light, we can start. I'll call the meeting to order. We'll do a roll call and then uh pledge and then uh approve the meeting agenda and then we'll get to you guys right away. Okay. Well, good morning everybody. It is
Thursday, July 24th, 2025. Don't forget they are dedicating the uh tranquility garden at 5:00 today over at the Arnison Acres. Uh this is a call to order of the housing and redevelopment authority of the city of Adina. We've got a special meeting this morning. We're going to be
working and talking with some proposed development uh opportunities over at the old public work site. Uh but first um I'm going to ask as I call the meeting order ask our executive director and our city manager Scott Neil to call the role.
>> Thank you your honor. Commissioner Risser >> here. >> Commissioner Jackson >> here. >> Commissioner Agnu >> here. >> Chair Huband >> here. Uh now is a pledge >> allegiance to the flag >> of the United States of America >> to the republic for which it stands. One
nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you everyone. And uh we've got a form of meeting agenda in front of us. Is there anyone who wishes to modify the meeting agenda? Uh is there a motion to approve the meeting agenda as published?
>> So moved. >> I second. >> Commissioner Agnu or Commissioner Agnu seconds. Commissioner Jackson moves the approval of the meeting agenda uh as published. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of the meeting agenda say I. >> I. >> I. opposed. Carried. The meeting agenda is adopted. We're going to have a series
of developer presentations this morning with respect to the potential use of the property owned by the city over uh at 5146 Eden Avenue, the old public works site, former public works site. And our first team is going to be starting here about right now. And I'm going to have
our uh uh our community development manager, director, Bill Nuendorf, introduce them and start us off here with the uh assessment of all all of the um RFP proposers. >> Yes. Good morning. I just wanted to do to do a very quick intro to set the
context for for our special meeting this morning. Uh over the past several months uh we we issued an RFP, a request for proposal um to solicit interest from the real estate development community uh in the area for the city's old public work site on Eden Avenue. So of that initial
list uh as a group, the H board narrowed the field and selected and invited five different development teams to to learn more about. So we've invited each of those teams to join us this morning. uh we've told them they have 30 minutes to present their proposal and to answer
your questions. So the way we have that structured is uh we expect a presentation about 15 minutes or so from the team. Um and that leaves about 15 minutes for questions and answers uh from you. Um we're striving to to limit it to 30 minutes because we've got the
next team scheduled to be here in in in 31 minutes. So, um, uh, it will be a a revolving door this morning of presenters coming in and out. Um, our first team this morning, uh, in no particular order, they were selected at random just to to, um, to get the
schedule put together. Uh, but it's a team made up of Hemple, uh, Monarch, uh, Jester Concepts, and Rooost Adviserss. And so, with that, I'll turn it over to the team, uh, to, uh, present their their proposal and and have some, uh, discussion with you. >> Right. Very good. Thank you, Mr.
Nundorf. Mr. Cater, welcome. >> Good morning, Mayor Hland and and council members. Appreciate the opportunity to come up and talk to you. I have some notes. I'll refer to them. I just was laughing this morning. My notes are very difficult to read. I was on an airplane writing these last night and we had a lot of turbulence. So, uh bear
with me a little bit here, but uh real excited to be back in front of you on this site. Um we've assembled a team here that I I think I think um the real u uh message here from our team is a number of principles here. I should step back. I'm the president of Hemple
Companies here, 800 Lasal Avenue. I'm a resident of West Dina. Um, our teammate, our team here, uh, includes not only Hemple Companies, a local real estate firm, but Monarch Development Partners, another local development company that specializes in for sale housing in the Twin Cities here. And then Jester
Concepts, um, if you're not familiar with them, they they they own and operate Starling Restaurant, Any Dina, and a number of other restaurants in the Twin Cities. And um this team is comprised of principles that have done thousands of units of for sale and for rent housing all over the Twin Cities. You can tell by looking at
me, I've been in the business for quite some time. U and I've I've literally developed probably 3,000 rental and for sale uh units in in my tenure here in in the Twin Cities. Um this team again, many of its principles live in in
Western Adina. And um I think our our our initial reaction in responding to this RFP is coming from a place of trying to help build this side of Edina out and create a neighborhood here, something special. It's got all the makings of a neighborhood with retail surrounding it, walkability, uh good
access. Um there's some important things happening. You put a great I think a great roundabout and you I know Opus is proceeding with the project across the street. So, it has the makings of um a truly mixeduse area that's walkable and that excites us. Um we also have on our
team Pete Castroski as an adviser to us, a ROOS. He's also an eer resident and so I think have many collective years of experience both in housing uh in Dina and um as local residents here. Um our
plan highlights we we have proposed 70 forale town home and condominiums here and about 7,500 ft² of retail and um we in this particular case um we we we we believe that the forale product really
meets what the market wants. I think you've seen this has been a very difficult time in the marketplace to deliver forale housing and Edina doesn't really have a lot of available land left. So, we think this is a really good opportunity to provide either a step up for people trying to get into Edina in a
town home setting or maybe a step down out of a single family home and into something as a transitional a way to stay in Edina um and and and turn over their single family home. The retail here would be family oriented uh restaurant, which is a nice blend. There's there's a lack of uh quality
restaurants in Westy Dina anyways for the far Westy Dina residents. Um there's olives over on the far edge of Edina here and and and hopefully and I know Brent will do something great here but hopefully we can have the chance to put together something that's family oriented in this side of Edina as a
complement to Hilltop which has done quite well through the years. Uh we do plan to deliver 10% of our units uh to meet your inclusionary housing goal here. So that's seven units out of the 70. Uh Carl Runk here who's the principal at Monarch will talk a little bit more about the the housing
plan. Um, as I said, we see ourselves uh working with you to create a small neighborhood here that that uh is very desirable. I think it's a real opportunity. I'm a big fan of infill development. I've been doing it throughout my career here in the Twin Cities. Um, I also want to make a point.
Uh, ownership here is is obviously owner occupied units. We think that's just a completely different feel than renter a renter neighborhood. It it creates more ownership, a sense of belonging for people. So, we're excited about the energy that owner occupied units would bring. And you'll you'll note on our
plan here, we get into the detail, we have really seven cluster buildings. Six of them are housing. And I want to just talk a little bit in in my remaining time here about why. Um, first, first of all, that I was back on the site some time ago with a different firm I ran for
years looking at one large building. And this clustered approach allows us to deliver higher quality units uh in more units uh as a percentage of the total project. So imagine six buildings will have 24 corners versus one large building that would have four corners.
That means a lot more units get two sides of glass. And we think that's really important. Wouldn't be as important in a rental situation, but in an ownership situation, people think about it. They their first home, they want something that isn't just a rental, you know, basically feels like an apartment. So, it really feels different
to have two sides of glass and your and your ownership. It's very walkable this neighborhood where you can walk up to your front door as opposed to walking one main door. So, it's more personalized with this cluster of buildings. A a second a second thing I want to point out is there's a slope on
this site and um our our concept works with the slope um as opposed to having to try to amalgamate a a level grade and have a monolithic single structure on the site. So, one of the most uh uh uh exciting things about this and our plan
for me was to be able to build something that will have a broken up roof line, different looks, and um generally be of high interest. And that's what homeowners are looking for. Um if it was delivered in one big format building, in our view, it would feel like a rental community. So, just creates more of a
neighborhood by by breaking that up. And I I would uh I definitely want to make the point it also makes it easier to finance and phase than trying to deliver one large building. In today's environment with financing markets where they're at, it's very hard to pre-ell 50
to 60 units to closure financing. So we can build these projects one or two buildings at a time as we sell units up front and keep this project moving along. Um, we have set aside green space in our plan and we have also avoided access
from Aadia Avenue. Um, I'm frequently uh run through Aadia Avenue to Hilltop for breakfast in the morning. I I probably see many of you there from time to time and uh we we don't want to exacerbate what will probably be an increasingly uh busy road there as other developments
proceed. Um, back to the restaurant, that's an integral part of of the community. It creates another amenity on site. Um it creates some some excitement and a reason to be here and a way for people to walk to and from uh their their owner unit either to this restaurant with Brent or across the
street to Hilltop. He'll talk about that a little more. And last my last point here before I turn this over is uh you know this team is does see ourselves being local working with the city here. We're not a national developer coming in here to try to do it our way. We view this as a partnership trying to put
something together that works for the city as well. So I vow to you that we will be flexible, transparent partner with you and uh work work with you to achieve your goals as well. So I'm going to hand this off now to Carl Runk. Carl um is what I call a marvel at developing
forale town homes and condominiums. He's been doing many of these units in the in the western suburbs. He'll talk about that. Um and uh with with that car would just step up and follow me. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scatter. Before uh Mr. Runk starts, I just wanted to thank your
whole team uh as I will with every other team for being interested in this site, being interested in in in Edina as a potential development area. And I I think, you know, it's it doesn't get lost in us that there's time and expense involved in all of these efforts on your
part. And here you are competing with several other companies, other groups um for potentially redevelopment of this site. And we're greatly appreciative of everything that uh you all do to uh show your interest in being here and your
creativity uh in that in that regard. >> Thank you. Yeah, we're passionate about this and we see the potential of the Grand View site to be seen to fruition here. Um again, I'm Carl Ron. I was going to flip to slide here.
I'm just speaking about um my own experiences in the owner occupied um development space. Uh the most recent project I I just opened six months ago is working really closely with the city of Excelsier to redevelop their city hall and parking lot site in their downtown. And that's the middle image if
you can see uh where there's row house. It's broken into seven buildings, not one building with row homes um and then uh apartment residences there in that case and public parking and green space. And so it really took the scale um down to fit in with that historic context of
Excelsier, which is similar to what I did on the picture right below that of the town homes and and the where the North Loop historic district in downtown Minneapolis by the river uh several years ago on that project called Maverick North Loop. And then uh condominium residences I have under construction right now in downtown
mound. You can see with that boat in front of it. Uh those are look like town homes but they're actually onele living because there's a lot of people looking at uh one level lifestyle versus a two-le or threele. Um and then the the 11 condo tower which was um uh built on the riverfront by the Guthrie Theater a
few years ago uh was something I spent a number of years on um to really understand the owner occupied housing space. Is that the city manager's boat out next here right above there? uh regarding our our site plan that Bill was highlighting. I'll just echo some of the themes in here that again we're
breaking this down and there's seven buildings proposed and it steps up with a dramatic change in the height elevation starting with an activated corner with Brent's restaurant uh that really follows the guidelines of the district seeking to activate this area and then two to threetory town homes
that will line um Arcadia on that side that are walkups. You know, you can picture walk up units. It's like brownstone type units. And then towards the north side of the site, four-story condos with in between them a grand staircase and green space that connects to the Grand View pathway and over to
the Grand View garage and Jerry's and all the retail and restaurants around here. So, it's intended to be a village and very walkable. Um, and there's a a driveway that separates from the railroad burm uh that brings residents up from uh Eden uh to our motorc court
for a gracious sense of arrival to the lobbies in each of these buildings uh for residents. Um, so we're still early in our process in terms of the exact floor plans and the exact unit sizes and types, but we are picturing a variety here that'll attract einer residents seeking to downsize into either uh into
a town home as a step from a house or condos if they want one level living. Um, so we we think we're appealing to a wide variety here. Um, you know, in terms of design, we're not into that yet. So, if we're selected, we'll work with you and work with the market and realtors in Dina
here to what exactly the taste and preferences are for these finishes and floor plans to build to today's standards. Um, and then like the president examples you see are more of a modern amenity, modern uh aesthetic, and that might be the direction we take it, but it's too early to tell yet in terms of but open floor plans, oversized
windows, there's a lot of things that we'll take into consideration here for maximizing daylight and quality of life for residents here. Uh with that, I'll turn it over to uh Brent Frederick here. >> Could on the housing, could you just comment quickly on how you accommodate the parking with the
>> um Yes, good point. Mayor, uh there's a parking uh deck proposed with this the slope of the site. It it lends itself to having a parking deck that's one level with the homes and green spaces above that. So, we're picturing private GR. You drive into these little driveways.
You can see there on the left side where the driveway is, the main driveway into private garages. And something I've done in my projects, all my condo projects and town projects is even if it's a a public garage, it feels like like a concrete garage, you have private twotory, two-stall garagees you go into
as a homeowner. So, we're picturing that that you're driving into this and you drive into your personal garage and then upstairs to your unit or into the elevator to get to your unit in that case. But that preserves a lot of green space on that that first floor. And that first floor really ties out with Arcadia
Avenue more in terms of the elevation changes on the site is what we have in mind right now. >> And there'd be tandem garages. >> Uh not tandem, no sidebyside stalls. Um in terms of um >> Well, each unit would have two garages. >> Each unit would have two stalls. Yeah. That the market requirement um is two
stalls per unit for this type of product >> in that case. So that's what we would want to seek to deliver here with each town home and each condo. Does each one of those then require a curb cut onto Arcadia? >> Uh, no. We're proposing zero curb cuts on Arcadia. We're proposing that everyone enters off of a new uh a curb
cut that's off of Eden Avenue there. >> Uh, that's next to the railroad burm that you're driving up next to the railroad burm and entering into the different resident entrance points >> that Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'll turn to Brent.
>> Okay. I am happy to be quick. Uh good morning everyone. My name is Brent Frederick uh owner of uh Gesture Concepts. We own about seven uh different locations throughout Minneapolis Dina and Excelsier. Um we
are proposing uh a restaurant site here that um has a nice patio. Uh it has uh access to the public green space. Um, while the patio might show kind of that south east, uh, southeast plan, I think
there's potential to flip it more towards the the public space. Um, as you may or may not know, uh, we were initially chosen for, uh, the original uh, proposal of the site. We were in the middle of the site doing the restaurant pad. We had a lot of activation for the
public space plan, programming for that. That still continues. Um, we believe strongly in a in a in a green space, a public space as well. Um, we believe that we have the parking as well to support this restaurant as well as maybe
somebody who wants to come walk their dog in that public space too. Um, we also envision um kind of a multiconcept uh restaurant site while predominantly I think most of the square footage will be taken up as a family restaurant. concept
still to to be determined, but it'll be approachable and it'll be family friendly. Um, but I think we also see a graband- go component here. Maybe a smaller kind of a square square footage, maybe uh maybe more of a bakery, maybe a a coffee pastry spot. Um something for
not just the residents in the area, but anyone in Dina to park, grab a pastry. We feel like this site is really walkable and you can walk within as long as you're not walking on people's, you know, private property. But, um, there is this kind of navigation throughout the space that was that existed in the
old plan as well. So, I think there were some elements we tried to incorporate from the old plan that um that most of you really enjoyed um on the on the old site and the old plan. We we incorporated them here. So, um I will
answer any questions if you have them. >> Thanks, Mr. Frederick questions from Mr. Frederick at this point in time. >> Yes, Commissioner. >> Um, yes. Thank you. Thank you all for uh this proposal. It's very interesting with the restaurant. Um, one of the things that we hear quite frequently is
there's no place for teenagers to go. When you say familyfriendly, is that something that would you have some things at a price point where teens could go after a football game or if they want to go out in the afternoon? >> Yeah. Um, I have two kids at OG and one at Benild. So they they were influential
in in speaking with me about this project a little bit. Um they they go to Jerry's quite a bit. They just walk up the hill and they're like, "Dad, can you build something just right there?" I'm like, "I'm sure we can incorporate something." So the family friendly will be truly familyfriendly. It'll be very
approachable. Um I think we'd like it to be open at least lunch through dinner and brunch, maybe breakfast. Um we'll we'll just kind of see how that goes. But um we're flexible at this time on what that concept would be. So yeah,
>> thanks. >> Okay. >> Anyone else that you want to >> Yeah, I've got some I check with him if he has any other presenters. >> Your honor, we're running about uh we've got about 10 minutes left. >> Okay, good.
>> Hi, I'm Pete Gastroski. Um I'm the co-founder of Brokos Adviserss. I've been doing commercial real estate advisory work here in the Twin Cities for almost 20 years. Uh born and raised in Edina. Now I'm raising four little girls about a mile and a half from this site. I've worked with everybody on this team for a long period of time. Helped
Brent originally with the original uh Jester concept at the previous site as well. Um, so just wanted to say our excitement for this site, how much it means to us and our community in particular that this is something that we look at, most of us here being a diner residents is a place that we want
to make sure is right for a long-term success of the project as a whole. And I think our team with everyone's background is is uh extremely well positioned to make sure that we're partnering with you and delivering what the city of Vana actually wants and needs because it's directly affecting all of us as well too. So, I'll answer
any other questions as well. Otherwise, as a team, we can address any things that come up. >> Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Kstroski. Stand by. I think we'll probably have some questions. Uh, Commissioner Agnu, >> thank you. And thank you all for the presentation this morning. Um, my question is is more so when looking at
the overall site, um, you talked about kind of being able to go building by building to phase into it. if you could walk through like which ones you would start with and then as you're kind of tackling that approach, how would you pivot or what would you think about as
potentially a plan B if you know maybe the first three of the buildings get financed and purchased and and market changes pivot? >> Those are great questions. Uh Commissioner Agnu, um you know, my quick reaction to that is the site probably
breaks up into two develop kind of development pieces. the southern half with the restaurant and then the northern half. Um, so I think a pivot could be something that's unique to and I I don't know if you can see where I point here, but I I really think the first three residential buildings in the
restaurant want to be developed as close as possible to the same time and those may be second or first. So I think we just have to get into those details. And then the north half of the site up against uh the walkway um that's an important connection. Um, so there's an
argument to start there first. Um, so but short answer, it is going to probably be in phasing, probably two phases, and I'm not quite sure which phase goes first yet. Yeah. >> As a segue on that um question.
Uh, let's talk a little bit about the um the financing the project summary. Uh, one of your pages. Uh, on your initial proposal, you had said that the total land purchase price would be 4 million. I'm assuming I'm assuming you're not thinking the city or the H would be paid
in phases. It would be something that you would take down, purchase, and then you'd develop it uh as you described to Commissioner Agno. >> That's our intent. Yes. >> Okay. And you won't you wouldn't need any public financing to make this? >> We've not asked for any.
>> Right. Uh Commissioner Risser, >> I just have one question, but first I want to point out what I really like. I love that there is no driveway off of Arcadia since it's such a steep slope and that was a big concern. So, thank
you for just having one driveway. Um, I really appreciate the logic of having that along the railway. I think that makes so much sense. Really like the four units. Um, I think that is so important and something that we need.
Uh, when I first looked at the stairway going up, I love that connection connection. Um, part of me was thinking about all the slopy pathways that the original thing had. Um, and but the the reality is that pathway across the pedestrian bridge only takes you to the
upper deck of the Jerry's parking ramp. And you know, you can't really exit that space if you're pushing a stroller or so. I there's something very honest about that, I think. And it sort of tees things up like you need to be
able to go upstairs. Um, there's a lot that I really appreciate. I think the restaurant on the corner makes a lot of sense. I can see, you know, kids going there before school, after whatever, depending on how it's open. The one question that I had is
that in our initial sheet, it said time to close was one to two years. And then as I look at the information I'm getting today, a different chart said one to three years. And I'm thinking, does that just reflect kind of all the stuff going on now?
>> Three years would be far too long. Um, you know, we'll uh Mayor Hufflin said this really well. We'll have costs. Uh, we call them pursuit costs in our business, putting plans together and advancing through the city process. I we don't want to pretend that we can move this quickly through the city process. I
think it'll take some time to make this look and feel the way you want it all to feel. you own the site. So, um you're the significant stakeholder here as the land owner. Um so, I think that's probably the better part of six to nine months in that process. Could go a little longer with neighborhood meetings
and such and then I think after that the project should start. So, I would say three years would at least would would encompass at least the first phase being built and completed. >> Great. And I thought I heard that there were um opportunities for single floor
living. Did I hear that correctly? That's that's right. We thought a variety of of home types was important here. So the condominiums on the north side, you see those two buildings are one level single level condominium units for sale. The town home units are two to three story vertical units in that way
of multi-level living like other new homes on have been built around. >> And then one last comment. I I feel like you're really appreciating the site for what it is and it is a very complicated site. I also feel like so often we get designs coming to us that appear to be in a bubble and
don't acknowledge what's around it. And this really feels like it developed in a way that was informed by the context. So, thank you for that. >> Yeah, thank you. That was our our thinking on that. >> And I think it's fair to say it took us some time to get to that conclusion. >> Yeah, >> we we went through about six plans to
get to something that we all felt good about. >> Well, thank you, >> Mr. Jackson. >> Yes, thank you. So, I want to kind of follow off that. So, with the condominiums, um, I'm concerned about the slope. You know, it's a funny site and right now there's a big hole in the ground. So, with the condominiums, will the parking
be underneath so that you don't have to haul in a lot of earth to to get it up to that walkway? >> Correct. Yeah. There with a 38 ft difference uh from the southside, north side, there's a lot of elevation to work with to build the parking with what's with a hole today and then go vertical from there for the condominium units.
And we do have in mind having walk out units to the Grand View pathway with terrace and steps. So those residents who like that, you want to have dogs or pets, they can walk right out to Grand View from their unit. Is there idea on the condominiums on the north side? >> Okay, terrific. And then a question I'm going to ask everybody, do you have a um
estimate of how much permeable surface is here? >> Uh at this time, uh Terry Manar, who's our landscape architect and planner, uh we haven't calculated that, but um there's not as much hard surface here because of putting the parking underground beneath the town homes and putting the green spaces above the
sidewalks. So, it really emphasizes, as you can see, a lot of green and landscaping in that case, but we'll we could follow up as if we're selected to tell you exactly the permeable versus impermeable. >> Well, I'm glad you considered it. Um, and I'm going to ask everybody that same question. So, all right. Thank you very much.
>> Other questions from Yes, Commissioner Agnu. >> Back to you. >> One clarification just because of like the iconic picture you have here. All resident parking is tucked underneath without the ability to see kind of those
individual garages. And the only like real surface parking or visible parking is probably visitor parking that I'm seeing up in the north west. Well, no, I'm all misoriented, but and then the the restaurant parking. Is that correct?
>> Yeah, that that's correct by design. We we thought this is a better plan that you're not seeing, you know, lots of garages that you're you're seeing uh resident, you know, a gracious sense of arrival to the motor court with resident guest parking right there. >> Yeah, definitely my preference. So, I appreciate that element. Thank you.
>> Yeah, Commissioner, go ahead, Commissioner Jackson. >> Yes, thank you. So, one of our goals is sustainability. Tell me what um what you might incorporate um geothermal or any kind of specific um environmental
um that's a goal of ours. It's too early yet, but you know, you know, energy efficient building systems and native landscaping species and storm water management strategies. There's a lot of strategies that we'll consider. It's just too early yet for us to tell you exactly Yeah. what we're thinking. >> Terrific. Thank you.
>> Will that 10% uh mix uh for for affordability be both town houses and condominiums or >> Yes. Yeah, that's our proposals. That's within the town homes. Um there would be the 10% of the units and then within the condominiums 10% as well.
>> Okay. All right. Uh and then uh I like this, you know, that kind of common drive value used along your railroad tracks. I think that's a nice way to get some separation from the from the from the track. >> That is a consideration of ours that tracks being used more and you know
acoustics and you know Wisetta has a train track going right through the town. you might know of lots of condominiums have been um built and sold there and so we're taking that into consideration here as well and trying to buffer these residents from the railroad there. >> Yes. One place you can see some of the
creativity you've had in the past, Mr. Runk, is down at the down at the 11 where you worked. It's a it's not an easy site to work with either, but you put quite a remarkable building up there. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Might space. Um
so another thing that uh you know my colleagues have talked about some of the things I like about it this whole notion of uh creating kind of a um neighborhood feel and I think one of you described it as a village is where you ended up with from a concept standpoint. I wonder if
you might comment on that that a little bit more. Well, I I think the village comes from uh first of all um everybody having a direct entrance into their building, so it's more personalized. I think it also uh Mayor Hlin is from having owner
occupants here. I I just it'll be it'll just feel differently. The the other thing, and I I'm I'm sort of speculating on this, but I believe we're going to get firsttime home buyers. I if you look at the world we're in, it's very hard for people to get into their first home now. And so, um, without saying this is
affordable housing, the market rate units, it kind of is a way of delivering something more affordable to first-time home buyers, I think you're seeing more town home development across the metro to to provide that first ownership to to people. I also think it's a good transition for people. I mean, my wife
and I are empty nesters in three years. We have a girl finishing up at Edina, and I I can't imagine we'd move into one big building with 150 units. Um, I think we would move into a town home and our preference is of course to stay in Edina. And so I think we're also
providing some generational uh housing for folks that that want to stay in the community, be a part of the community, but but but don't want the uh, you know, big single family home anymore, don't need it, right? So that creates a village. Just having a different age demographic, I think, also creates an a
point of interest in any neighborhood. Right. >> Mr. Chair, we are out of time. Okay. I had one more question, but that's that's fine. >> We would encourage you to um if if we're selected to tour, you know, projects um that we've done, you know, around the metro as examples that for this site and
the the what we did there. >> So, thank you again. >> Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Runk. >> Have a good day. >> Thanks, Mr. K. Frederick, it was good to see you. Mr. Kstroski, good to see you. Our
next presenter just arrived and we'll be here in just a moment. All right. all times. I must have missed the one >> if you'd really want to. Exact. Somebody else riving you for here. As we transition, it'll be um we have
everybody's scheduled, so there might be a little bit of a few moments of downtime. Um our next team is Opus Development Group. Um their uh their proposal will be presented in just a moment and I don't want to steal any of their thunder. Um uh but uh uh Nick is
here this morning with his team. Their architect is also going to uh is also going to join. And actually we're running about two minutes ahead of schedule. So um we'll let the team kick off, introduce
themselves. As with all teams, um we have about a we have 30 minute time slot for you. Sure. We're uh anticipating about 15 minutes for your presentation to learn more about you and your proposal and that leaves about 15 minutes for question and answer uh and discussion amongst uh the H board uh for
you uh about your proposal. >> Perfect. >> So um Mr. Neil is our timekeeper. Um if you see him uh giving you the side eye or a big sign uh that means that you're getting very close to your time limit and your presentation is preloaded for you and uh we're looking forward to learning more.
>> Best of uh Podium mic, whichever one you prefer. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> And Mr. Neil will not be bashful about giving you a head. >> I'll keep an eye out over here. Uh well, good morning. Great to see you all. Good to see you, Mr. >> Nick Mahan with Opus. Great to be back
here. Uh I've got Jay Fornier with Opus as well uh here. And we do have one more coming. Bob Loken from ESG. Apologies that he's a few minutes late. Uh you'll recognize Bob. Uh he was part of our team as well for uh the Arcadia building across the street. So, um, we're going to dive into our concept here, uh,
rather quickly, but, um, won't spend a ton of time. You guys are familiar with our team, um, the Opus and ESG team. Everybody on our team had, uh, some involvement in either the apartment building or the office building across the street. So, we're obviously very intimately familiar with the area, uh,
understand the small area plan and some of the vision of, uh, the residents of the council of, um, planning commission. So, I think we um looked at it from that light and said, you know, what could we do on this site that really enhances um the streetscape, enhances the
neighborhood, and and is something that's really a need in this area. So, um with that, we'll just kind of jump in and uh Jay, feel free to jump in at any time as well. Um complicated site as you all know. Um we've got some grade challenges from kind of uh north to
south and um ultimately when we looked at it we felt that creating this neighborhood vibe within uh this Grand View district was really important. We know that now we've got an established office building across the street that's going to be going in. We've got um Avdor
uh to the west and it felt like how could we look at some options of housing on the site that uh had some density but wasn't too overly dense and really felt like a neighborhood feel. So we really looked at optimizing uh the grade as best as we could. Uh the challenges of
the um the grade and the the new walkway to the north um and just how much we drop from north to south. we started looking at it and saying how can we maximize access to the site parking as well as um different types of housing uses. So, as you'll kind of see in in
these um plans, and I'll let maybe Jay talk a little bit from an architectural standpoint, we really wanted to uh control the massing as much as we could that we felt was appropriate with what's going on in the area. So, you'll see different levels stepping down um twostory uh spaces, but the majority of
the site, if you want to just jump back to the site plan. Oh, that's a good one. that one works. Um, majority of the site is is focused on different uh levels of density of housing. So, I'll call it the south twothirds of the site. Um, ultimately, um, you'll see is kind of,
uh, bifurcated by the drive aisle there. Everything south of that is, um, different levels of housing, different, uh, types of housing that really, I think, complement each other well and try to create this neighborhood feel. We we know that along Arcadia we want the wider sidewalks, the heavy landscaping,
the kind of boulevardesque um approach. So that's how we looked at the south twothirds. I'll let Jay talk a little bit about that. And then on the north side, maybe we'll talk about the housing first and we can come back to that. But on the north side of the site, we uh we looked at maintaining a uh a
large green space uh as well as a retail restaurant component. So, we'll touch on that second, but I'll let Jay and Bob, uh, you're all familiar with Bob Loken from ESG as well. Um, I'll let them talk a little bit more about the architecture on the site. >> Yeah, thanks, Mr. Man. I I forgot to do
something at the very beginning, and that was to thank all of you for being interested in this site. You know, we're all excited about the new headquarters for Opus Across the Street and know that'll be starting soon, and we're interested in seeing how that interacts with the bridge work >> and the movements around the area. But
nonetheless, we're really happy to have you there from a corporate headquarters standpoint and and your long kind of association with ownership and other families in Edina. But but special thanks to you for being interested in
this site as well and and taking the time and and and absorbing the expense that you did to make a presentation and compete with others for uh the work to be done on this 3.3 acre site. So, thanks for that. >> Yeah, thank you very much. We're very excited as well about uh both this project and the project across the
street and look forward to kind of diving into that more. So, thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. I think I'm going to touch real quickly on we know that as as Nick touched on the the importance of the Grand View framework plan and how that carries through in the the multiple
years that the city has been working to really grow this in a methodical and way that really delivers for what the city's interests are. And so a lot of things that Nick was touching on that we wanted to reinforce with the site plan aspects were utilizing the Grand View garage and
the new pedestrian link over um from a parking standpoint. The on the north pushing that retail commercial opportunity to the north end of the site where you can kind of see the arc here um if that's a a building or a private park or whatever that might turn into.
Um, but really activating that more commercial feel closer to Hilltop, closer up to the Grand View retail commerce area. And then the prominade going down Arcadia. We know we want a wide street, walkable, bikable really make this somewhere that invites all of our neighbors into this area and really
doesn't push them away. And the scaling of the buildings are supporting that. And then again, the the neighborhoods within it. So we have kind of that commercial node on the north. We have that kind of central green between the town home row homes here in the middle of the lot. And then as you get down to the south end, a little bit more
density, a little bit more kind of urbanization that'll match kind of the density of the new headquarter building across the road. I'll let Bob maybe touch on the architecture and then we can take some questions. >> All right. Thank you. >> Great. Thanks for having us. I'd also like to thank the the council and the
mayor and Bill for creating this unique brief. It's it's fun as an architect. Often the brief we get is um please put as much density as possible within some certain height limit and you end up with a very blunt blocky building. Knowing
that that wasn't really the case here, it was it was refreshing to be able to to sort of look at this with new eyes and and really create some some interesting architecture and provide some some really rare um almost missing metal um housing types. So, the thing
that we really appreciated about um about this brief was um you know the the um the emphasis on different different heights of buildings, different styles of buildings. And we tried to embrace that everywhere from um a multi-story
apartment building that's that's a little more um conventional to town homes with detached garages, um walk up flats with tuck under garages. um just a lot of a lot of variety. And and the other thing that we really had fun with
was just um changing the the you know varying the top of the architecture um to provide something that looks it looks a little bit more accretive like it might have been designed or built over time rather than rather than one giant development that was just sort of landed
like a UFO. Um and then embracing the Grand View um development framework. We really focused on trying to activate those street frontages even though um the the majority of the street frontage is primarily housing. What we tried to do was put as many doors on the street
as possible with um with outdoor stoops and patios, ways for to to really enliven that street and try to make it into a neighborhood. Um and then obviously the the the kind of the mystery object here is the is that north portion of the site, the the that
commercial area. Um, and we've got we've got broad vision for that, but I think we'd really love to hear more from from this body what what your aspirations are. I think I think the the inspiration for us was knowing um the ambitions that
the city has had for this site over time. Like that site has always been earmarked as a as a public uh site. Um, and so what we tried to do was knowing that the knowing that the city was more interested in a in a private uh development there, what we tried to do
was envision um a commercial space that could also serve some of those civic goals like gathering um for a variety of different groups and ages and income levels. And the thing that we kept hitting on was um
recreation, whether that be sort of light recreation from, you know, botchi ball or or bags, maybe even to um something a little bit more more physical um and and outdoor focused. So that was the vision for that.
>> Thank you. >> Excuse me. I think the only thing I'd add uh to Bob's uh notes on the north is that um you know at the highest level I think the idea is some sort of restaurant, some sort of uh component that um has that indooroutdoor feel and
these are really representative images that we felt could represent something unique and something different that uh really takes advantage of some of that private green space that also serves the public. So how can we look at what that ultimate use is that um that kind of caters to both of those needs. So these
are some repres representative images of other projects that we've seen done very well and I think it it it shows just how you can kind of have both the public or um public using the space but also having that private user there as well. So and then this just gets a little bit
deeper into uh showing some of the density on the site as well. Also, Bob talked a lot about the different um housing uses, and I think that's something that we're really excited about is instead of just throwing one building on there that just kind of is is a typical apartment building, this really gives you an opportunity to break it up and to have a lot of different
offerings for the neighborhood. So, you've got more of the traditional building to the south, some of the town homes and flats, uh the tuck under garages. I think it's a really unique way to look at stepping down. Uh, as you all know with the grade challenges, we uh really tried to focus on how could it how could it feel like it really fit in
the site and and was meant to be there as opposed to um just a building that kind of built into the grade. This I think does a really nice job of stepping down. And then I think this image on the top just kind of shows a really rough idea of of that north parcel and how you could possibly look at it. That that can be very flexible. And I think that's
what's exciting for us is just seeing what the market dictates knowing that um you don't want to force it. You want something that that the market wants to see. So we show the building there. That building could grow. It could shrink. It could change shape. It could it could move east west. Um I think the
flexibility is really important for that to be successful. >> I think that is our last one unless we have anything else. Happy to answer any question. >> Let me turn to my colleagues. But uh let me ask you one quick question. when you when you made your initial submission
and um uh you you had a price point for the value of the property, the value of the land, I think was looking back in my m materials, it was 2.25 million, I think. Is that is that where you're still sit on that? >> Um yeah, I think ultimately the density would drive that. That's that's where we
felt was uh close to market. Um again, the lower density. Um open to discussing that in more detail as well, but that's that's where we drove to with some of the density that we're showing here today. It would be traditional financing that you would you would take care of. You're you're not looking for any public assistance.
>> Uh no. Um the the the north portion was one that we were curious about and hearing more about the private aspect of it and you know some of the parking involved with that. Um we we'd >> possibly open up that conversation if we had heard that hey this really wants to be more of a public park or you know
something like that. If it's truly private, um, we would we would obviously work to understand what that looks like, how we maintain that park. Um, but we did not assume that in our underwriting >> or or in your price point. >> Or in our price point. >> Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. Let me turn to my colleague uh, council
member or commissioner Jackson. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So um I'm going to ask first the questions that I'm going to ask everybody and that is um approximately how much permeable surface is this as a percentage of the site are we looking at? Oh and thank you
first of all thank you very much for the presentation. >> Welcome >> uh I think we didn't even calculate that necessarily um with this sort of quick burn exercise. If I had to guess I would guess that maybe more than half is is permeable. >> Okay terrific that and that's fine. And
I know this is really at the beginning. Um and then the other question is how are you going to um incorporate do you plan to incorporate sustainability aspects into this development? >> Yeah, of course. I mean um there's a lot of the the fact that the buildings don't
occupy the entire footprint allows some unique sustainable uh aspects that that a more dense project wouldn't. like the that open field could allow for um for some geothermal wells. Um that you know geothermal wells had been becoming more
and more viable until recently but who knows the pendulum may swing again and they may become more viable. The technology is getting better and better. It's it's just a matter of tax incentives. And then obviously um uh rooftop PV every I think everything we've designed with Opus is is at least
um PV ready if not um having having PV. >> Thank you. And then the when we initially looked at this um the big stumbling block for me in moving it forward was that it is all rental. Can you talk about whether um this could be
um a rentto- own situation or in the future making it an ownership opportunity? >> Sure. Um and we we had had some conversations with Bill about that as well. Um we are looking at what those options look like for either a ownership
option at the very beginning or to your uh to your comment uh possible conversion down the road. And and a big port part of that would be which portions and which buildings are um a type a concrete construction versus wood. That's usually an important uh
piece to conversion in the future is that it's difficult to convert wood to condos in the future. So looking at whether that's the buildings on the south facing OLG or maybe one of the one or both of the more town home and lofts, not the primary larger building, but the
the the two kind of in the middle of the site. Um looking at concrete construction for those, which I I think uh really lends itself well to that row home, town home feel anyway. Um you know, you get maybe two, three levels or a two level with a tuck under garage. Um
so we're we're certainly open to it. um on the on either the front end or uh long-term conversion. Uh the the rent to own is probably not something that um that would work with traditional financing. Um but it's something that we would certainly look into. It's probably
one or the other for us of ownership upfront or possible conversion in the future. >> Okay. But it's certainly something you're open to. >> We're open to it. Um yes. Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> Uh Commissioner and Commissioner Risser. >> Thank you. and thank you also for the
presentation. Um, the one thing that I also really liked is kind of a little bit of the the scaled back from a density perspective. So having the town houses, the row houses, I I think that that's a really nice element and at the same time based on the
presentation today, it feels like all housing, right? And I know that you're still kind of thinking through how to do that activation on the on the top side of it. And I think that that's going to be a really really important component. I'm also curious if there's any opportunity through the building
structure that's already defined here to have something that's even like maybe a two of those row houses on the first floor. There's a a small bakery or coffee shop or something to bring in more activation throughout the site for
the community. or are you really envisioning housing because you have excuse me across the street some of those other elements? Just talk to me about that. >> Yeah, it's a good question. We talked a lot about how to incorporate more commercial and in some ways and and just candidly the um the parking is probably
the biggest challenge. Um a lot of the uses you're talking about um typically require that head-in kind of parking. You know, somebody wants to park quickly, grab their coffee and go. And as much as um as much as we wanted to try to incorporate that, it was difficult on Eden and Arcadia because we
really looked at that hard corner and said, "Is there something we can do here?" And ultimately, it kind of drove that commercial to the north. And we ultimately landed on that. It felt like having that commercial at the north felt like the right area as you transition from OOLG and you transition up into what's already a commercial district.
Possibly an opportunity for some shorter term head-end parking up there. Um you know, a handful of stalls as opposed. But um I think the challenge with more traditional retail is that parking access um and just getting people there. If if there's nowhere to park, you can't
park on Eden, might not be able to park on Arcadia in the future. Where do you where do you go? Because the the walk from the ramps a long way. Um so I think ultimately driving that to the north is where we landed. And and ultimately that could be more than one user at the north as well. You could have, you know, a
building that you know, say it ends up being seven 8,000 square feet. You may have a coffee shop that takes 2,000 and a restaurant that takes five or or something in that mix that um I think would be great for the for the area and for the neighborhood, but I think in our in our mind it really want does want to
be on the north end. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Richer. >> Um I do want to point out a couple things that I really like. I like the central green for the town homes and I think that creates a nice community
space. Um and I had initially when I saw the plan and it's like future development I was sort of frustrated but um I do know and I tried to find the place where this happens but there are
cities in Europe that specifically set aside land for future development and I think that is really brilliant you know and so I've kind of flipped around on that a little bit. I see the logic of putting the commercial in the northern
area. Um, so that makes sense to me and I just wanted to acknowledge that I do see, you know, rationale and logic to not having that completely all buttoned up and everything. That's all I have.
>> Thank you. Um, looking at that initial proposal yours, you had uh some breakdown. I think you had um 10% affordable on the rentals and then 6% attainable. Is that still where you are? >> Yes.
>> On that? Y. >> Okay. Okay. >> Um and then just to be clear on the north end, you're open to some combination of public and private use, but that wouldn't affect your pricing valuation
at 2.25 private. >> Uh that that's accurate. I think the biggest question just is how does that space get used? And if it does become a much more public space, um, you know, how do we how do we build that out in a way that we're able to have a financially successful project? And
that's where possibly, you know, is it tiff or whatever it is that if it became a truly public space, you know, especially just the size of that space, that's something that we'd want to be able to talk about. But we are open to to many uses. And I think uh to uh Commissioner Risser Risser's comment um
identifying what it could be, having some really fun cool ideas, but calling it future because we really want to see what the market dictates so that we don't end up with that empty building that just sits there and we miss the mark, you know. I think that's really important. >> Yeah, makes sense. We understand that. Uh on the complimentary side too, I
would say uh good scale. Thank you, Mr. Architect. Good scale on both Eden and Arcadia. I thought uh recognition of the railroad tracks uh was handled in an interesting way. Uh a good trail connection through the site
um reasonable amount of density. I think that's one of the things that we're all sensitive to. You know, we we uh understand what you're usually asked to do and uh those are some of the things that I thought were really good about it. It
was overall really solid plan and we got we got kind of five different views of the world here that we chose to kind of drill down on a little bit deeper and uh and so we thank you for your view of what you see for this site and uh it
creates a lot of good thinking to be done on our need for a lot of good thinking to be done on our part about what direction we want to go. So thanks for that and we look forward to seeing you start across the street. >> Wonderful. Anybody have anything else? >> Okay, good. Thank you for the appreciate
it. >> Thanks for everything. >> We'll take a brief pause and I'll prepare the next team. Okay. Go ahead. >> All right. We are we are back. Uh we've have our third team this morning. Uh
Noir Companies, Wellington Management, uh and Collage Architecture. So with that, I will turn it over to the team. Uh they have just as with the other ones uh we have a we have 30 minutes scheduled. We've asked him to present for about 15 minutes. Um uh Mr. Neil's
our timekeeper. So if he gives you the side eye or the glance that means that you're at your 15 minutes. Um uh and then we've allocated about an additional 15 minutes for conversation, question and answer um and discussion um so that our H board can be fully informed as
they make their decision. And so with that, I invite you to uh well, number one, I welcome you and invite you to make your presentation. >> Good morning. Before you all uh start, I just wanted to thank you for participating in this process. It's uh it's time consumptive and expensive for
you. Uh and then you're, you know, it's not a normal sort of development situation where here you're competing with other companies for this potential work. And um and we just want you to know how much we appreciate uh that continuing interest and that willing willingness to commit those that time
and resources to this possible endeavor here as we go about this process of trying to figure out uh with these five distinctly different proposals all of which are are very well done uh who we might end up working with. So right off the bat I want you to know how much we appreciate your interest in this matter.
So thank you and welcome Miss Nor. Welcome. Thank you, mayor, and thank you for having us, and we're honored to be here. Uh, good morning, board members. My name is Noel No. I am the principal
of Nor Companies. We are the largest minority and womenowned development and construction firm in the Twin Cities. We're also an award-winning developer and contractor. some of our projects you've you might have seen.
I'm also your neighbor. I'm an Adina resident, proud Adina resident, and you are my council members and I appreciate your time and service. So, this project is more than just a development opportunity.
Our goal is to show you what we want to do from a vision perspective, but we're really interested in strengthening this community. Our agenda today is first we'll do introductions of our team. We'll share a
brief vision, our expertise. Some of you may not know us and what we've done, our financial capacity, and we'll close with Q&A. First, I'm joined by three exceptional partners, and I'd like for them to
introduce themselves. So, I'll invite my team members to the podium. >> Good morning, everybody. Steve Wellington, I own and uh am the CEO of Wellington Management. We celebrated a a 40th
anniversary last December, so we've been at this for a while. um sadly not really as deeply invested in Edina than we should have been. We should be have uh found an opportunity here many years ago, but we've uh
>> I thought I thought the same thing. >> Uh >> because your reputation precedes you. So, >> uh well, thank you. Uh we are, uh St. Paul based. I originally uh uh moved from Boston and after going to the Humphrey Institute, spent 10 years uh
working for the city of St. Paul when George Latimer was mayor. Uh quite an wonderful experience from years ago. Uh but then moved to the private sector in my mid30s just when the recession was coming which was uh actually a blessing.
You learn a lot in uh tough times. Um, we uh now have over a hundred buildings all in the Twin Cities. It's about a billion dollars, which every time I say that seems kind of out of the world uh because it started
with zero. and uh just myself. We have about 45 employees that um manage both the development work as well as the property management work because we do focus a lot of our attention on just operating the buildings because we tend
to have a habit of uh hanging on to properties rather than selling them to institutional owners. Uh those 100 buildings are uh comprise about 5 million square feet of commercial property. We have about 600
different tenants and uh,00 housing units. About half of that portfolio uh we built from ground up. So we're developers uh but we develop and then hold for usually forever. I think I need
a 12step program to learn how to, you know, liquidate things, but that's not our orientation. It is a familyowned company. son David uh joined us 10 years ago and he's the president. I'm the CEO. I'm not quite sure who's in charge, but
uh it's uh a great opportunity for the two of us to work together. Um we have uh 59 different investing partners, individuals who have invested with us. Um and uh in that in addition to that uh
I think we have 21 different commercial banks and insurance companies that we rely on for the mortgage debt. Um we have a you know a strong portfolio that has uh the ability to you know generate
uh investment capital every year. Um, and we think this particular project is a good opportunity for us to uh finally have an opportunity to work with you guys. I I I think your reputation does precede you. I'm not trying to buttering you up, but I as I observe
a variety of cities. We have properties in 23 different cities in the Twin Cities area. uh there's a lot of different character for the ways in which cities like yourself uh address uh new development and
redevelopment and uh I've felt that NDINA has been extremely creative and successful with um what uh some people from the outside would think would be easy. I don't think your uh
land use use uh and your redevelopment is at all simple or um uh something that just comes automatically to you. You've uh and your predecessors have done a really exceptional job uh making this
city special and continuing to regenerate the kind of energy that you need. You don't just sort of sit on your laurels and and say, "Well, we're all done." It's never done. It's uh and I think you're facing quite a lot of challenges right now that I'm sure you
as the HR are eager to uh be successful with. And we hope this particular parcel, which I know has uh been something that has uh been looked as a redevelopment opportunity for some time, there there have been some efforts that haven't been
successful. we are going to be very successful for you and we're excited uh in what we're doing. So I would like to comment also on Nal. She is a very good friend and an exceptional leader for her company and uh we uh have uh tackled a
number of things with her and we're very happy to be chosen by her to put us with her in this wonderful group. I would like to also uh identify uh one of our outstanding 45 employees. Casey
Jevachensky is our uh chief financial agent and uh officer and he's he's next up, right? Good deal. >> Thank you, Mr. Wington. >> Morning. >> Uh good morning everyone. Thank you for having us. Uh Casey Jevachensky. I've
been at Wellington Management for about eight years now. um started my career working for a nonprofit um lender um that worked all over the country both on commercial loans and affordable housing and from there uh went to work for the
city of Minneapolis for about four years working mostly in North Minneapolis um a lot of unique brownfield redevelopment projects and that's where I got to know the Wellington team Steve and uh his son David and um you know I was standing at this project site in North Minneapolis
apolis that was a old vacant dry cleaner and about 5 acres of vacant land. And they had these crazy ideas to redevelop this site uh when there wasn't really a market there. And I kind of said, well, this is kind of like the company I'd like to I'd like to work for someday cuz, you know, loved working at the
city, but I wanted to work for a company that was rooted in the community, had strong values, cared about their team, and did really great projects with cities like Minneapolis and Edina. So, uh, one day I got a call from their general counsel saying they were looking
for people to come join them and if I knew anybody, I should I should send them in a resume. And so I went home and said, "I I didn't want to ask, you know, in my office at the city. So, I'd love to get an interview." So, that was about 8 years ago. And um I've uh when I
started it was about um kind of coming out of you know we're out of the recession and um really took the opportunity with Steve and David to grow our housing portfolio. Uh working on some really challenging sites. Uh we've grown it from about 200 units in two
buildings uh when I started to now as Steve said over a thousand a thousand units. Um and it's been a great experience. you know, the work is great dayto-day, but it's really the people that you show up and go to work with that makes uh makes you want to go to work and work on really challenging
projects. And so, when uh we saw this RFP and started talking to Noal and Pete, it's like, you know, we got to sink our teeth in. And uh it's a it's a challenging site, but it's a great opportunity and and we're just excited to to be here. So, I'll turn it over to Pete and then uh we'll get actually into
the into the good stuff and look at the plans. >> Thank you. Uh good morning everyone. My name is Pete Keelley. Uh Collage Architects. Uh we've been around for 20 years. I've known and worked for Steve uh for probably close to 30 now. We're a housing firm. Uh that's what we do. Uh
we've done over 10,000 units of housing of all scales. Uh over a thousand of which are town homes, which you see here, the majority of the rest are kind of in the apartment world, as you well. So we'll see in this proposal. Uh everything from affordable on up to high-end um uh high-end luxury. But what
we're really proposing here is, especially on the townhouse side, is really more of a what we'd call attainable. We're coming off a project where we just completed in the Binmar neighborhood about 20 for sale affordable units that we're selling at about 500 to 600,000. It's not an easy thing to do. Um, so it takes some of the
expertise to figure out the best ways to deliver uh housing, really nice housing at a a really nice price. So with that, >> so we'll get into the meat of it, but I want to just share a brief vision of what we've presented here. Do you want
to go back to the main slide? Our vision is to create a mixeduse development with attainable town home ownership, quality rental apartments, groundf flooror commercial space, and beautiful public plaza that serves the
entire community. What sets us apart isn't just experience, and I'd like to share that a little bit more, and Steve did share, um, and I maybe I'll add a little bit to NOR companies because I didn't talk about it, but it's more importantly, it's commitment. We develop and invest for generations. And so this
project you'll see every decision Steve, David, Casey, and Pete and I have spent quite a bit of time looking at Edina. We view it we viewed it through a long-term lens because we are your partners. We think beyond the groundbreaking. And so
just briefly because I missed it with Nor Companies. We've done we have about 700 units of housing either under development of or have completed 240 of those are in development. So Pete,
>> thank you. And I'll kind of run through I think one of the first things we started out with the design and the idea of it was how do you build community and how do you build on that site? So what we really wanted to make sure is that these spaces opened up to the street, defined the street, created pedestrian
walkways, really create a great street experience, but also create public spaces and semi-public and private spaces. So you can see on the kind of the very north side, the pedestrian walkway, we do have this is kind of a a public area. We're seeing that as a place people can come and gather as
they're walking through. We've also located a commercial building. You can see that in purple on the very um northeast corner. That commercial worth thinking is a way to really kind of activate one that public park, but also the street. This is kind of right where you're coming in off the off-ramp. We
think it's got good visibility, good connection to the rest of the commercial core. So, we also think it's um really looking at a kind of commercial. It can draw a little bit of traffic through there. And so, as people are walking through, it becomes kind of the center of that community. We believe strongly that a little bit of commercial can
really create these communities so neighbors can come out have a place to be whether it's in the public park grabbing ice cream or coffee or whatever happens at that corner. Second to that the there's a courtyard right in the middle kind of the uh um circular building. That courtyard is semi-public
and so people can move through that. One of the other strategies that we really do, the um the cost of the site is going to be driven a lot by soils and grade. And so we really put a lot of time into trying to understand the best way to deal with the grade. So the building
acts as retaining walls. So on the north side, we basically have a two-story expression in the town homes. And I'll show some images real quick here. And on the back side of that, that building steps down. So we're making upgrade as this building terraces down the site. And then on the south side of that
apartment building that leads into the town homes. And the town homes then define the um the the public street. We've got uh basically a 1500 square foot average for those town homes. Some are going to be a little bit larger, some a little smaller so we can hit some of our pricing and attainability goals.
Larger on the uh street on Acadia, excuse me, and Eden. Uh and the middle units are a little smaller than the end units. So we're getting a range 1500's about the average. that gives us the ability to kind of get some price points down a little bit further. So, let's jump into some pictures. This is from
the um from Eden looking back up the hill trying to show kind of the street floor onto the vitality of the town homes along Eden. This also steps up the hill and you can see the kind of the larger multif family building in the back and we did this for a number of reasons. One to step down the hill. We
wanted to actually accentuate the hill, but then this also steps into the neighborhood. Um, and it gets good visibility for the multif family building. This is the multifamily building. You can see on the left hand side of that there's kind of a two-story portion. So, one of the things we've
done from a design perspective is carry twotory town homes, a two-story brick portion, twotory commercial portion, and a two-story town home portion as we wrap all the way around. So, we're trying to get a mix of scales and get two stories on the street for the most part. So, really kind of define that kind of um
pedestrian experience. You can also see through these two buildings is that semi-public um courtyard. It's it's open. It's just people can congregate in there. Um there's some trees, pretty lush landscaping. We believe that's really important on how you create community. put front doors at the
street, put places for people to gather, and put places for people to go to to gather as well, which is the commercial, which is right here. So, this is a two-story commercial piece that would open out, spill onto the street, and then into the kind of um I'd say the u
public green. This the public green. It's got kind of town homes facing that public green. So, again, that's that two-story portion that wraps towards the front. We see very defined places for people to gather, whether that's places to eat, uh, families, uh, area to maybe
play. And so we do see this and the mix of the town homes, the mix of the apartment buildings, um, within that as a way to gather kind of multi-generational uh, um, renters and owners from all scales. One of the real advantages on the multif family side is we can really
tune um tune into the market and the mix to create that community for demographic. That said, I think one of the important things is is how do you build community? We kind of said it from the beginning, but that's also coming back to what does the city want? We're willing to listen. We're willing to kind
of say, hey, what is it that we should provide here? I think one of the things in an RFP process, it's always hard to kind of hear what you want. So this is kind of our vision, but I think our vision is to create community in in collaboration with with you and the
stakeholders and the and the community. So that I'll turn it back to closing. I still remember um the design you you had for the uh old Best Buy site at 66 and uh >> yeah,
>> York. Uh >> yeah. >> Or um >> Mike Mike. >> Yeah. >> When he owned the property before he sold it to Kelly Dorne or you got involved. I mean the design you had over there was uh >> better than what's >> pretty special.
>> Well, I appreciate that. >> Apparently apparently unbuildable but very special. >> Well, there is a little bit of that but not at all. They had a different vision. That's for sure. >> Yeah. Um, so before the Q&A, we just kind of wanted to now that you've seen the drawings and the the vision, right,
that's going to continue to take shape. Just want to reemphasize kind of our ability, our team's ability to execute. Um, we're pretty small group. Um, but that we're also a creative group, right? Um, and we can get things done. you know, we've um in the past three years,
uh we've worked on about 500 or so um units of housing of new construction, and it's uh lit housing, so different than this. We've also done some market rate housing in that mix. Um so, we have we work on projects that are, you know, 50 million plus um that require both um
a bank loan um and private capital. and those LITC projects. I mean, I'm excited to work on this project because on the financing side, you know, it's a little simpler than a a 100% affordable project where you got to wait around four years to get all the capital to show up uh from the state and the tax credit
agencies and the investors, right? This is a little different structure. Um, but it's still um it's a big project and we're excited. And so, um, you know, in house at Wellington, we have a legal team. We have uh our VP of finance has been there for 20 years with deep
relationships um with the lending community in town, not to mention Steve and David uh roller a rolodex uh thicker than I think would fit on a a cell phone um hard drive. So, you know, we we know how to get projects financed. We know how to get them done. Um it takes a lot
of a lot of time and effort and and heavy lifting by kind of not only us um but also you. And so it's really, you know, me coming from working at a city uh where I kind of see the other side and what, you know, what do cities kind of care about and what do they look for? And part of this is not just picking the
proposal that pays the most money or has the best drawings. It's like who do you want to work with for the next couple years on this to close the deal and to start construction? And uh you know we Steve and David and Pete and all myself like we generally like sitting down with
city staff and council members and brainstorming and problem solving. And so this is you know this is why we show up. Uh we like doing this work. Um and we have the ability to get it done. So um as Pete mentioned, you know, one of the concerns or not concerns but challenges of this site is the soil and
grades. You know, we've already done a little bit of homework in the information provided on the website related to the geotech and some of the environmental. Um, we've had one of our contractors that we work on with mo most projects take a look at those geotech reports. Um, and just try to really give
us some thoughts and think about, okay, what is, you know, this is not just a a farm field we're bu building on, right? Like there's a lot of history here on the site. like Pete said, how do we design this building so we're kind of minimizing costs on the front end and that's where all the risk is really for the developers. You don't really know
what you're going to find in the dirt till you start digging. Um, so we've tried to be thoughtful about, okay, what does this look like? How do we minimize the amount of soil that we're hauling off the site in trucks to a landfill and how do we think creatively? We've done other projects where we pile 150 200
feet in the ground, right? and that's also has a cost, but it minimizes that impact um to the site and you get a building off the ground. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff that we got to dig into if we're lucky enough to be selected. Um but we're excited to take that next step.
>> Thanks. As the finance guy, I'm just going to ask you a quick question here. Uh some of the proposers uh restated the price they were prepared to prepared to pay for the property. >> Mhm. >> Some alliteration there. I didn't intend um uh but I didn't see that in your
proposal and so if you could comment on that plus the uh source of funds. >> Yep. So I think our original or our submitt um offered 4 and a.5 million for the site. Um, and that's, you know, again, based on the the density of the
site and, um, you know, like I said, there's unknowns in the dirt. And so that's, you know, we're kind of assuming, okay, we we only know so much right now. Um, but this is what, you know, if it's a buildable site, this is what we think we can pay to get the the deal done. I think in the in terms of
financing sources, um, you're you're looking at the checkbooks behind me. Um, and then in addition to that, like I said, we'll, you know, we partner. We tend not to go out and, you know, um, call big institutional firms on the coast and try to bring it bring in kind
of blind money. That's not really how we operate because then you're, you know, a long-term relationship, long-term holder. We're not trying to just bring in some temporary capital then to go flip it, right? So, we pro, we find equity partners, um, usually friends and
family. Um we work with smaller institutional offices or family offices where we actually know the people and um we just had um some investment partners um come into town um a couple weeks ago and we spent all day together walking one of our buildings and going out to
dinner and we have a relationship with those folks. Right. So that's the type of partnerships that we have in our projects. Um and then like I said we have relationships with you know all the the midsize community and large banks in town. Um, and so, uh, we know how to,
you know, pursue that piece of it, too. So, I think, you know, when we think about the capital stack, it's owner equity, construction financing that would eventually get to take out financing that could be a HUD loan or a Fanny and a Freddy loan, something like that, which we're doing, >> but no, no, no public, no city financing.
>> We're not proposing any tiff right now. Um, and you know, talking with Bill, I know that the, you know, those TIFF requirements would for affordable housing would trigger larger affordability requirements. So, I think that's something we're open to talking about if the city wanted to see more affordability. I think we kind of
proposed that 10% u for both the rental and the town homes, assuming that's, you know, meeting the city requirements. Um, and then I think obviously it's really, okay, what do we we need to do a little more exploration into the soils and and what what do those look like? Um and then I think you know we have experience
if there is a need for a public money going out to the state or the county um to seek a redevelopment dollars um to subsidize gaps too. So >> um another question I had was and you've been doing you work with Mr. Wellington
for eight years and he's been doing it for about 40. Just wondering if you've had a project like this where you've had a combination of rental and for sale on the same site and how they how that works out for for you for the
>> the interaction of those two concepts. >> Yeah. Um you know it's we've done some bigger sites in Blaine that was 100 plus acres where we developed some we developed most of the retail. We sold off some for apartments um and some for
for sale homes uh and town homes. And so we've done a mix um you know the the project Pete mentioned earlier in Bass Creek Valley, North Minneapolis, we have I guess 18 17 town homes um on one parcel adjacent to commercial building that we developed adjacent to two
affordable housing buildings that we've developed. So, um, you know, Steve, if you want to jump in anything I'm missing, but those are just a couple that come to mind. Um, so I, you know, I think this site is big enough at 3 acres and it kind of lends itself to that north side connected to the public plaza
with the south side that's, uh, you know, steps down in density as we move south. So, I think if it was a oneacre site, it would be a lot harder to accommodate that, but I think given the size and the way that it's laid out in the street grid, I think it it lends itself really well to that mix. Let me
go turn to my colleagues here. Commissioner, we have about five minutes left. >> Oh boy, I had three questions. Um, okay. I want to talk, I guess, to prioritize about um I guess when I'm looking at the
site plan, I think that that's a good visual. um to the to the left side of the page, what I'm seeing is it feels like a lot of parking and kind of surface um concrete potentially. And so talk to
me about whether there could be any opportunity to reduce that. And I'm looking maybe even particularly like town houses 16 through 21 if there could be an opportunity to eliminate that drivethru in the center. tuck that under
and give some more green space potentially throw in something like a community garden or residential garden like is that a possibility here? >> Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Um those we were targeting to be a little bit more on the attainable side. Anytime you structure parking that attainability factor kind of changes a little bit because
structured parking is expensive. I think it would be a great site. So we were we were focusing more on how can we get that price point below million rather than trying to make that great. if you came back and said, "We want more community gardens," we can certainly work that way. I think that's a great
asset. But that's why we that's why we're showing it the way we're showing it. >> Okay. And then to follow up on the the housing, the affordability and the attainable mix, um would those units and kind of looking at the side here, um would there be affordability at every
layer? Example, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units also within that range. I'm not by every layer in terms of the for sale on the town homes. Yes, the idea is the middle units would probably be um the uh more attainable than the end units. The end units tend
to want to be a little bit bigger. We're also looking at kind of a stacked flat situ situation so they're not just twotory town homes. So, they can maybe go stacked flats. Um and then the ones that are going to be there's always ones that are a little bit better than others. So that's where the range of the pricing comes in. But there would be
some affordability kind of or attainability kind of scattered throughout. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And then in addition to that, the apartment also has some and that's certainly uh meeting the city guidelines >> across the the range of the unit mix. Okay. And then last question is just
whether there's any opportunity to infuse more of the commercial or the community activation because I'm really just seeing it on that that lower edge. Did you look at any other areas? >> We absolutely did um parking kind of go
back to that u bugaboo but we actually buried the parking for the commercial under the building. So to the south side of that there's a opening in the public ramp. So, one of the things to address your point to open up the community space and get that and accessible parking was to provide that under uh
enclosed and so we would be happy to look at more um but parking and uh you know kind of green space kind of drives that. So, I think it would happen in the larger building. We did look at it at the southside as well, but it just took up a lot of space in terms of getting
cars to that location and there's not a lot of kind of off off-site uh availability. Uh, Commissioner Risser, U, >> this is a question I've been thinking about a lot. When we talk about affordable and attainable and then we
say the units and 60% of these are going to be 650 ft or less and so what is the price point for like a a 650 foot apartment? What do you see that being? Um I would say you know um market at at
this site market rate I think you know we'd have to we'd ab absolutely do a market study here too. I think you know for comparison we have um just market rate apartments um that we're leasing right now that are you know kind of in that um two700 range for about 5 to 700
square ft uh for a onebedroom. And then you know obviously if it's that's kind of market rate um it depends on the level of finishes right and whether it is income restricted or not. Um but I I would say kind of in that 16 to $1,800.
>> Thank you. >> Y for a onebedroom. >> Commissioner Jackson. >> Yes. Thank you Mr. Chair. I just want to say thank you for coming forward. I think my fellow commissioners have asked the questions but thank you so much for taking the time and effort to give us this proposal. It's very interesting.
Oh >> yeah, I I think I've asked everybody this. How much pvious surface are we looking at here? >> So we are at about 25% pvious and we've focused it's actually a little bit higher than that. That's not
counting some of the green spaces right around the town homes. So that was trying to be in the usable. So along the street frontages, within the courtyard, within the public space, so something that's usable, not just kind of leftover. >> Okay. And um are you going to be using green building techniques with this as
well? Is that your plan? >> I don't think we've quite gotten to that level, but um we'll do best kind of certainly best on the industry side whether we're going to go to a standard. I mean, we're doing passive house right now on a number of projects. I'm not saying that's what this is. Uh so we know how to do that. we know how to do
and um with Steve uh and the Wellington group we've done uh green community certified we've just completed our second project on that starting our third and so we've got those practices it kind of depends on the cost and how we're and some of the financing pieces of it but we're it's something as
long-term owners I know the these are very interested in kind of doing better. >> Okay, good. Thank you. I know if there are any questions I would love to hear and I know we're kind of limited on time and so I'd love to close. Couple of things I just want to highlight based on the questions that
are coming up. One, this is early site planning and it also is missing a really important component which is community engagement and city involvement. And so to the extent that um all the questions that have come up, those are all things that we're both
flexible and collaborative on to the to the extent that the numbers work. And so um I'll just highlight that to say that this is not um this is our best vision um taking into account all the things that we've learned about Edina and the
goals for the site. But at the end of the day, it's going to come down if we're selected. We're going to talk to you and we're going to talk to the community and see what the city's interested in the city staff as well. So, um, commissioners, chair, first of all,
thank you for the opportunity to present this. I hope that you've learned a little bit about us and our vision, um, our capacity to deliver the project, uh, but more importantly, our commitment to really make this site a beautiful site that we can be activating for the
community. So, um, with that in mind, I just wanted to say thank you again and, um, we look forward to receiving additional questions if there's any and hopefully we win. I know one thing that Steve wanted to highlight was the Blaine
site is not 100 acres, it's 240 acres. >> Thank you, Miss Nor. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being interested in this. So, >> right. Thanks. We'll take a brief break. Um 5 to 7 minutes. I believe the other
team, the next team is here already, but let me wrangle them and we'll reconvene in 5 to 7 minutes. This could be a coffee break. So, um you can take the time you need. We we've officially scheduled the next presentations at 9. So, that's about 15
minutes. So, if you want a little bit more time, we can >> And we have coffee coming at 9:00, I believe. Right. >> Uh 9 or 9:30. Yep. 9 or 9:30. >> Okay. >> So, coffee is coming after the coffee break. >> Uh, >> coffee break now. Coffee break later.
>> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Coffee's coming after coffee. >> It's a non coffee break. All right, Mr. Nondorf. >> All right. Thank you. Well, >> you know, you said 9:00. That's why I was back there talking to Carrie early. I'm sorry.
>> And you're back there telling me, "All right, you know, that sort of gentle proud. We're ready to go when you're ready to go." >> But I was going to be ready to go when you said you were going to be ready to go. 9:00. Okay, here we go. 8:59. >> Great. So, uh, we're here with our
fourth team of presenters. Uh, another, uh, pairing. This is Lifestyle Communities and Ron Clark Construction. Uh, they're the fourth presenter. I'll get their their presentation queued up here. And I'll leave the introductions to you all. I don't want to steal your
thunder. Um, as with the other teams, uh, you'll have about 30 minutes in total. Uh we've asked that you present yourselves and the proposal for about 15 minutes, but then I'll allow about 15 minutes for the council and H board members to ask questions and have a
discussion and and make some comments. So um with that, I'll get your presentation queued up and we'll start rolling. >> We're good. >> We got she beat you to it. >> And then and then before you start, I just want to tell you on behalf of the council, on behalf of the city, how much we appreciate your interest in this. uh
when we looked at 11 proposals and decided we wanted to hear from five of the proposers. Uh your group was obviously included in that and we know this is there's time and expense involved in all of this for you as we try to figure out what to do with that 3.3 acres. What would be in the best
interest of the city, but we want to make sure that you know that we appreciate your interest and your ongoing commitment to trying to, you know, advance your idea of how that site ought to be used. and there's five different ideas and they're all very interesting. So, thank you for that.
>> Well, thank you. Uh Ben Landhauser with Lifestyle Communities. Also have Mike Waldo from Ron Clark. Um Tim Nichols also with Lifestyle Communities, but Mike and I will be kind of running through our presentation. Um and also kind of acknowledge and appreciate just
this RFP process. So the ability to having already had a conversation with staff to understand kind of what your initial reactions were to our proposal. So as we walk through this presentation, you'll see some subtle changes that we've made more to reflect maybe some
things that weren't as clear. Um as well as some things that we thought could be adjusted to speak to some of the things that might just help this feel like a natural extension of the Grand View neighborhood that I know has been long awaited for this to be kind of that final piece. Um so happy to run through
that uh with you this morning. So our proposal started kind of talking more about kind of this mixeduse and more mixed residentially uh focused proposal. One of the things that we had contemplated before submitting our RFP
um uh proposal to you was just how could we have more of that commercial worked into our proposal without it being like absolutely you know huge and a big traffic driver because it just didn't feel like the right fit for kind of the other things that we thought could be
beneficial for this particular site. So, one of the things that Mike will talk about as we get into it further is just this idea of we have two buildings that face uh Eden Avenue that do have an opportunity for more kind of that live work uh option depending on who those
buyers end up being. So, this is an all for sale uh proposal cooperative on the north end and then what we had described in our RFP as town home which maybe was a little bit confusing. For this presentation, we're going to focus more on using the term flats. So there's single level living.
The buildings look more like town homes, but they're single- level living units in those um in those buildings on the southern portion of the site. 64 units within that cooperative. So again, we know that this site had previously had a cooperative proposal. We believe that
this is kind of more right-sized or right fit for this particular location. compared to some of the other people that do cooperatives, particularly in the Twin Cities. Our company really strives to be more boutique intentionally, um, allows people to kind of know the names and faces of people
that live within the building, not just who's right next door or kind of on that particular uh, hallway, so to speak. So, again, intentionally sized, 64 units within that cooperative on the north, 16 um, flat units on the south, so a total
of 80 units within this proposal. A couple of the things that we did do uh if you had an opportunity to kind of thumb through our presentation in advance of this morning was really focus on how does this site through our proposal kind of be that natural
extension of the neighborhood. So where are those public engagement opportunities? How does this relate as kind of uh again that place where people are going to walk or kind of meander through versus just being kind of a a sub uh entity unto itself that's really
only just for the the owners and people that live within this property. So, starting at the north, and I've got some visuals that back this up, but on the north, making that more intentional connection to the pedestrian um thoroughfare that the city has recently invested in through that bridge that
connects to the parking ramp and kind of where Jerry's Foods is. So, we know that that's um really important to us. And having that walk up connection always works well because we will have buyers in that co-op in particular that maybe have a dog or they're just active walkers. So they're going to like that
connection to walk out, hit that bridge, and kind of meander through the neighborhood. Uh B. So the next kind of area along Arcadia was how could we leverage this idea that there is this public activity around of maybe there's more of a bike courtyard where we have
maybe a fixation, some um other pieces that um relate to kind of activating this part of the site. And then we also have um expanded kind of how that public plaza or that private plaza that relates to the entry into the cooperative so
that it feels more publicly accessible at least from a visual stance. And then we've worked in more of a dedicated kind of pocket park that wouldn't necessarily be publicly owned, but it would be publicly accessible and kind of rounds
out kind of what that flat portion of the project um looks and feels like. And then finally, those those live work units on the on the south side. So where all of the public kind of connections exist today, we're really trying to enhance and embrace kind of the
uniqueness of this site. So, one of the things that we provided um this morning for you is a few perspective renderings of how these buildings fit into the very unique and dynamic uh site that this really is. So, today, as you're all
aware, kind of lives almost like a hole. So, we're trying to strategically place uses where we can leverage particularly the Arcadia topography to our advantage. So it feels like it's always been there and it's not kind of this dips and you know kind of interesting places of we
didn't want the building sucked in the hole and you've got all this other stuff that happens around it. So again, kind of that activation particularly as we get closer to the new roundabout at Arcadia and Eden. Uh and then augmenting with uh the addition of some on street
parking on Eden is represented kind of where the E is on the south side of the site that could support if there were some of those live work opportunities realized on this project. So, if we go back to the north, uh this is an example
rendering of the actual building that we've proposed um for how kind of that pedestrian connection from the units that are along that pedestrian corridor towards the bridge could be done um so that it feels more like a natural
extension and very pedestrianforward environment. And for context, I know that you're all familiar with kind of the the nearby um residential development that Traml Crow did. Um I know one of the things that was of of interest in understanding more
is just that proximity of how and where we had placed that cooperative relative to that existing pedestrian connection. This is a 30-foot corridor that was done for this building. And again, they kind of have all of the topography uh changed going through this pedestrian
connection. We're looking at more of an atgrade connection from the kind of north side of the cooperative building to that pedestrian path. So this is 30 ft. We're proposing the city retains a 40 foot wide um corridor and then we're
5 to 15 ft uh from the face of kind of that property line uh to our building. And then again back to that bike kind of courtyard that we're contemplating. Again, it may may not be much, but again, it's to us more of an activation
piece. If we get uh further along here this morning and talk a little bit about the cooperative, we are looking at kind of bike storage and bike repair within kind of the garage level that's immediately adjacent to this. So, from us, it's also something that's
beneficial to the cooperative owners. And then C, you'll see that we are looking at kind of dressing up the amenity areas that feel a little bit more commercial. um and kind of have that street presence so you wouldn't know that this wasn't kind of a public
uh amenity that was available uh to the neighborhood. And then D. So, um, one of the things that we ended up doing with the buildings on the south, those flat buildings, is the kind of northern two buildings, we reoriented them to create
this publicly accessible kind of pocket park or kind of more of a a retreat as you're kind of walking or biking uh through the neighborhood. that this could be something done with maybe partially elevated planters that kind of provide a little bit of uh reprieve
between the closest flat building and kind of where this pocket park is. But this could be for the neighborhood as well as those um flat owners to come and congregate kind of host outdoor um uh events or things that are supportive to kind of what they do in their daily
life. Um, but an amenity that we think given that proximity to the intersection or that roundabout, this seems appropriate in terms of it's not right on that intersection because no one really wants to stare at cars going around and around and around uh but
feels quaint and again a good uh location in our mind. And then finally, that idea of kind of the live work uh opportunity that I'm gonna let Mike speak to as he walks through kind of the composition of what those flat buildings are just so you understand that.
>> Right. Thank you for that. >> Thanks, Ben. Um Mike Waldo with Ron Clark Construction. Again, appreciate the opportunity to be here. Um as some of you know, um Ron has been both in Edina in the Twin City Market for 50 years. Uh the Grand View condos uh were
something we did uh quite a few years ago and I think one of the things you see with our projects just like with uh Ben and his team is that they age well. When you look at that project 10, 15, 20 years down the road, you can still be proud of what we have created and what you've created from a city perspective.
Um I think probably the biggest thing Ben's done a great job of really focusing on the site. Uh, from a home perspective, the stack flat kind of concept is kind of a what I'll call town home on steroids. It kind of gives you a much more diverse ability for uh a young
professional, younger family with young kids all the way up to an empty neester who isn't quite ready to go into a a multi-unit building and looking for something a little more on their own. So, you're able to have the two-car garage. Uh, you walk in. Um you're able to then access either a stairway or
elevator up to the either the first or second floor depending on which one uh your home is. Um and then each of those floors has two homes on each floor. Um I think as Ben talked one of the unique things here especially with the grade component which has been a key thing for us is we got you know a lot of grade
change from Eden all the way up and we're trying to figure out how do you incorporate that again so it balances well. the uh the kind of storefront look on Eden gives us a little bit of that commercial flare but yet within that residential component. Um we're looking at probably professional offices and
kind of any other complimentary uses. Um there's just a diverse range of opportunities there. Um we're kind of looking at how that would structure. The one opportunity is that each homeowner would purchase one of those. The other opportunity is does the condo association control them? So if one
person says, "You know what? I need a bigger space. Can I get two of those? And one says, you know what? I really don't need to live work. So, it gives them the maximum opportunity to not pigeon hole into our belief of what should happen and let it organically change over time because those changes will age there after 10 years, they
might, you know what, I don't need that office anymore. Let's uh let's let somebody else have the opportunity. Um I think from from a livable perspective, once you get up to the main floor in your living space, you've got everything. You've got the kitchen, dining, family room kind of as one big
area. You've got uh a really good primary suite. You've got opportunity for up to two bedrooms or in a lot of cases, you'll see that as being a secondary study if somebody wants a a den up there. Um you always end up with his and her. A lot of cases are the two people in there where one needs a a more
active space, one needs more passive space. So they may take the live work area and the other spouse may take one upstairs. Um so it just gives them the right range. These are very similar to our villa concepts that we do. It's that same 1850 to 2,000 square ft on the one
floor and except that when the grandkids come, you go downstairs. In this case, the same concept. You know, you just have to get up one or two floors to get to your space, but they really live like a detached villa product and it fits what I'll call a real diverse age group,
which is what we like most about it. Um, exteriors again will be hardy and stone. Um, and we've talked with staff a little bit about kind of that direction as we get through the process. We'll be, you know, the plan commission council have more input into that. Um,
I think the synergy is something that Ben talked about and I just want to reaffirm that we're very excited with how the two uses mix together. You know, stepping up from that three to four story town up to, you know, we're incorporating an entry into our space that also becomes that lower garage space. So instead of having a lot of
extra extra black top, we're able to do a shared use um and him come into his lower space which allows them to have two levels of parking. Um probably one of the key things as we've watched this site over the last year is I think with the stagnant nature of it,
our team has a plan that can get it done. Uh we can be sitting here a year from now ready to start doing something and building h building buildings. And so I think that's one of the things that we look at in in and Ron's history as and our team has been uh to get stuff done. And I think that's really where
we'd like to see um as we move forward. Um I'll turn it back over to Ben. Thank you. >> Thanks, Mike. >> Thank you. >> So, a little bit about the the cooperative. So, as Mike started to
allude, um, in order to make up some of the the significant grade differential, I know you're familiar, there's, you know, 38 39 feet from north to south. So, part of what we're looking at is really, uh, two levels of parking that allows us to make up that that bigger
kind of hole that exists today. And those two levels of parking, um, the uppermost level also serves as kind of that amenity platform. Um, so it' have full exposure along our Arcadia and then basically based on the grades that north
face of that upper parking level would also basically um be at grade the top of it would be at grade with kind of that pedestrian corridor that the city installed uh recently on the north side. And then that lower garage as again Mike
had talked about is how could we create some synergies between our product. we're not uh looking at people that are they're not always going to work in the morning. They're not always leaving at kind of peak hours. So, kind of doubling kind of the access into the Ron Clark
product with this cooperative for that lower garage access really key in our mind because one, it keeps the overall expense down. It allows more of the site to stay green. Um, and it really is uh a good synergistic uh relationship between
our two projects that they aren't just an island on the north and an island on the south. It really is kind of a blended um use. And then the rest of the floors above that just show kind of we're doing most of the housing, the actual homes and units within our
building are on the four levels above that. So from the the north side of the site, you'll see principally four levels of housing, not higher. So we're we're actually shorter than kind of the Jerry's office building. Uh that would be to our west. We'd also be shorter
than that um Abador the Traml Crow development as well. So again, uh we feel from a context this works really well um within the site. And then from a cooperative perspective, so the kind of the distinctive piece particularly of
our Tessa cooperatives is really that amenity space or amenity spaces. So we we have programmed and thought through kind of roughly 9,000 square ft of spaces that do everything from great rooms, kind of smaller private um living
spaces that people use on a daily basis. It isn't. You need 64 of your closest friends that also live in the cooperative to go down and kind of feel like you're at home. You're at home the minute you walk in that front door. You kind of meet your um friends, family that may come over and you're probably
going to spend most of your actual living um down in these amenity spaces because they're an extension of your home. So, those things end up being very critical for kind of our brand, what our buyers are looking for. Um, and we do think that that proximity and relationship to Arcadia and kind of
looking at kind of the adjacent flats, there could be, as Mike said, there could be some empty nesters that live in those flats and it's you're just walking kind of across the street, so to speak, to go see your friends and this is the that front door, best um kind of place
to meet up and have uh that opportunity to kind of live uh within this particular site as a whole instead of just within these two different um uses. One of the things that we included in our proposal, so if I shift from just
talking a little bit about the cooperative to our overall um project, as Mike said, we kind of came together. We're familiar with each other. We love kind of the two compatible uses. We're looking at this being an entirely
privately financed endeavor for us that we stand on our own. We're not looking for additional public subsidy. The only thing we may look at is we would uh if selected get into the weeds a little bit more on is we know that there may be some environmental things or some
infrastructure things that we may look at grants that would help support just some of those uh assembly costs that relate to um this particular site. But we're also trying to have kind of this mixed income opportunity within our
overall um project between our two uses. We're hitting everything that's kind of within, you know, a hundred uh 50,000 to, you know, several hundred,000 in terms of equity and price point so we can appeal to a broader market. And
where we don't believe that even on the cooperative side, this is 100% Edina residents, there's probably going to be a lot of Edinina residents that move into the cooperative because it's at a price point, at least the way that we've contemplated and financially modeled it.
This allows them to leave the large home that they love in the community that they love, move in here, frees up their homes, and then likewise, Mike has a product that appeals to it may be that first time, it may be that sex second time buyer, it may be that empty neester
buyer that's lived in Edina for a long period of time. Um, but we like the synergies of kind of what our products um do. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I I think the number of units we have contemplated here, we have a pre-sale
requirement. Um, we believe that being at 64 units is very attainable in a shorter period of time that if we were to, you know, put this up to 80 to 100 units. Um, just going to be again tangible and our owners are going to like the fact that 64 units is still
palatable. You may have, you know, 14 to 17 homes on a particular floor. >> We're passing our 20, passing our 15 byways. >> Got it. But basically, I I think from a price point, that's what went into our our offer and I think we're trying to
show you as much of kind of the math, so to speak, on how and why we got to where we did. I'll be quiet now, but thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. >> I was waiting for Bill to kind of >> That's all right. Yeah, I was waiting for the buzzer. >> Yeah. Yeah, our time keeper is over here. >> Yeah,
>> got about 10 10 11 minutes to go. >> Okay. Uh, Commissioner Risser, >> I appreciate the information on how you will achieve affordability. Um, the one concern and actually this has to do with
information coming from us and I just want to know with that um pedestrian bridge across on the northern side. It sounds like, you know, you see that as a real asset to connect to the stores and businesses over there. And if you
haven't walked that, I really encourage you to do that. It does land on the upper deck of the Jerry's parking ramp. Um, so it's depending on whether you're pushing a stroller or using a wheelchair. You got to go upstairs or you got to go
down a the entry ramp for cars, which is very steep. So, I just want to put that out there. Um, to be totally transparent there. >> Appreciate that. >> Um, I really do appreciate how you're using
the site and really thinking about where the parking could go and all of that. I also really appreciate how you're looking at trying to bring in commercial use. And that's all I have. So, >> thank you, Mr. Jackson. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, thank you
so much for putting together the proposal. It's really an interesting idea. Um, I have two questions. One is what is the pvious surface of your proposal? >> I don't know. >> Yeah, I don't know that we've gotten into that exactly. I would say we're
probably around that 25 maybe not quite 30% of the site being uh permeable, but obviously those are details that we'd work through uh if selected. But we're trying to leverage as much open space and there's probably opportunities in kind of how we've put the site together
right now to increase that. Uh where there's more permeable opportunities if that's something that's important to the to the commission and council. Um but that's about where I would say we are today. >> Okay. Terrific. Thank you. And then what kind of sustainability? You mentioned
this briefly that if if you wanted to get more you'd be looking for grants and everything, but what are your sort of principles on sustainable building? >> You want to go or me? >> So, I'll go first. Uh, with a cooperative building, we always strive to be kind of lead um equivalent. We
never commission our buildings because the cost of that is something that we would obviously pass along to the buyers and they just don't see the value necessarily in having a certified building for couple hundred,000 of commissioning. But we're usually locally
sourcing things. We have a well uh certified professional on our team as well. So, how we acclimate and kind of place living areas and the amount of um light and just the environmental conditions within all of our buildings, our individual homes and the amenity
spaces is intentional on our end. So, we're looking at kind of those those principles to be wrapped out in every uh cooperative that we build. And from a town home perspective, ours are uh we normally do a a green pass certified uh which is a about a 20 to 25% higher than
kind of even though Minnesota code is already very extensive, the energy savings on that is using that 20 to 25%. There really isn't a good economical program to take it any farther um because at that point you start to so you're spending tens of thousands of dollars for very little gain. But I
think that's the biggest thing for us. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks uh Commissioner Agno. Thank you so much for the presentation and for identifying a way to include some of the commercial with the live work component.
I'm really excited about that. Um if you could speak to any experience you have in doing these types of projects and if you have that experience maybe even sample for me. I know these, you know, it could eb and flow over time, but what are some
additional examples of what kind of work um examples we could see within those sites? >> I think at this point, we haven't done what I'll say the same as this. I mean, there's other areas where people have that opportunity. Um, I think it's really driven by the site. It's the
uniqueness of having that Eden Avenue potentially being able to get those parallel stalls in there that allow for that opportunity. Um I think with you know if you look at the Dino market I mean I can think of a hundred different uses. I mean it's you know accounting's office, legal office um someone that
maybe works from their home creates some product maybe a small craft shop that you know probably not a high volume retail site there just because you're only going to have a few stalls. But I think the reality is it's it's kind of Pandora's box. I think anything that would be not what I'll call negative to
the residents um and probably not already restricted within the city is kind of an open use within that group. And I I think it really it is truly it's really what they think. And I think what we're looking for is giving the opportunity along with the the look from the street and then having them
hopefully fill that with some of those situations. I mean with people living working from home now, this is a perfect opportunity. you can get away from the spouse upstairs and the and whatever and get down and they, you know, now you can go get some work done. So, >> yeah. And I maybe this is something that I can take up offline afterwards with um
Carrie T or otherwise, but I'm also curious to know if you've researched um like are there limits like could there be a bakery or is that where you were then talking about something like potentially the parking being the driving constraint within that? like what what type of process needs to go
through in order to to help support these businesses? >> I think for something like that, we'd have to probably look at a parking study and also look at the uh the level of ovens and venting space we need. Um because a lot of times you need a pretty good chaseway all the way through the attic to make sure that those uh those vents are waking up there. I would think
more, you know, a smaller coffee shop that maybe doesn't need the drive-thru and has a little bit of a nicer kind of a small scale bakery and something be more that way. I think you get into too much too in it doesn't fit residential I think to go too strong if you're talking about full-blown bakery I I would think
that would kind of be at the probably beyond the upper end of what I would expect here. So >> okay thank you very much and thank you again for including that element. Um just to make sure I'm understanding then um up in the I think it was component C of the site which is I think attached to
the the co-op um you use the phrase I think commercial like or making it feel commercial but just to be explicit that is only for residents and for those within the property. It would not be a public space in any way. >> Correct.
>> Okay. But it have that visual particularly because you're on one of the steeper port parts of the slope on Arcadia is we want it to feel like it has that street activation component, but you're right, it is privately owned, privately used, but it'll have that
presence like it's trying to boost kind of what Hilltop is across the street. >> How do you think you message that and and prevent people from coming in and thinking it's a restaurant? Yeah, I think depending on what we actually do with that plaza, and this is almost like
the rendering we have on the on the bottom side of this particular slide is wide open. There's probably similar elements that are probably better represented in kind of that pocket park where maybe there's some elevated planters that again you get that visual
cue that it kind of looks like it's supportive of everything else that's along Arcadia with Opus' new project, the hilltop and kind of even the pocket park and kind of those things that I think there will be some visual cues of this is a private space but it's a
visual benefit to people that are going kind of through this part of the neighborhood whether that's driving or walking or biking or what have you. I'm trying to understand uh a little bit more in depth the the way the parking would function both with respect to the
senior co-op and the uh and the flats the town houses is are the are the town houses are they parked you know when you come in that main curb cut off of Arcadia and you go to the left and looking at the site plan uh are you
driving then at at grade into your own garage behind the building or is Yes, >> you're going underground. There's nothing underground. >> Uh, no. Because at that point, their lowest garage for the co-op is at grade probably, you know, give or take a few feet, but not not dramatically. And then
as we turn south, you'd be able to turn into either one of your garages on those first two buildings. Um, and like I said, we kind of kept our parking for those residents inside. Um, because again, there's room for two cars in each front of their each driveway besides. So, we've made sure there's enough space
between the buildings so you can still have a drive aisle, but you can actually have two guest dots besides people in your besides the two cars in your garage. >> So, the the two-car garage would be internal to the site, but so you know, you see that nice view along uh Eden,
for example, that you've shown at street street level >> behind you would be seeing garage doors internally at all. >> One level up, you would see the garage doors internally between those units. Yes, >> Mr. Mr. Chair, we have one minute left.
>> Okay. And then um um underground parking for the co-op. >> Yes. Underground parking principally for all of the the owners in there. So on two levels. So the lowest level has roughly 78 uh parking spaces shown in
kind of the floor plans we included in the presentation. That hits the majority. And then we'll need somewhere in that 25 to 30 on the upper garage that's accessed on its own uh from a separate separate entrance that also has kind of you know a handful plus of guest
visitor parking on kind of that radial parking courtyard. But that's how we're getting kind of our parking ratio around 1.6 to1. >> See that? Yep. And then the the curb cuts are all on Arcadia. Two curb cuts on Arcadia. curve cuts on Arcadia and trying to again strategically position
them with the elevation so that we're coming in kind of as close to at grade so to speak with where we want those circulation points to be. no curb cuts on Eden >> and then and then if somebody was living there >> uh there's a little bit of an internal sidewalk system it looks like and then
that that external to the project sidewalk along Arcadia to get up to I'm thinking about how you how do you get up to the walkway to go across on the bridge. >> Yeah. So we have that sidewalk that's coming on the the west side of Arcadia that doesn't exist today and we're
trying to kind of enhance that experience. So, if I I lived there, I could maybe there's some shortcuts internally, but I'm eventually going to get over the sidewalk on Arcadia to go up to the >> Correct. Yes. Okay. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And that's it about it.
>> All right. Well, thanks for being here again. Thank you for your interest in this. >> Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks very much, Mr. Waldo. >> We'll take a fivem minute break and I'll get our get our last presenters. Hey, Susan. How are you?
All right. Uh we'll proceed with our final pres uh presentation. Uh this group is our is our largest group. It's a partnership of several different companies working together uh to put their proposal together. Uh the lead uh is onward investors. And so I'll turn it
over to Chris and he'll introduce himself and the team. Uh same rules as before. Uh this group has about 30 minutes to present uh and have your questions answered. So, we've asked them to uh give about a 15minute presentation and that leaves about 15 minutes for
question, answer, and discussion. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Chris. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Um yeah, we typed out a script. So, >> before you start, I just want to thank all of you for your interest in this project. Uh >> we had five distinct different views of how to use this property. All really
very interesting. It's going to be uh some interesting conversations to come here amongst the HR as we think about um who to partner with, but we really want to make sure that you all appreciate the time and expense that you've gone
through to to be a competitor here and get from, you know, from a group of 11 into the group of five. Um and um so we thank you for all of that and thank you for your continuing interest here. >> Yeah, thank you very much. And I think just the fact that 11 people responded
to a RFP is uh pretty uh meaningful with respect to how valuable this opportunity is to us as well. So thank you. Um good morning commissioners. Like I said we did script this out so I'm going to actually like get through this in our 15 minutes here. Uh my name is Chris Osmanson. I'm with Onward Investors.
We'll be going through the whole team and everything here. Um, we're honored to present Grand View Terrace at Arcadia, a comprehensive missionaligned redevelopment of 5146 Eden Avenue. Very cool. All right. Our vision is
drawn directly from Edina's core values. As noted in numerous comprehensive plans as well as the request for proposals, we're focused on delivering a livable si city with connected open space and walkable uses while practicing stewardship uh via the use of public
land uh as well as public and private investment funds. Um and also incorporating sustainability, not only environmental but just long-term generational resiliency for this space. Uh as as was mentioned, we do have a little bit of a larger team. Uh but it
is uh cohesive. I I'll ensure you that. So I uh you know, it's kind of sort of an Avengers or a Justice League, if you will, depending on Marvel or DC comics. Um uh Ebenezer, so onward myself, we'll be going through these resumes later, but Ebenezer brings Minnesota's deepest
experience in senior development and operations, uh even creating the very financing mechanism that is used to finance senior cooperative housing. Set properties leads retail activation and placemaking along with underdog hospitality uh as a local
communitycentric operator. You may be familiar with Daario, the restaurant concept in the north loop uh in the T3 building. Um and of course BKV which is a well-known entity to the city of Adina um as well as many other Twin Cities municipalities delivers thoughtful high
impact projects. Just a quick diagram to try to make this a little bit more familiar. Um this represents the dis the structure of the development team. Uh each real estate asset type. So the senior cooperative, the senior active affordable housing uh
and the community food and beverage concept elements are all paired with a proven specialized developer andor partner. Um onward will be the lead developer and then we are also working through the uh senior affordable housing
concept that we have proposed here. Uh, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Chris Palooich, who's the senior design leader at the BKV Group, and he's going to walk through our vision uh, with architecture, landscape, and the scale of the project. Go ahead.
>> Thanks, Chris. Good morning, commissioners. Glad to be here today. >> Our concept takes into account numerous city goals, including the goals of the RFP, the pillars of Edina, and the Grand View guiding principles overall. And Mike Rich and I of BKB Group are quite
familiar with the Grand View guiding principles and some of these other city goals as we just recently worked on the Mesa Green project just uh across the parking lot here. And the concept you're going to see today is just merely a starting point. It's our goal to work handinand with the city as the
development progress progresses. We didn't really want to overdevelop it. That's you'll see mainly white boxes here because we really want input from key stakeholders, from the city, from the from the neighbors, from from everyone around to really make this a great project. Overall,
with these goals in mind, our broad development team created a shared vision for the development. Our concept creates a high-quality mixeduse development including a 60unit senior co-op with attainable price points, a
100 unit 55 plus affordable senior housing building, an event center and restaurant, and a corner shared green that will be open to the public. The designs of the building focused on creating vibrant walkable life-filled
spaces. And what we incorporated into it was act really looked at focusing on active street fronts. And that includes the walk up town homes. Please go back a slide if you would here. Walk up town homes that you see in the red on the diagram and the the street facing
lobbies on on the two larger on the two larger buildings. The blue building is the restaurant event center and that's really tucked up near the street as well to have a continue that kind of walkable experience and presence. And then up in the top right corner is the is the open green space that you'll see more in in
the next couple slides. And then lastly, I just want to say sustainable design was was a thought throughout the design. And we can speak about that a little bit more, but it's something that we we're is a piece on each step we make on the
decisions, but not necessarily fully ironed out as we're early in the development process. Okay. Uh going to a few points on key site organization here. Starting up in the the top right corner is our community
green space. We have we're showing some uh this is just very preliminary what we're thinking about but proposing some sculptures and a small amphitheater. And that's directly connected to the pathway and the art bridge going across the the railroad tracks as well. And then it really centrally locates that green
space as well for the other for the other buildings around in the center of the district. The event center is just immediately to the south of that and that will be able to utilize the green space for some of the events as well shared overall. And and then we really were thoughtful in the way that we
approach the parking as well that you can see most of the parking is to the rear of the event center space. There's there's a little bit of a drop off and on on the side and then much of the parking I'll show you in a future slide is really buried into what will be the side of the hill as well.
The affordable building is the centrallylo building and then the co-op is the south building with views to the ball fields. And just one thing to point out, the co-op and the affordable building have a shared entry court off of Arcadia and that's really to minimize curb cuts and enhance the overall
pedestrian experience and vitality of the area. The resident courtyards are are very gracious as you can see overall and you can just get a further sense from the from the bird's eyes. Although we are proposing a a nice blend of
projects, it is still very open and green. A couple of pedestrian level views to just show just a little bit more detail of our development. The upper one is a feel of the walkup units along Eden Avenue. And this incorporates porches and bays and movement along the exterior
to create a rich visual experience overall. And then you can see that the the upper portion of the the residence is stepped back from that about 30 feet overall. on the lower on the lower image. It's uh just a preliminary image of the the
corner green as well, just to give a little feel of potentially that what that may feel like and the connection to the existing uh existing infrastructure that the city has already put into it. And then lastly, just a couple last details we want to highlight on the the
upper building section. We we really thought about the the o overall the the grade change along the site and how to incorporate these buildings into it in a thoughtful way and terrace them up to meet the street as as it moves up. So what we've done is we've built the
parking primarily into the hill but uh you see some of it is above the hill a little bit here too. That that's so that all the units are above the railroad tracks by at least a story. We didn't want anyone with a unit down by the tracks. But within that, the the lower
left image then shows when when you are starting to become above grade that all of the parking is buried in the back that we're wrapped with town homes and lobby along the street facing sides. So that way it'll be an active experience throughout. And then lastly in the bottom right you can see that the
residents are really stepped back overall from from the town homes. So with that lastly, we we've really thought of our development as kind of right sizing it to the not maximizing the density but right sizing it to
fulfill the vision of the Grand View District Master Plan. Thanks. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Few other additional elements to the proposal. Um thanks for that overview, Chris. Much appreciated. Um I'll briefly
walk through the financial concepts and just the timing of the project. Um the proposed acquisition price is $4 million. We would additionally seek to create a tax increment financing district um which would mainly serve to facilitate some of the on-site parking
infrastructure that was mentioned um which is currently buried underneath the uh senior active affordable project. um as well as just really enhancing the pedestrian experience along Eden uh and Arcadia so that we can ultimately get up
into kind of the apron where the pedestrian crossing is at the railway connection. Um and if we had some added dollar availability from that, we would also seek to kind of look at some micro multimodal options. Uh we've looked at some like ebike sharing systems and
things like that uh to really kind of facilitate like a 15-minute city concept. Um, while it doesn't, our proposal doesn't explicitly state this, I just wanted to note, uh, at least the affordable project will be utilizing prevailing wage rates. Uh, that's a requirement with Minnesota Housing
Finance Agency. Um, and I think it's important just to understand that within that endeavor. Um, and overall with respect to the timeline, uh, our our team would be looking to be awarded the RFP here in the third quarter of 2025.
And then just really fast forward uh we would expect to deliver all elements of these uh the completed project in the first quarter probably late first quarter of 2028. Um one thing I wanted to briefly touch on just because I know that it could potentially be a future
conversation starter is the timing on low-income housing tax credit projects. Uh they do take some patience. Uh however, what we would seek to do is make an application to Minnesota management and budget to secure bonding as soon as we could, most likely in the
first quarter of 2026. Uh and essentially that gets you on the wait list so that we could prepare to be ready to execute on the low-income housing project as soon as we were allocated bonds. And that's really the critical path. The rest of the financing elements we can bring along in time. Um,
and I think overall our timeline is realistic. In summary, we're presenting a vibrant, walkable, life-filled place that is inclusive of many spaces and ages. It meets various community needs for this location and complements a lot of the
existing infrastructure that has been uh already invested in. Uh, and we're creating more neighborhood permeability with natural space and wayfinding and fulfilling the Grand View District vision. that's been around for shoot maybe 20 years at least 10. Um so now
we're just going to do a brief team introduction so you can see that we do have the the hood spot to execute on this. Um you'll hear from myself followed by Susan and Josh with uh Ebenezer and Atoria as well as Lamar from Set Properties and Steven from
Underdog Hospitality uh who will walk through the food and beverage concept and real estate. And we'll close with BKB's senior leadership team. Oddward Otar Investors is a privately held real estate firm with a 15-year track record here. And most of the founders actually date back
significantly further than that 15-year track record. We have investments and developments across multiple asset classes. uh pretty much all of the ones that you could think of. And we bring an institutional platform with local roots and capital uh focused on building
legacy projects that serve both the investors and the communities that we operate in. My specific background uh includes structuring public and private partnerships such as the Burkeman Apartments in Rochester, Minnesota, uh Ratio Apartments in Columbia Heights, uh
Chorus Apartments in Hopkins, Minnesota. These are all projects that leverage scarce municipal resources for inclusive and sustainable outcomes. Uh the site is also in my backyard. Uh I'm technically in southwest Minneapolis, but I can throw a football into Edina. Um and we
view this as these opportunities are long-term. We feel that they provide stewardship for us to be working and continue working in in the city of Edina itself. With that, I'll turn it over to Susan. Thanks, Mr. Osmanson.
>> Okay, thank you everyone. I appreciate your time. I'm Susan Far and I'm the VP of business development at Ebenezer and I'm very proud to be here and you should be all so excited. We love your land. Just want you to know that I personally have built 58 senior buildings since my
career since college. So, I'm very excited about that. And we were the first senior. Well, that will be I'm sorry I'm getting too excited here, but just want you to know Ebenezer's been around over a hundred years. We're part
of Fairview. We merged with Fairview in 1995. We love that we have that TCU hospital connection and we have over 110 locations in six different states and we serve over 14,000 seniors. And in our corporate
office here in um Edina, which not all our properties are here, of course, we have 4,700 employees. So um can you just go back one second? >> Yep. >> Okay. Just what we have 60 co-ops. We're the largest co-op management company in
the nation. We have 50 communities that um we've did developed with Ebenezer 4.15 million and we are ranked 13 in the nation for the senior housing provider in our management company. Next, Chris.
So, here's just some of our projects just in Edina and I've had the privilege of working with the mayor and commissioners. It was been great. Aurora on France, York Gardens, um 7500 York is probably our standout here. That is the
first cooperative in the nation that was designed with a very smart group of people. And it's a HUD 213 loan, which all these people now use for these co-ops. that has a 20-year weight list
for some of the two-bedroom apartments, 10-year weight list for the smaller two-bedrooms, and we still manage that to this day. But we are very excited about that and happy that other people have also piggybacked on that. But we
have 250 people in our corporate office here in Edina and that is for our management arm of all of these properties. We also manage Vernon Terrace and of course I mentioned we're part of Fair View. So thank you.
>> Thanks Mur. >> Uh good morning. Uh thank you for the opportunity to uh speak with you here today. Uh I am here representing Leap Development Company and Atoria Cooperatives. Uh I've spent just about 15 years um building more than 15 senior cooperatives uh communities in the
Midwest across multiple brands. uh honored to be partnering with Ebenezer on the Atoria cooperative brand itself. Uh that experience has shown us that cooperatives don't just serve seniors. Uh they actually really do strengthen neighborhoods and we've seen that time and time again on the projects we've developed. Oftent times about 80% of the
members that move into a cooperative are vacating homes directly in the zip code uh where that project is being built. Uh and so it's it's not just meeting or bringing folks in, it's meeting a mo a local need in a sustainable way. Uh
Atoria cooperatives are designed to foster pride and ownership not just within the building but within the surrounding community as well. Um when when older residents, as I touched on just a moment ago, uh move into Atoria, they free up existing home stock
for young families. And that really does create uh a natural and intergenerational uh cycle that keeps neighborhoods vibrant and rooted. Uh story of Grand View Terrace at Arcadia, that's a bit of a mouthful, Chris, we might have to talk about that. Uh is uh is the next evolution of of senior
cooperative living. uh really drawing on our experience as well as Ebenezer's uh experience and um legacy as as Susan mentioned the largest senior cooperative management company in the nation. So our group together combined with our with our efforts and expertise really feel
like we're not building just housing. Uh we do believe that we're building community stability and opportunity uh on this site here in Edina. So thank you. >> Yes. Thank you, >> Lamar. >> Well, thank you uh and good morning, commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to collaborate uh with you
all this morning. Uh my name is Lamar Newburn, and I'm a founding partner of Set Properties, a boutique commercial real estate brokerage and advisory firm with more than four decades of combined experience throughout the Twin Cities as well as uh throughout the Mountain West.
We are honored to serve as a co-development partner uh for Grand View Terrace at Arcadia alongside this exceptional team uh before you today and uh when selected uh look forward to contributing to the future of this significant site within Edina's Grand
View District. Our focus today uh is on the concept visioning for the approximately 9,000 square foot food and beverage or FMB uh space within Grand View Terrace at Arcadia. We are in active conversations with both members
of our surrounding community uh as well as prominent restaurant groups in the area. One primary conclusion from our conversations thus far that rings true is the desire for an interconnected, welcoming, community oriented space that
incorporates the existing infrastructure already in place and facilitates gatherings throughout the day and across all four seasons. We have listened to this feedback and are committed to cultivating a dynamic environment that meets the needs of the
community both today and far into the future. To help bring this vision to life, we are collaborating with Underdog Hospitality, the team behind Daario Restaurant in the North Loop, which was previously mentioned. I am very excited to invite Steven Row, managing partner
of Underdog, to share more thoughts about our proposed concept and what it means for our community. Stephen. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Newurn. Mr. Ro, welcome. >> Thank you. Um, good morning everybody. I'm here to talk about the food and
beverage concept that we'd like to place here. And, um, the name is the Arcadia Bar and Cafe and the Conservatory on Eden. Um, starting with the cafe and bar service
would be grab and go and um, coffee in the morning. We'd move on to full restaurant service in the afternoon and evening. And um, this is a restaurant that would serve about 120 seats inside
and 48 outside. So kind of a moderate size restaurant. But what's really really exciting about the opportunity here is uh the restaurant concept will be placed on top of the event center. So that would allow for um semi- panoramic
views all around the restaurant. And that's really great. Um the restaurant that I own right now, we have gigantic windows, but we don't have the opportunity to see kind of above. and with an adjoining courtyard and amphitheater presents like a a really
really exciting opportunity. Um when we think about summer views, you know, you you've got all this wonderful sunlight and in the winter you've got the blanketing of snow. We just want to create a nice vibrant um fresh and clean
looking restaurant. Uh on the on the bottom of the restaurant, we have the conservatory on Eden, which is meant to be a a modular event center. And what that means is instead of having fixed
walls and kind of set rooms, you have sliding walls and sliding spaces so that you can accommodate smaller groups. um maybe a smaller wedding party at the same time as a graduation party on the other side. And again, what's really
exciting about this project is we kind of envision a group starting with like a nice happy hour and drinks in the restaurant. Um having a ceremony outside and then coming in uh to the event
center for reception. And you know that goes that goes for even retirement parties, corporate events. Uh really want to embrace this open air feel and um create create natural views and a
warm inviting space for all sorts of members of the community. Uh now the kind of the the nice thing about having an in-house um food and beverage team with an event center is that you can create really great synergy um in terms
of what you serve and seasonality and really really locking in and creating a consistent experience for the people that come in for dinner and the people that come in for events so that nobody feels like they're getting the short end of the stick. everybody's getting a high
quality experience and everybody can kind of feel the beauty of the the room, the food, um, and the atmosphere. We really want to create a very very light, buoyant space here instead of it being
kind of like a a darker, um, kind of wooden steel type of restaurant. Um, another element that I just want to touch on is the aesthetic of the restaurant itself. Um, and it's a kind of like a
bright market European feel. We have this bar that not only serves uh coffee, but again the graband go in the morning and then a nice open dining room. Um, and with that being said, I thank you for your time.
Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Ro. We'll bring it home. We got about five minutes left. Yeah. >> All right. I'll go for less than one minute. Good morning, commissioners. Uh my name is Mike Rich. I'm president and senior partner for BKV Group. Our company uh was founded over 47 years ago
in the Twin Cities. Uh we have worked prolifically both locally and nationally on over 400 projects in the public and private sectors for this entire period with a basic mission to enrich lives and strengthen communities. Our holistic practice with full services propels us
to deliver the highest quality outcomes. Uh specific to the city of Adina, if you want to click to the next slide, Chris. Um we know how to realize the cities and the community's goals. Um I say this because over 20 years ago, uh then
council member and now mayor Hland has challenged BKV over and over again to do our best work for the city. Uh I've had personal conversations for making that clear and I believe we have delivered on that promise with projects such as the Dina City Hall and police building that
we're sitting in are one Southdale Place, the Fred, Miss Green, and most recently fire station number two. We are committed and dedicated to fulfilling this critical piece of the Grand View master plan to take it from a vision to a reality. With that, we'll open it up
for questions. Thank you. >> All right. Very good. Thank you. Um, council member or yeah, Commissioner Jackson. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Briefly, the amount of pvious surface and I think you touched on environmentalism um and sustainable, so I won't ask that
question, but how much pvious surface are we talking about? >> We're we're looking about 35 to 40% right now is just for for where we're laid out. But I said very preliminary and flexible. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, council member
Commissioner Russer. >> Um, how large like square footage are you estimating the units that are 50% AMI, 60% AMI, 80% AMI? >> Are those uh, commissioner, are those
within the affordable housing concept or? >> Yeah. >> Uh, so well the size wouldn't be dictated by the area median income affordability. So, I mean, if it's a if it's a onebedroom, it would likely be approximately 700 square f feet to 800
square f feet. If it's a two-bedroom, it would be approximately 1,000 to,200 square feet. Um, and so, but we would be required to distribute the affordability throughout the building in a prata manner,
>> right? am just um seeing uh concepts for affordable houses or affordable rentals and they're really small and then I look at the market rate prices for a small unit and so that's what I'm wrestling with right now. >> Oh, sure. Yeah. So, this would be a
senior affordable concept. So, we we need to make them congruent with what with what would otherwise be offered in the marketplace. So, uh this isn't going to be an urban concept where we're going for like a microunit concept. that would be comparable to um any other senior
living facility. >> You commissioner, >> thank you and thank you for the great collaboration across so many different folks. I I do really appreciate that. Um my questions were only going to be about the event center because I think that
that's something that's really unique um and was exciting to see. But you you gave a really good overview. I wanted to know, you know, what might be here. or give me some of that inspiration. Um, so thank you for going through that. I don't have any direct questions right now. Um, but overall I just I wanted to
thank you again for for pulling the presentation together. This has been really great. >> I'm going to segue right off of that because I'd like to understand a little bit better what you see uh with respect to this event center and is it something that is owned privately or is it something that we own that you use and
operate or what what your what were your thoughts there? I I can elaborate on that just in sort of I guess being the lead developer. Um but I think the intent was we we didn't necessarily want to you know lay off that element to the city um and be
respectful of the fact that we would ultimately be responsible for the operations and the elements of that. Um, but the location of it, um, in being on the north side and just adjacent to the pedestrian facilities for the crossing, we I mean, we do want to emphasize we we'd like to figure out how to make it a
a public private element that could be utilized for for more than just private events. Um, and we're really excited about that location because we I don't know if you've if you've been in Jerry's, right, it's like the craziest place I've ever been. um we want to
figure out how to get people from I don't know if you can do it but just to walk up that hill and come across that pedestrian crossing and come to here and then they can go to Hilltop. So it's just this natural confluence and yeah we we really hope it is a kind of a public private endeavor but it would be
undertaken by by us um with with quite a bit of flexibility I imagine in a in a development agreement. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So now I just add on to that that um obviously we're uh very much hoping to uh be very open and collaborative
with uh uh you all commissioners and and city council uh throughout that whole process. So uh open, collaborative, flexible and and listening to the community uh to serve the community in the best way possible. >> Thanks Mr. Newurn. Uh Mr. Osmanson, uh let's talk financing quickly here. We
got a couple minutes. Absolutely. We're on we're on the mark, I guess. Okay, one minute. Uh, so you're thinking about four million plus you said they're going to need some tiff and then I heard you talking about uh Minnesota management and budget and going to get some bonding money. I didn't hear you talk about
Minnesota housing finance. Uh, all of that takes time. What what what are we thinking about here uh and how to you know what what portion of that becomes uh tax increment financing on the 4 million? what you know to the I
guess we're talking about the structured parking. The architects may have some rough idea of what that number is based on their knowledge of the cost per stall. >> Sure. >> Uh but the other parts of it I'm interested in as well is to if you have to go get other public funds to fund the
affordable part of it, how long is that going to take? >> So we would look to so specifically uh let me break it down. So, uh, if we were going to look at the the tax increment financing piece, most of that increment is derived by the senior cooperative
housing, um, as well as the retail concept. So, the district would be for the the whole three parcels that's envisioned. And then we would be using it for eligible uses of of parking and landscape activation. I I the approximate value that I put on that from a present value perspective was
$4.4 million over the course of anywhere from 15 to 25 years. Um, if we then look at specifically the low-income housing tax credit process, uh, you know, it it is a more patient process. However, what
I was referencing is the bonding process is just the normal process that you go through for a tax credit project. Uh, the critical path is securing those bonds. After that, the ability to get tax credits and things like that is um is is a very liquid environment. And
what happens is if we were to make an application in January of 2026, you have a year and a half to receive those bonds. We would likely there's been some federal changes that will make it easier to receive those bonds as opposed to kind of the stacking mechanism that's
been going on for about the last 7 to 8 years. Um, and so the timeline of opening everything in quarter 1 of 2028 is realistic and it assumes that we potentially are I'll say I'll say waiting, it's not the correct word, but
that we are waiting to get those bonds and we would basically have everything else in place to start right there. The senior cooperative housing that's a that is a uh HUD debt concept and then the equity comes from the uh purchasers. So
it is actually more of a captive financing uh capital stack. You don't suffer from some of the uh macroeconomic kind of convulsions that have been recently happening where projects have just stopped and died. Um there's liquidity. It's just kind of depends on
what the pricing elements are of that. So hope hopefully that's helpful. >> So the time horizon then for starting construction would be when and completion would be when. So let's just say the the longest possible time uh
would be from we would receive bonds on the litec opportunity let's say in January of 2027. So then we have an approximately year to to build that and so that puts us right into that first quarter of 2028. At 100 units it's probably
anywhere from a 12 to 15month construction schedule. >> And in the meantime you're working on the other component parts. >> Yep. Absolutely. So the the senior cooperative has a different sale process that >> All right, that helps. >> Yep. >> Okay. Thanks, Mr. Rossson. Thanks to your entire team again. Thank you so
much for being interested in being in Edana. We really appreciate it. Of course, we know Eenezer has been here for a long time and doing a good job on everything they manage. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, commissioners. >> Thank you. >> Have a great day.
>> All right. So that was our our fifth presentation for the morning. So it's been a long morning. What we had in mind was to take a break from the public meeting and adjourn and discuss what you just heard. Uh the potential sale of real estate is one of those rare
situations where we can uh adjourn the public meeting and have the private conversation about price point and which is the the uh proposal that might be the best fit. We can't have that in a closed setting. uh can't make any decisions there. Uh no final actions. Uh but it
does uh provide a sense of privacy and the ability for the uh for the uh for the city to still negotiate the best price and the best project. So that'd be my recommendation to adjourn to a close session and uh discuss what we just heard.
>> All right. So give us a couple minutes for a break and then we'll go to that uh notion. I think we're all prepared for that. I think doing having this conversation fresh in time. I wish uh our colleague Commissioner Pierce was here, but nonetheless, the four of us will uh have a I think a robust
conversation on this. So, uh should we take five minutes for a break and then reconvene at 10:15? >> What? >> Need a motion to go into close close session >> before we take the break? >> Well, our table for right now, right?
Isn't that what I mean? We've just been taking breaks. Why can't we take a break and then go into close session? I mean, I don't want to >> It might be easy to to easiest to make the motion now to go to close session and then on your way to the close session. I'm not fussy about process. If
that you think's the best way to do it, that's fine. >> Uh, is there a motion to go into close session as permitted by Minnesota statutes 13D.05 subdivision 3 to review and discuss the proposals for the sale of land at 5146 Eden Avenue? >> So moved. >> I second. >> We got a motion and a second. Motion by
Commissioner Jackson, second by Commissioner Agnu to um go into close session to discuss the proposals for the sale of land at 5146 46 Eden Avenue. Any further discussion? All those in favor of going into close session for that purpose say I. >> I.
>> I. Opposed. Carried. Uh we will now be in close session for purposes of that conversation and take just a short break before we start that conversation in earnest. Well, folks, we've been in uh in close session pursuant to Minnesota statute
13D.05, subdivision 3 to review and discuss the five proposals for the sale of land at 5146 Eden Avenue, the former uh public works site. Uh we've been in conversation for quite a bit of time now and it's it's time to move back into
open session and then we'll give a summary brief summary of what took place in the closed session. And so the first of all we need a motion to go back into open session uh as as prescribed by Minnesota statute 13D.05 subdivision 3. Is there a motion to go back into open
session? >> So moved. I second. Commissioner Jackson moves Commissioner Agnu uh seconds the motion to go back into open session for the HRA uh on this 24th day of July 2025 uh with respect to the um discussion of
the sale of land prospective sale of land at 5146 Eden Avenue. Any further discussion? Those in favor of going back into uh open session with regard to this matter say I. >> I opposed. Carried. We're back in open session and um I can tell folks that we
had uh that will be listening to this tape. We had uh a terrific experience this morning listening to five very experienced developers with the ability to deliver to deliver uh products uh on the old public work site work site that
3.3 acres uh that were all different in in vision and scope. uh all of them had their own positive elements. Uh they all had a positive impact to the city budget. I think uh the you know the values that
were provided in terms of the estimated land values for the property to be sold potentially sold. Uh they certainly had the ability to close uh on the deal. As I said, they're all very experienced developers with uh deep resources
uh and as mentioned earlier uh compatible in different ways with city vision. Uh we have directed our economic development manager, Bill Nondandorf, to um begin work with one of those five developing uh entities. I guess it's a
it was a combination of entities, most of them. And he has that direction in mind. Uh and he's going to start conversations with one of those five that we interviewed with this morning and discussed in closed session. So that's I think uh the summary of what
took place this morning and um we'll now think about adjourning if we had a motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> I second. >> A motion by Commissioner Jackson, second by Commissioner Agno to adjourn the meeting the special meeting of the housing redevelopment authority this
Thursday, July 24th, 2025. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adjournment say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Carried. The H on this 24th day of July, 2025 stands adjourned.