HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 02-17 PreMeridian City Pre-Council Meeting February 17, 2004
The Pre-Council meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 5:30 P.M. on Tuesday,
February 17, 2004, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Bill Nary, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree.
Staff present: Steve Siddoway.
Others
Present: Tom Hudson
Item 1. Roll-call Attendance:
X Bill Nary X Keith Bird
X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree
X
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we adopt the agenda as published.
Wardle: Second.
Nary:
Moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor? All ayes.
Item 3. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c):
Item 4. 2003 Follow-Up results
to the Development Services Assessment of 2002 by Dawneen Blakeslee:
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we go into Executive Session as per Idaho Code 67-2345(1)(c).
Wardle
: Second.
Nary: It’s been moved and seconded to go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c). Mr. Berg will you call roll call please.
ROLL CALL: Bird, aye; Wardle, aye;
Nary, aye; and Rountree is absent.
De Weerd: What about me?
Nary: Now that we are all back would we want to take a motion to leave Executive Session?
(Speaker unknown): So
moved.
Wardle: Second.
Nary: It’s been moved and seconded to leave Executive Session. All those in favor? All ayes. No final decisions were made. Next item.
Item 5. Update of
Marketing Strategies for Downtown by The Hudson Company:
Nary: Mr. Siddoway.
Siddoway: Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the Council. The Hudson Company at this point barely
needs any introduction. They have been before you two or three times, but I would like to just report back that at the last meeting when we were here we were talking about the vision
and how we had built the vision based on the input and the interviews and things that we had done previously. The step we are trying to take now is taking that vision and elaborate
on it as well as looking at the implementation of it and really trying to get down this week while they are here into trying to figure out how we get from where we are today to where
we want to be in looking at the who, what, where, when and how. What we have tonight is an overview of the vision. It’s heavy on the graphics so I think that helps in a lot of ways
to help people understand the vision and the types of things that we are talking about for downtown. This is an abbreviated version of what we will be presenting to the public at an
expanded meeting on tomorrow night at 6:30 p.m. at the Cole Valley Christian School. Already today we have spoken with department heads. We have had a presentation to the Chamber of
Commerce. Tomorrow morning we are meeting with the MDC, we have a four hour workshop in the late morning and afternoon talking about implementation and it’s a full agenda, so without
further ado, let me turn some time over to Tom Hudson for a presentation on a look at the future.
Hudson: Madame Mayor, Mr. Chair, members of the Council. It is very nice to be here
again with you. I will do my very best to move through this quickly. We thought that this was a good opportunity for you to see a sense of what the future will look like with this
marketing strategy and all of the various implementation
steps that we are proposing. As you know, we have spent a great deal of time in the socio-economic environment doing the number crunching, establishing a good foundation for making
our recommendations. Tonight we just felt that it best to give you a sense of where we really think we are going in a visual way, rather than with long lists of words. Steve. We are
working on technology and so I am going to have to be doing a lot of this sort of thing and I apologize for that, to move us forward. I won’t do more than let you take a quick look
at this. I think you are all familiar with where we are headed in terms of markets, downtown roles, our theme and in this last line the marketing strategy is actually three primary
elements of organize, communicate and build. Those elements have a number of programs approximately 15; each of which has four to eight individual actions. So, collectively, we are
recommending a system of – just short of 100 different actions highly organized to move the community forward in the wide-range of ways that are necessary to see this renaissance become
true. Go ahead, next. Very quickly; in orientation you see the north-south purple lines are Meridian on the left and main on the right. The three lines in the lower middle, left and
right represent the (inaudible) rail corridor. Keep in mind that we are emphasizing the opportunity of the rail core as a transit corridor. I’ll come back to that in a moment. So,
we are just giving a very quick orientation here. Downtown is about a 21-block area that we will be recommending as the primary focus for redevelopment efforts. Overall, medium density,
not substantially more than this is there today. Next slide. Downtown core is the historic heart of the community. There are a number of ways to respect the heritage and historic
fabric there and also move it ahead to allow the downtown core to be not the home to a community of 4,000 or 2,000 as it was in 1904, but the heart of the community of 41,000 today and
soon to be in the 60 to 80,000 level. Next. Transit corridor, we are looking to be a higher density area. It’s an opportunity for a regional interface, that is a front door to the
community along the future transit corridor, we are anticipating higher concentrations of buildings; everything from culture centers to let’s say, corporate headquarters types of office
spaces. We see this as a good candidate for city hall along that – both the front door to the community and the front door to the region. Go ahead. We are not looking at significant
changes in the near term in the warehouse district or fabrication district because we need time to let the markets catch up. I think that’s a transition area that will find it’s way
in time and everyone will be much smarter about what to do with it and in the meantime, it’s creating jobs, has a high return to the city in terms of the property taxes and so on so
let’s let it do what it does best for the moment. Go ahead. A residential area around the city center is, I think, a substantial opportunity both to let’s say a state connected to
your traditions, but also to provide some opportunities for a bit more density of housing in a variety of housing types and we will go into that in a moment. Go ahead. We have in the
process looked at some of your primary assets or major places in the downtown and feel comfortable that that downtown core we flex the nature of your major places and is a good context
for planning and incorporating these important parts of your community into the future renaissance. So, we would like to take you on a virtual walking tour of this for future downtown.
Its
images of what it might be like, what it could be like. We are not trying to concentrate on a particular color or kind of brick or what have you, but to give you a sense of the nature
of the place and we have looked all over the west for representations of what we are proposing here, so this is far from cookie cutter. It’s highly unique, organized specifically for
your community and looking at an integration of uses that are highly targeted toward the markets that we have shared with you. We are putting together teams and resource systems to
make it happen in a context of a public/private partnership. So, connection; you know you have heard us say that in the past there are a lot of different types of connection, for example,
the connection between citizens and government. Can you take a look at this one just a little bit more closely for a moment? I really like this building. It’s a 1912 structure, but
it’s an example of opportunity that hasn’t really been met. There are a number of ways to take a building like that and make it much more remarkable in the community. When you take
navy battleship gray and put it onto an historic building it doesn’t always accomplish what it might. This is with more of a brick look to the building and if it was blown up I think
you’d see it’s rather remarkable place. I think there are a lot of opportunities like that around the community where you have got important buildings, but over time they have been
kind of lost because they have been adapted in three or four ways or their facades have not been updated. This is an example of the connection between, let’s say, pedestrians and bicyclists
in the city center. I think, again, there are many different dimensions of connection and all of which we are trying to address. This is about our youth. You know, when you have a
place that is as family oriented as this community, ask yourself how playful is it? How great of a downtown is it for children? This happens to be a photograph from your own community
down at Generation’s Plaza just a block from here. It shows you what can be done with thoughtful design. There is much more that can be accomplished toward the goal of making downtown
the kind of place where children and families aren’t just willing to go, but they look forward to going. The sense of place; these kinds of images, I think, will give you a sense of
what we are after. A public market is the kind of place that’s the galletarian. It draws everybody from the community, it doesn’t matter what the economic background is or social or
ethnic, they can come in and be a part of the community and there are really not many things to do or many places to go in the downtown today for the community as a whole. Here is an
image of a downtown building that is a mix of some retail; primarily office and you know what’s on the top? Parking. That’s a parking garage. You don’t have to do what Tacoma has
done over the years and building these dead tomb-like buildings that are very long walls of concrete. You can actually create a sense of place and bring offices to your core without
making or creating additional parking problems or congestion. This is your own downtown and I think is a great next step as part of the renaissance of your community. We find many
signals around your city center that there is a start already. We are not beginning tomorrow. Good things – good steps are already on the way. I am trying not to read through each
of these items, just giving you the chance to look at them. In terms of land use, we are looking at a very integrated system. Social retail at street level, as you know,
I have suggested that in the past. This is the future of this downtown, it’s not about Nordstrom or the Bon, this is not a comparison good shopping center. It’s going to be more about
the unique places that are specialties and much more socially oriented. A mixed-use residential, cultural, continuing education kind of place where you can live, learn, work, play and
shop. Now I want to start in more earnest with this sense of virtual walking tour. I want to share with you first, in the area of social retail in the downtown district in the core.
These are the kinds of things that would occurred to support in terms of character. So, look to pocket parks, pedestrian priority, which we have talked about a number of times, restaurants
that bring people downtown and also spill them out onto the street, you know what I mean? Whether it’s sidewalk cafés or that sort of thing. This is a, I think, a classic kind of an
image that could be part of your future downtown. Not unlike what you have already seen with the bicycle building. Do you know which one I am speaking to? Pocket parks, parks in open
spaces that are to a degree flexible in the kinds of uses that can go on where people can come and sit have lunch, but they can also have their children play. I think, we have said
before, discovery is an important part of the theme for the future and people should be able to come and be accommodated. That is by people, I mean your target markets. So again, people
spilling out onto the streets they’d just as soon be outside reading a newspaper as indoors or vice versa. Public markets that bring people from many different areas and allow them
to linger – give them other opportunities, places to be in the downtown. This playfulness, you know, I think this was really visionary kind of activity at Generations Plaza and these
kids were not doing those things for us they were downtown in your community having a good time. Those people that were a part of Generations Plaza, I think, should feel very good about
it. Now moving to the transit corridor clearly will be in the form of social retail looking at more densities; urban theatre, galleries, delis, coffee shops, office services. So, a
little higher densities. Notice there is a Barnes & Noble bookstore in the vertical orientation. This could be along the rail line, which could be your future transit corridor, another
front door to the community. Still in keeping as a good neighbor, with your historic fabric of the downtown core. Not replacing it, but being it’s next-door neighbor. Open spaces
that allow people to spill out. Notice that there are some vendor carts outside. You know, the Roust Company is the primary expert in malls in the United States. People look to them
for the (inaudible) leadership and what’s right with them. They are the people that created the pushcart revolution. That is many of their businesses in Roust malls around the United
States come from growing up in vendor carts inside their malls. This is a way to do business incubation and it should be, I think, an aggressive and positive part about community development
allowing small businesses, people who are from here that have invested appropriate scale grow up in a place and then they move in two more permanent space. Just another look. There
is Starbucks upstairs, a relatively urban look, but you know you could be walking from your transit vehicle, whether it’s a bus or a light rail or what have you across an open plaza
and into city hall or some other place like that. Here’s some alternative looks. Transit to this downtown should not be about park and ride. It should be about coming to a destination,
so
whether it’s rail or – I should say light rail or buses, there are ways as in this image to accommodate both the pedestrian, the worker and the transit vehicles. To residential the
neighborhoods – that’s the upside down “U” shape primarily here. Look at the character. Single family, we certainly support that. Small lots, the houses that are here now, they can
stay. There is also opportunity for greater densities. You know, ultimately, we have two choices in community development in terms of land use. We can sprawl or we can infill. Clearly,
some mix of the two is out there, but if you don’t create opportunity for infill, you are going to sprawl and that’s not always the healthiest thing to do. So, places like this could
be accommodated. We are also thinking in terms of townhouses. Wide ranges of possibilities, you know that express the individual personality of the people who are living in places
like this. Even single-family homes – these are homes over in the Boise area, high end. These are not your inexpensive houses, these are wonderful places to live and note that the
nature of these homes are such that if you are out on your front porch you are actually having a relationship with the people who are walking by. It’s about connection. This is very
similar to what’s going on in Seaside, Florida and many other new urbanism communities around the United States, where it’s about connection. Remember the theme connection? It’s not
just a warm and fuzzy word. This is a way to bring people back together. In the downtown district, there are ways especially to do a historic and adaptive reuse in the context of mixed
use. Next slide. This is actually in Moscow, Idaho. That is a turn of the 20th century set of buildings and yet there are homes throughout the upper floors of all the structures.
Go ahead. This is a place that could be a great second story home. I was looking here in City Hall earlier today and I noticed that the corner office on the second floor belong to
a doctor in year’s past and there is nothing wrong with adaptive reuse that puts office in, but it’s certainly also an opportunity for housing. You know, there are so many people that
are looking for a downtown housing opportunities these days, it’s a very large part of our community that doesn’t want to mow the lawn, that wants to be able to walk out and go to high
amenity places. Such as restaurants, entertainment, to hop on a bus and go to – in ten minutes without getting on the freeway to let’s say 8th Street Market Place in Boise. Go ahead.
Here is another façade that I think that does not speak to the potential of this particular building and you have a number of those. Just ask yourself how might it look if we did just
a few things with it and how inviting that might be. Now here is an image that might be at the edge of the downtown looking south toward the transit corridor. The larger building in
the background would be the higher density along the transit corridor and closer in you have plazas that are made for people to do things to enjoy each other and life in the out of doors
and still have an urban environment. Go ahead, next slide. Now for the transit corridor, a little higher density. I will move through these a little more quickly. I think you will
recognize them. Go ahead, next slide. This could be housing. Up above this is housing. Don’t focus on the very large buildings in the background, that’s not where we are proposing
where to go, not that kind of scale. Go ahead, next slide.
Bird: We’d take one or two of them.
Hudson: Yeah, there are definite attractions to places like that. But, notice the reason I put this particular image in was that notice that there
are about 25 foot distances between the individual breaks in the wall. There are ways to accommodate larger scale places and still create a reward for being a pedestrian, who is walking
two to two and one half miles per hour. These kinds of breaks create rhythms that are much more attractive to people. Long walls are terrible parts of those downtowns that are forced
to have them. Go ahead. Office: character, neighborhoods. Go ahead, next slide. Adaptive reuse of buildings such as you are already doing along Main. We would see more of that.
You know that there are some places in north Main that are already getting totally new structures that are two to three story office space. Next slide. Other kinds of buildings that
have been changed over. This could be retail or office. Downtown district – we are not looking at any more than the existing density of 42 feet, but we want to make sure that buildings
come up to the sidewalk. This is not knock down a building and put in a great big parking lot in front of it. It is about urban character and connection of the buildings to the sidewalk.
Next slide. This is a building in downtown Sandpoint that has just been built. It’s primarily office. There are a couple of residential units at the top and there is also a restaurant
down at the bottom. It was an almost immediately full leased-up place, along with a little courtyard in the front. I have already shared this one. Next slide. Transit corridor character
in terms of office spaces range of opportunities; this is one I would like to share for a moment. Imagine if working with potential developers. We talked about design character and
some integration in the design and what might be accommodated. Notice in the center of all that there is a very substantial open space that allows people to spill out into it. At the
back of it that might be the grand arrival station for the transit center for this community that will certainly be to 100,000 in 15 years or so. Then is one of those buildings city
hall? Could that be a part of the great next level along the transit corridor? This is not about the historic core, but more along the edges. So, it wouldn’t be as deep, but certainly
potential character of things like that. Go ahead, next slide. There are developers who are out there who are interested in that caliber, that quality. Character of neighborhoods
in terms of open space. Well, we will see in a nutshell that we are looking at a system of open spaces that are connected by pedestrian and bicycle corridors. Go ahead, next slide.
So that wherever there is housing there is opportunity for open space. Everybody should deserve it. I think one of the worst places I have ever been for living in an apartment lifestyle
is my own hometown of Moscow. I think we forgot that there are human beings in the form of students and that these are people who like to go outside once in a while and many of them
have spouses and children and what do they have to do? Get in their in car to go drive to be in a park? What we are proposing to you is that in your downtown area what basically that
entire – everything in green there north of the rail will have a system of open spaces where someone no matter where they are can get to an open space within a three-minute walk. Go
ahead, next slide. A variety of styles
of open space passive and active. Go ahead, next slide. This is now more to the downtown. This is an open space in downtown Moscow that was an (inaudible) reuse of a street. It was
very rarely used. It’s called Fourth Street Market now because that’s where we have our farmer’s market. I think I have mentioned to you before that 22 percent of all of the farmer’s
markets in the United States are owned by downtown associations and the reason for that is they make great business sense. Bringing that kind of business into a downtown core is new
business and while they are there, people tend to do multi-purpose shopping. Go ahead, next slide. So, places like this create new opportunities. This is just how different – this
is Sandpoint – how different places might have been a hole, where a building burned down or what have you became something more important than that. Can be even interim. This is the
next picture is in your own town. Could be an open space opportunity. You know, a lot of smaller communities are finding that people like to come out and congregate during the summer
time and you could actually use that wall there as a place to put movies, maybe Casablanca in the evening and have everybody eating popcorn. Get a sense of the connection that we are
trying to make? Now to the transit corridor character will tend to be more open space because it’s a more dense area. We do not intend to have any palm trees though. Just a reminder
of that open space in the middle of fairly urban area. So, we looked around at open spaces in your downtown, identified the range of possibilities. There is no hard and fast recommendation
here, but you certainly have the potential to create a good formula, you know. There is an average amount of open space that you shoot for in urban areas. This gets us there, this
percentage and if no matter where you would live in this area you would be within a three minute walk of the downtown – of an open space. The blue circle there in the middle is Idaho
and Main. Then connecting those would be a system of bicycle and pedestrian pathways along streets that are not along major arterials, but complimentary to them. Integrated uses:
Cultural and entertainment. The character in the downtown district would be smaller scale. So we are looking at small-scale galleries, dinner theatre, public events, markets, etc.
Every time I go by Zamzows and the Creamery and that space in between the two of them on the corner just across here, I think this is an opportunity for a major public open space.
It can even have a small amphitheatre in it, those kinds of spaces and allow for adaptive use in any particular day for something like this; bringing people together. Go ahead, next
slide. Ballroom dancing is something that has come back and how many places do we have to do it? Even in larger cities it’s hard to find places, but this is good business. A lot of
people doing that these days. Arts: a very important part of a sense of community. Now transit corridor, you know, larger scale clearly, but similar kinds of activities. This is a
building that was something like the Creamery that got adapted into a museum and they did a lot of different playful things with it and it became a really remarkable place in the community
and I spent a very big part of the new economic engine. Go ahead, next slide. People getting together: All these different walks of life. Forty-one thousand people who call themselves
Meridianites, where do they go? I think there is a lot of opportunity in places like this. I wanted to give you a quick
sense in closing of what we are not looking verses what we are. So, there is just a kind of not this, but that approach with the next three slides and then we will conclude. There
is nothing wrong with this home at all, except that it doesn’t fit the vision that we have for your downtown. This home is not about connection, is it? It’s an isolated place. These
are people who may have bought it, not to have a relationship with people who are walking by or a strong connection there. Next slide. An alternative would be either of these kinds
of styles in the downtown core, but still allows for privacy, a wide range of price points at homes and so on. Wonderful places to be and live and also be connected. Next slide. This
is a fairly classic 70’s/80’s early 90’s kind of approach to corporate office building where you have got this sea of parking. You have got the building, isolated in highly sterile
green space. This is not what we are looking at. This is not what we propose to you for the transit corridor. Next slide. But, something like this does fit. You can still have your
corporate offices, you can still have your parking, and you can still have a great connection to the street fronts and so on. Next slide. Of course, we are not looking at Golf Courses,
but we are looking for open spaces that can bring people together in a wide range of ways. This is a park that is three blocks off of a downtown that has so many uses; I just can’t
begin to express them all. Now this is what we are not proposing for transit. Now, if you just look at it superficially, you see something that looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Boy,
it would be nice to have light rail transiting to your community. But, this is what? This is a park and drive – a park and ride. Well, that’s not what we are looking at here. We
are not thinking that in your city center you would invite everybody from the region to come park his or her car and go some place else. We are a destination. So, we are looking at
as an alternative at – next slide --something more along of this line. Where there is a much stronger connection to the place. Now, frankly if I could have found a photograph that
showed a much better sense of arrival when that bus stops at kind of the central station and maybe a city hall next door or other kinds of cultural office activities, but this still
demonstrates that you can create a great relationship as a destination with your transit and being literally the middle and the heart of the Treasure Valley there is great opportunity
there. Next slide. We are coming to, very shortly, with the final report – the marketing strategy that is going to be about to be about who, what when, where and how. It will be very
detail oriented. We are going to look at resource opportunities, timing, who’s responsible for what and so on. There are many different facets to it. Tonight, of course, we just didn’t
have time for that, but we did share with you previously some of the level of detail that we are going to in preparing a program that is highly implement able in the context of economic
and social convictions as well as community values that say the time is right to do this. With that I would be happy to take your questions or your direction.
Nary: Council, I know
our time is short, but do you have questions?
Bird: I don’t have any, but just a very nice presentation, Tom.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I would just ask Council that if you have any questions, do have this Power Point on a Power Point presentation. Can we get
a hard copy to Council?
Hudson: Mr. President, Madame Mayor. We do, as you see, there are many slides on top of each other and so the very best way that we can give this to you is
on a CD and we’d be happy to provide that to you. In fact, I brought one down as a master and it’s already been provided to city staff.
De Weerd: Well, if you could that way we can
get it to Council if they have any comments they could email them to you or Steve so that you can include that. I would comment that the amount of participation that Hudson Company
has had in this plan has just been phenomenal. You really have taken this to a community level and invited input. You have had numerous interviews, one on one. Have had great participation
at your workshop and have engaged an oversight committee of citizens and I appreciate all of your attempts to be inclusive and to take as many comments and look at this in as many directions
as we possibly can. So, I would like to commend you for that. Today, when he met with the Department Directors, it’s so important that we are all in the same page with a vision of
where we are going with this and I appreciate all the extra steps that you and Jerry seem to take to really include and so I would like to thank you for that and recognize that this
is a fine piece of work because of that approach. So, thank you.
Nary: I guess I would wrap up to, Mr. Hudson, saying how impressive your presentations have been not just to us, but
to other entities and we have heard that from a number of people how much they have enjoyed the vision that you are helping form and I think it has been a great plus for our community
and we look forward to continuing that, so, thank you very much.
Hudson: Mr. President, thank you very much too. We are passionate about our work. I have to tell you that in a lifetime
in my career this has been right at the top. I really have enjoyed working with this community. You have a top-drawer steering committee. It’s been a pleasure working with you on
the Council and also with the Meridian Development Corporation. The time is right. You have got the right people and thanks for the privilege.
Rountree: Thanks, Tom.
Nary: Thank
you. Council, I don’t think we have anything left on our pre-council agenda, so we can take a motion to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Rountree: Second.
Nary: Moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor? All ayes. We will take a 10-minute break and then we will start up at 7:15.
MOTION CARRIED. ALL AYES.
MEETING
ADJOURNED AT 7:05 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
TAMMY DE WEERD, MAYOR DATE APPROVED
ATTESTED:
WILLIAM G. BERG,
JR., CITY CLERK