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. De Weerd: Would you like to adjourn? Escobar: I would entertain a motion to adjourn as well. Winder: So moved. Bird: Second. Escobar: All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:46 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) C - / 7 / 15 DATE APPROVED ATTEST: JAYCEE9d9.LMAN, CITY CLE toxo . SEAL )h, iRt ASu�