Limited time. We wanna make sure that others have an opportunity to speak. I'd also request that each speaker be concise to allow more, people to speak during open comment. Participants are also encouraged to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of the council's ability to affect policy. Council members and staff do not respond to your comments during public comment, but will instead follow-up on any specific requests separately. If you have materials to share with the council,
you may give them to the city clerk over here to my right. And with that, I will call up our first speaker, Rebecca Ganaway. Need to turn on that microphone. Yep. That little one till it's green. Yep. Perfect. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. My name is Rebecca Ganaway, and I live in an older neighborhood in Southeast Rochester. I'm here tonight to discuss the fact that our sewer system our sewer pipes in our neighborhood are beginning to disintegrate.
These pipes were made of orange berg, which is wood pulp and tar paper, which they layer over layer over layer to create the sewage pipes. Now, nearly ninety years later, these sewage pipes are beginning to disintegrate, which is allowing raw sewage to seep underneath the roads in our community. I have talked to the city, the county, and RPU about this problem that I have and my neighbors have. They were all very kind and empathetic about it.
But, they all reassured me that this is completely the homeowner's problem. So I have called four excavators, two of whom will not work with the city of Rochester. I don't know why. One only works with new developments. And the fourth one gave me a bid of $17,000 I am a para at Kellogg Middle School, and I was setting three with high behaviors. And I probably make about $17,000 a year. The houses in my neighborhood are older, and they're more affordable for people like myself.
But when we come up with a to assist myself and my neighbors so that we don't have this problem, such as good contractors, ways of financing it. And some of my neighbors don't even realize that they have this problem right now, but it's highly unsanitary. And I would like to see if we could get some help. Thank you. Next we have Mark Iverson. Hey, City council. It's a similar complaint or or well, I live in Sunset Terrace, and, we used to have a beautiful tree canopy,
and it's, gradually just going going away. All the maples were planted too deep, and they got root, girdle. So they're all gone. The ash trees, of course, have been removed. But, specifically, the post office has no boulevard trees, the Valley High post office. Sunset Terrace has three boulevard trees. It's a whole city block. It's, and then many of the streets are, are, don't have any replanted boulevard trees. The same is true for Gage School. They they have no trees around that school.
It's just like we're gonna make downtown shiny new, but the older neighborhoods are our streets are pretty bad too. They're just we need some attention, and I'm sure that other people here feel the same way. Thank you. Next, we have John Holper. Good evening. My name is John Holper. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Bassford Remley in Minneapolis, and I'm here on behalf of ICON LLC. Specifically, we're here in connection with ICON's objection to consent item f 10,
which proposes to approve a construction contract with Pender Companies for the Fourth Street Southeast and Nineteenth Avenue Southeast intersection project. And this afternoon, I sent a letter to the city, the council, to all interested parties laying out ICON's position and objection to the council moving forward as a consent item. I won't repeat all of that. But real briefly, from ICON's perspective, it was and is the low responsive bidder.
Its bid is $427,209.14 less than the next lowest bidder to whom the council is being asked to award a contract to. From our perspective, staff did not follow the proper analysis when reviewing the bids. Staff's conclusion that the proposal or the bid was unbalanced was incorrect. There is no mention of the actual formula that law requires to be applied in order to
determine an unbalanced proposal, specifically a mathematical analysis, and that the contract is materially unbalanced. The proposal or the the bid that was submitted by my client was balanced regardless if there was what is called penny line items. Those are not, inappropriate or, not allowed in connection with public bidding. In fact, the city council has approved prior contracts Mister Hopper Hopper,
if you can wrap up. Sure. I will not. Has approved previous contracts that had that same process in them. I will wrap up. I would just ask two things that the council, not move forward, with approving the contract and submit the project out for rebid or, alternatively, that the council, at a minimum, push this to a next, the next council meeting with a full opportunity to hear. Next, we have, I might screw up your first name, it looks like Ken Iverson. Ken Iverson. Iverson. And do we have some items here?
Do I have to send a sec clerk over here? Yep. Thank you. I'm Kenny Everson. I am out of the jurisdiction. So I'll give you that right off the bat. What we're what I'm here about is is information for you guys, and maybe we can get some feedback back. This is in, regards to the Lemon Hill solar project, Havert Hill and Viola. They're coming in with windmills, wondering how City of Rochester likes the eastern view to look like Dexter. So I dropped off some maps there.
There's some contact information. There again, I realize it's out of your jurisdiction, but we'd be glad for some feedback if that was something that we could get from you. Some directions, some help with some things, mainly on a verbal, just to give us some ideas. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next, we have Susan Chase. Good evening. My name is Susan Chase, and I'm the senior vice president for BIO Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Massachusetts. It's my privilege to be here this evening to speak with you about the we're
in support of the shared lab project at Discovery Square. For those of you not familiar with BioLabs, we are an internationally recognized operator of shared lab spaces for early stage science based start up companies. We pair a premium, fully equipped, supported lab and office space with access to capital and industry partners. We currently operate in 17 sites in Japan, The U. S, Germany, and in France. In the Vuhoff, a physician scientist and entrepreneur, founded BioLabs and then LabCentral, we have operated with a single goal. We set out to redefine how life science companies and start up ecosystems were built
and how they served the greater mission of our empowering companies to accelerate their science, grow their businesses, and have a lasting impact on the world. We believe that Rochester offers great potential to become a central hub for research and innovation within the life science industry. And we're excited to be involved in this project with this caliber of world class partners, the state of Minnesota, DMC, Mortenson, DMC, Mortenson, and Mayo Clinic. We look forward to working with these partners on the design, operation, and governance of the site. And should it be appropriate this evening, we're happy to answer any questions.
I'm here with my colleague, Gary Olson. Thank you. Thank you, miss Jace. That is all, the folks that have signed up for, open comment. So I will close open comment and, ask clerk Casel to call the roll. Good evening. Council member Keane? Here. Council member Miller? Here. Council member Wall? Here. Council member Fredericks? Here. Council member Palmer? Here. Council member Doering is absent. Council president Schoebring? Here. Mayor Norton is absent. Thank you. Next, we have the city administrator's report.
Administrator Zelms, take it away. Thank you, council president, council members. I have just a couple things, this evening, but we always start the report with thanking all of our teammates for acting with respect, integrity, safety, and excellence in mind in everything they do, whether they're out in the field or, in their their police squads or, or wherever they are throughout the city doing good work. Did just want to point out a couple of things. So if you live in the city limits, you will have received a summer fund and city resources mailer. This went out to about 64,000 households, and we also have print copies available at City Hall,
the library, development services, and infrastructure, and we'll have those, at events throughout the city. You can also get a digital copy on our website at rochestermn.gov. You just head to the news and updates section. It's pinned to the top. We also are entering summer here in June, and so City Beaches and the Lincolnshire Splash Pad are open. Beaches are open daily, noon to eight p. M, and the Lincolnshire Splash Pad is open from ten a. M. To eight p. M. The Sorters Field Aquatic Center I know people are waiting for that is opening on June 5, and it will be open daily from noon to eight p.
M. So folks will have that opportunity soon. Also wanted to, give a little bit of a shout out to Thursdays Downtown and we have a collaboration that happens with Public Music. They bring their Passport Series artists, and our Passport Series artists will be at Thursdays Downtown on on June 26 at 7PM, Thomas X. So you can also go on any Thursday, this summer, check that out at the Rochester Downtown Alliance, to head to Thursdays Downtown, but this is a specific one, that will be at the Discovery Walk stage. And, of course, the Farmers' Market is happening at Graham Park,
Saturdays, 07:30AM, to noon, now through October. That's at 35 Fairgrounds Avenue Southeast. And that's all I have. Have. Thank you. Next up, I've got a couple items. As you know, the mayor is away. So first up, we have, safe city nights. We will have four gatherings across, the city this summer, June 10 at Gibbs Elementary, July eighth at Jefferson Elementary, July twenty second, Bishop Elementary, and August 12, Franklin Elementary. Each event will include free food and fun activities with police officers,
firefighters, and other pay public safety and city partners, and a lot of residents attend these. RPD also, first launched Safe City Nights in 2019 with the purpose of building positive connections between police and community members. So nice events to kick off the summer. Then later in the summer, we have night to unite, neighbors joining together. The Rochester Police Department is looking forward to night to unite on August 5.
It's a time for neighbors and the police to come together to in pursuit of safer communities. Neighborhoods are encouraged to coordinate gatherings and register them at, r0ch0m0lmstedunite.com. And, police officers and other first responders will do their best to visit all registered parties. And finally, we've, have some boards and commission vacancies. We have two vacancies on the board of appeals, one vacancy on the historic preservation commission,
one vacancy on the pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee, and, two vacancies, for, the sustainability and resiliency commission and one for, students. So, if you're interested in, community service, please consider those. And if you have any questions for the mayor, the next slide is the mayor's phone number. With that, I will move to the order of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the order of the agenda?
So moved. Moved by, Council Member Keen. Second. Seconded by council member Miller. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes unanimously. Moving on to, item f, which is our consent agenda. We have three pulled items. I've pulled items f 10 and f 15, and council member council member Palmer has pulled f 16. Are there is there anything else? Council member King, go ahead. Yeah. I'm not gonna pull f four, but I'm gonna vote against it. Okay. If not, I will invite a motion to approve and block items f one through f nine,
f 11 through f 14, and f seventeen and eighteen. Okay. Moved by council member Palmer. Second. Seconded by council member, Keane. For any discussion, council member Wahl? I'd just like to point out that f eight and f nine contracts, with the city, we came in $382,000 underneath, estimates. And so thanks to contractors and the city staff for the great work done. Thank you, council member. Any further discussion? Council member Keane. Yeah. I'll just mention on f four, this is something the city vetted closely.
This is allowing golf carts and other than the, city neighborhood streets. I kinda appreciate the work that's going on and the motivation of trying to support this individual request. But I just think that by doing these individual requests, we're on a slippery slope towards having things in the city that we're not gonna be able to control. Thank you. Any any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So we have motion carries with council member Keane voting nay on item f four. Moving on to our public hearings.
We have five public hearings on our agendas this evening. However, we will be combining the public hearings for, items g three, g four, and g five into one public hearing as they relate to the same property, but we will be taking, three votes on, those items. Before we begin the public hearings, I just would like to take a moment to clarify the process by which each hearing happens. First, we will have a staff presentation. And then if applicable, if there is an applicant, and they they or their representative will make a presentation up to ten minutes,
and then I will open the public hearing. Members of the public have five minutes each. But, again, we encourage you to keep your comments brief, concise, and, and, germane to the item before us. And after that, I will close the public hearing. The applicant will be invited back up to address any, issues that came up during the public hearing. And after that, I will invite my colleagues to, ask questions of both staff and the applicant, and then we will entertain a motion.
So with that, I will, turn to, mister Elliot Mueller who will give us a briefing on major land subdivision by Build Wealth Inc, to be known as Flowing Rock Brook Valley. Evening, council president, members of the city council. Elliott Mueller with Rochester Community Development. CD twenty twenty five zero eleven plat by Build Wealth Minnesota Inc, is proposing a subdivision at the site that's located West of Commercial Drive Southwest and Southwest of the terminus of Sedgemando Circle Southwest.
And the request tonight is to sub subdivide 93.67 acres of land in the 37 residential lots and one outlot. The 37 residential lots will be a mixture, 34 twin, duplex and or triplex. One lot is proposed for a 12 unit apartment complex, one lot is proposed for a community center and one lot will be held in common, for the neighborhood. The review of this major Landfill Division, I will remind you, is limited to dimensional standards of the lots themselves, connect connectivity and access and adequacy of infrastructure. We're not gonna be looking at any proposed uses,
and whatnot in this, when we make our when we review this, type of application. So the development review team tonight recommends approval with five conditions, not four. And the planning commission has forwarded a recommendation of approval, unanimously. Any questions at this point? If not, is the applicant here or, their representative please step forward and state your name, and you have ten minutes. Thank you. Mark Welch with G Cubed Engineering representative applicant, David McGee with Build Wealth Minnesota. Here to really just answer any questions you might have. I know there's some questions about the traffic and environmental aspects in this project.
This traffic does go through a Decora Edge, which is acceptable for a site that needs a secondary access, which this site does. This will provide a secondary access for, many of the homes that currently only have a single access, north of the road north of Pepsi. And then the decorage analysis has come up as a question with wetlands, and we've done a full decorage analysis of the site. And, the reviewing agencies have reviewed it and approved it, and so we're ready to move forward with the finishing of construction plans and start construction. Thank you, mister Welch. We will call you back after the public hearing. Thanks.
At this point, I will open the public hearing. Anyone who wishes to be heard on this item, please step forward and state your name. Anyone who wishes to be heard on this item, please step forward, state your name, and you have five minutes. Alright. Thank you so much. This is a well, I actually haven't reviewed in-depth this item, but I do know that there was extra time on the open comment. We get twenty minutes. A lot of people, because of road construction, were not able to sign up in time because we had to navigate all of the road construction downtown that keeps visitors and patients away.
What happened here is getting to the council meeting caused people not to be able to sign up right away, and the full twenty minutes for public comment was not allotted. So so I decided to bring up some issues that don't directly relate to g one, but have to do with construction. The road construction on Elkton Hills and Broadway miss Dennis. Go ahead. This is not germane to the, public hearing that we're having. But Miss Dennis, please. It, you understand the open comment period, and you understand public hearings. And I understand them very well.
Understand. You need to discuss the item that is before us. So, I am going to ask you to take your seat. Okay. Just wanna point out the in discrepancies that are doing when you see me stand up in the back wanting to come up to speak on open comments. Dennis. Do you understand the rules of open comment? The rules of open comment. Retaliation. And there is a sign up sheet, and your name was not on it. This is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward. This is a public hearing.
Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward. Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite, mister Welch to return to the microphone. Just here to answer any questions you may have. At this point, any questions from, council members to the applicant? Council member Fredericks. Thank you. Council member Wall? Very little of, the land is dedicated to housing. What what, is the plan for the whole rectangle? Yes. That property is very, very difficult to develop because of the environmental issues.
So I don't know, Kelly, if you could switch to the sheet that has the, decor analysis or, any anything that shows that. I don't know if it's There's essentially a major drainage way down through this site. Everything north of that drainage way is inaccessible or in an area of wetland. There's a calcareous fen there. It's just essentially an area that we just cannot effectively develop without other environmental impacts or extremely costly infrastructure to cross that, creek. And then to the south, there's a decor edge that is, kind of diverting or is kind of,
splitting the area to the south of the creek. So we only have a little area we can develop on the lower end and a little bit on upper end. Everything to the west of the water tower, there's just one little spot up on the top that we show some houses in the general development plan. It's just that working around the actual environmental features and the topography of that site, what, was depicted on the general development plan is as much as we can effectively develop unless you got into some expensive retaining walls that we do not wanna touch because of the decora soils in that area. So at least currently, we expect,
the rest of the land to be relatively untouched. Yes. On this GDP, there was or the the major land subdivision. There's area that's up on the upper portion that is shown as one outlot that in the GDP did have additional housing units. We weren't showing those at this point because they wouldn't be part of this first phase of construction. Thank you. So there's a total of, I think, it was a hundred and some units within the, GDP. Council member Keane. Yeah. You talk about the geography geology here. It is cumbersome. People have tried to develop back here in the last thirty years and have never
been able to get one through. I think the reason this is working as getting to this point is because we're only developing on that eastern edge. Can you talk about when you say we're not developing on any decor edge there, how do we know that? What is the is there how does the science work out or the engineering work out so that we know there's none there and we know there's some by the road. Yep. So the core edge, analysis is similar to wetland delineation. The difference is wetland delineation. You're only in the upper couple feet looking for water. The core edge analysis, we're going down a minimum of 60 inches,
and we're looking for water that could actually be transferring, within that upper 60 inches. And so we did borings, to the depth minimum 60 and identify areas that are either saturated or run into shale materials. So it's, kind of looking at a combination of soil borings and also a water presence. And so once you've established that area that is essentially the Decorah edge, that's a feature that we have to stay out of as as well as we possibly can, with the one provision that is an allowance for a secondary access, road through the Decorah. And even then,
we looked at an alignment that minimized the impacts within the decora, and then the city has some special criteria for construction through a decora edge. So, essentially making sure that the road isn't gonna be, soft or sloughing off. And I don't know if this is for public works or for the applicant, but it's my understanding that the city has no geology, expertise to test this sort of land. We count on the county for that sort of, analysis. Did the county do this or the development group do this work? So we made the application for the Decorah Edge Analysis similar to a wetland application that is reviewed by Don Van Coolen,
who's at the Elmstead County Public Works, environmental division. And so it goes through the same review with a little more scrutiny actually than a wetland delineation, but it's kind of the same. It said all the logs. And then they also come out and do a field visit, like a wetland delineation, to verify a few locations to ensure that, what we're presenting is what's matching up with our maps. And then they essentially certify that delineation or mitigation, analysis for the decora action. So so mister Wells, just so we understand what's happening here, the development group does the study and the county approves that it was done right?
Yes. Very similar to a wetland delineation. Okay. If during develop during construction we find out there's other areas there that we didn't find, what happens? Well, we shouldn't run into any of that with the construction because, all of our buildings and streets are outside of that area that we actually did borings. And we did borings not just at the limits. We did borings, upslope and downslope of the locations that were identified as features. But if you ran into something that is a problem with soil, we'd have to take a look at it. But, generally, there is engineering solutions for that. The main issue is that if you got water that's getting into a location that you have a basement,
then you'd have to make sure you get that water away from the basement. All the units that we're proposing here have, most of them have are slide on grade anywhere in the vicinity of the decor so it wouldn't be a problem. And so it's it's something that we do have to deal with, but we did, I think a hundred and some probes to make sure that we weren't running into an area. And that 60 inches doesn't mean that there's water that's flowing or anything. It's just it shows a sign of presence of previous waters. Yeah. I mean, the concern here that I'm trying to bring up is that, obviously, we'd have trouble trying to develop here before. You guys have come up with a way that said,
we agree. We know a lot of it can't be developed, but we can develop this one part. Yep. That's correct. And and private the previous developers when it first started is before the Decorah Edge or ordinance came into play, and then none of the property owners ever wanted to pay for the Decorah Edge analysis to determine what was developable. And so once it was actually gone out out there and delineated, then we knew what was developable land. Okay. So the, I I I'm just I'm trying to establish though that I mean, we have other neighborhoods where we have trouble with this. We have, private or public roads that we've had great expense on this.
So I'm trying to protect the city to make sure we don't end up with a road that gets built turned over to the city and then doesn't work for whatever reasons and we need to do this, remediation. Is that I mean, it does get turned over to the city. Right? It's not The public street will go to the city. Yes. Just the public street, though. That's the one that's connecting Sedgemeld up to Willow Ridge. That's the only public road there. That's them are all private. Yeah. And that's the one that we have through through your works. It really is going over the top of the core edge. It's going right through the core edge, but there's actually ways of, it's just a combination of, extensive tile, drainage, rock,
and other features that are installed under the road to ensure that it doesn't become a soft road or one that the city has had multiple problems on, mostly stuff that was constructed pre February. Okay. So you you feel pretty confident that the way we've gotten around these problems is by keeping all of our work to the Far East, Northeast, and basically not going further West where there was just no way around. Correct. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions, for mister Welch? Any questions for staff? Seeing none, is there a motion on this item? Council Member, Fredericks? Did you?
Council Member, Palmer. I'll make a motion to, adopt a resolution approving a major Landsat Division Number CD twenty twenty five-eleven Platte by Build Wealth Incorporated with the four conditions. Is there a second? Second. Moved by council member Palmer, seconded by council member Fredericks. Conditions. Five conditions, actually. Well, it says four on the Yes. I believe it is five conditions. Do you wanna amend your emotion? Or do you wanna take one of the conditions out? Well, I'm only reading what I'm reading. So Okay. It is five. Do five conditions. Yes. There was a correction to the agenda.
Council member Fredericks, you agreed to that? I totally did. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Council member Palmer, anything more to add? Well, I guess I will add a little bit about the, Decorah Edge. Mister Keane is correct that it is a problem area and I think it was 2000 when Rochester decided to do something with the Decorah Edge with is not easy to build on and most people will avoid it. And I have, great faith that this engineering company knows what they're doing and will, treat the land, appropriately. Thank you. Council member, Keane? Yeah. Just two things. I I know I I'd had some just getting the record the talked to the
public works team today about what they have to do to make sure this is. And, mister Dombrowski, if you wanna talk about what are their risks or and how we're mitigating them with with this sort of construction. Yeah. Good evening, president, members of the council. So in some correspondence earlier today, I just reindicated that, yes, anytime we're working around different soil conditions, differing, you know, areas and and geology within the community. We need to be prepared knowing that in the future, it could become a maintenance challenge. But the way we get around that is really with updated standards.
So we've as mister Welch indicated, we've changed our standards since, some of the roadways that we've we're now dealing with in these areas that weren't designed the way we would design them with, underdrains that are there to move water away from our road subgrade so that it will last over the life of the pavement and we aren't having maintenance issues and constantly coming back or having to do a new project because of that. So, while we'll acknowledge that there's always that risk, we're very confident that the standards today are gonna help preserve this roadway for the
life of the expectance, period of the pavement. Sorry. I'm stumbling over my words. Just the long term preservation of the roadway. Yeah. Again, I did wanna make sure this got on the record about this idea. Remember, we just went through work with our strategic imperatives, and sustainability is one of them. And this is an area that is very, like, at risk geology. It's and back in 2019, there was a lot of flooding troubles here. And we have, and now by allowing something like this here, we we are meeting our standards. We're doing things by the rules.
But at the same time, I think we have to admit to ourselves that we're taking on environmental risks by developing in this kind of an area. Thank you, council member. Any further discussion? I have another point I wanna make, and this is with, it's community development. We read into here that we that we're doing a community development or a community center or something here. And I just want to establish there is like a conditional use permit on one of these parcels. We may or may not get it. There's nothing being approved today that says there will be or if there's not,
there can't be a development. Can you talk about what's really happening with this idea of saying a community center? Yep. Thank you, Councilmember Keene. In general, just the community center, so thinking of, you know, like a sanctuary, classrooms, sports court. What you're talking about on that parcel, conditional use permit was approved by Planning Commission. That just allows for that site to have that use. It is a permitted use. Just we want some extra scrutiny when we're reviewing it. And in general, I mean, you're correct. It might not be built. It could be built. If there's a future purchaser, they could build it. It runs with the land.
But the community center, a lot of it would just be centered around that community and ancillary, so there could be a coffee shop shop, which would be supportive of the community center. So it's not business. You couldn't build a business, there necessarily because it's r two. Okay. So and just to clarify, there's a conditional use permit to put one there, but it doesn't say that's what the land's for. It could be any other r two usage too. Correct. Okay. Again, I just wanna there's been some confusion that what we're doing here is based on
the promise of something, and we're not. This is a we're what we're approving is a subdivision of land and not we're not making an agreement that's gonna be broken or not broken. We're really just doing subdivisions. Thank you. Further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Item passes. Moving on to G2, which is a vacation petition by Onward Investors. Mister Mueller. Go ahead. Yep. Thanks, council president, members of the council, Elliot Mueller, Rochester Community Development, CD twenty twenty five five DAC by Onward Investors.
The site is located South of Civic Center Drive and East of Sixth Avenue Northwest. The request tonight is to vacate portions of Fourth Street Northwest, Fifth Street Northwest, and the related alleyway and easements. This site currently has two applications, in review with Community Development, a site development plan and a minor land subdivision. The vacation would need to be approved for Community Development to approve the minor land Subdivision to consolidate the properties. When we are looking at vacations, we look at two main, criteria. The first being, is it in the public interest? And second, is it going to deny legally required access?
In this case, Community Development and the Development Review Team believes it is in the public interest. The approval of this application will further refill or, infill and redevelopment, near Civic Center Drive. The proposed plan is income restrictive apartment complex. Again, like I said, there's already two, applications, on file with us for review. And then the vacation's not gonna deny legally required access, on Fourth Street or Fifth Avenue. Those roads will be continuing to exist as two way roadways. And the development review team recommends approval with two conditions, and I believe that should be correct on your recommended motion.
And then the planning commission forwarded a recommendation is the applicant here or the applicant's, representative? Please step forward, state your name, and you have ten minutes. My name is Chris Osmundson. I'm, with Onward Investors. Thank you, council president and council members, for, adding this to the agenda this evening. This vacation is related to, actually, an item that was on the consent agenda, F-seventeen, with some funding that was approved via the Death Station Medical Center in the city of Rochester. As was mentioned by Mr. Moller, the vacation is for, the broader purposes of an assemblage, and so one of the other pending applications is,
related to, a a replat, so a minor land subdivision and replatting of this site, which will ultimately be approximately three acres, that'll have about 270 units of affordable housing on it. So, these vacations, once the land is purchased by us, will be sort of what is left to be assembled. And then, there'll be two buildings, technically, as the project is moving forward, through the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency's tax credit program. So, I'm really here to answer any questions, as, I guess, the the previous applicant on g one,
and and happy to do so. So here to stand for that or, speak to that. You back up after the public hearing. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Son. At this point, I will open the public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward. Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. And, mister Ahmanson, if you'd like to step forward and, make any closing comments? Sure. Absolutely. No. I just really appreciate, I think, staff, council members, elected officials, everyone, that has been working on this project.
These take, literal I mean, village is kind of cliche, but, you know, a city with a population of 125,000 people. And it's been tremendous working through this process. There's a lot of opportunities for, these projects to be hung up on numerous things that have to go through these, processes that are very important. But, I really appreciated the opportunity to work with the city again, on this project, and hopefully, it wants to come in the future. So, thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant or staff? Council Member Keane? Yeah, I'm just gonna ask staff. I just I feel I'm still a little confused on this.
It's a vac vacation of easements, but the traffic still continues to run on both streets? Yeah. Council member Keane. So they're only vacating 20 feet Okay. Strips along Fourth Street Northwest and, Fifth Avenue. So, again, this has the traffic passing through this area will continue to the same way it is right now. It's the same number of lanes, same, direction. I believe they might be eliminating parking, but that's from the last plan that I saw. But I would public works, is not agreeing with that. Good evening. Mister Mueller is correct. The the roadway is narrowing, so but it's not changing the circulation within the the grid network in this area.
That's what I thought from the discussion, but when they call it a vacation, I just wanted to ask. Thanks. Any further, questions? Seeing none, is there a motion on this item? I'll move to adopt the resolution approving the vacation petition, petition CD twenty twenty five-five VAC by Onward Investors with two conditions of approval. Second. Moved by Councilmember Keane and seconded by Councilmember Miller. Councilmember Keane, any further? No. The only comment I'd make is I I I have watched as our downtown a lot of the investment. I like seeing some of this in the Near Northwest where we really haven't,
expanded the downtown, and it's good. I hope this helps move some both, living arrangement but also some commerce in those directions. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, mister Ahmed Osmundson. Moving on to, as I mentioned earlier with items, g three, g four, and g five, as they all relate to the same property, we will hold one public hearing, but the council will vote on the growth management amendment, comprehensive management amendment,
and the annexation petition separately. So with that, I will turn it over to, to miss, Karen Edens to give us a report. Good evening, Council President Schubert, Council members. Karen Edens with the Community Development Department. I have the privilege of standing in for one of our planners and presenting to you, three related applications, for the Site of the Future Regional Sports And Complex, excuse me, Regional Sports And Recreation Complex, I will call the sports complex, going forward. The site location, you should be very familiar with. It's located in Southeastern Rochester,
sort of on the fringe. Specifically, it's located North Of 40 Eighth Street Southeast, South Of Fortieth Street Southeast, located East of the east terminus of Orchid Road Southeast. So once again, you have three specific applications. We're going to review them at once and hold one public hearing. The first item is a Growth Management Amendment, number CD2025-one GMMA. So, this proposes to reclassify approximately 145.5 acres from urban expansion beyond 2,050 to near term urban expansion on the city's growth management map. This change essentially signifies that the site is ready to support urban style development and
it serves as the foundation for the subsequent applications I will mention, and this does require a super majority vote. The second item is the Comprehensive Plan Amendment Number CD2025-two CPA. This requests the land use designation of approximately 136.27 acres as medium density residential and 21.94 acres as commercial and business development. This item also requires a super majority vote. And the third and final item is annexation by ordinance number CD2025-003ANX. This application proposes the annexation of approximately 148.2
acres into the city of Rochester. In conjunction with the Comprehensive Plan Amendment. This item also proactively includes a zoning request, which would include 21.94 acres of the land, sort of on the southern edge of that site would be mixed use general or MXG. This would be located in the South Side as I mentioned. And then the remaining 136.27 acres would be zoned r three medium density residential. It's worth noting that 107 of the 136.27 acres are actually developable, with about 95 to 100 being taken up taken up by the sports complex.
So that would leave about seven to 12 acres of land for for potential residential development. These three applications reflect collaboration amongst the Parks Department and Community Development, to best position the property to align with the future sports complex vision. Ultimately, the review resulted in the determination that a combination of R3 and MXG would be best suited for the property. The R3 zoning district specifically offers the flexibility needed to support the vision for the sports complex and its associated amenities. For example, flexibility to include, an indoor sports complex,
while also allowing for potential future residential development. The MXG zoned area to the south preserves the opportunity for future commercial development in a suitable location. Keep note that any development outside of the sports complex, would indeed be subject to a sanitary, sewer feasibility analysis to ensure adequate sewer capacity is available. Community development recommends approval on all three, applications. That concludes my presentation, and I'm open for any questions after the public hearing. I'll note that Park's teammates are also available for questions. Thank you, miss Edens.
Any questions at this point? Seeing none, this is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on on this item, please step forward. This is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward. Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite my colleagues to ask questions of staff. Any questions? Council member, Palmer. Go ahead. I just I just wanna confirm that the seven to 12 acres that you're talking about for R3 and the MXG land, we're anticipating selling that,
correct? If you wanna answer that or if I wanna, phone a friend. I can take that one. Mister Yetzer, go ahead. You're talking about the land in the Northeast or Northwest, rather? Yes. There's seven to 12 acres there. Yeah. I think it's preliminary for us to say that with absolute certainty that certainly something that we considered and that we should continue to consider, but it would be in the long term as it doesn't currently have gravity sewer, available to that portion of the site. So if it doesn't get sold, are you thinking that it's gonna become part of the, sports facility?
As you've seen in the in the proposed, complex layout, it's not being proposed to be used for the sports complex. No. I don't, at least in the near term, see it being used for the sports complex, which is partial part of the reason why we think it makes sense to sell it in the future. It's just certainly in a further out phase than what we're focused on at the moment. So we we're not currently going to sell it, but in all likelihood, will be sold? That would be my suggestion at the time at this time. Yeah. K. And then the m x the MXG, we are going to sell and that is marketable. Is that Correct.
Thank you. Further questions? Seeing none, is there a motion on item G3, the growth management map? I'll make a motion adopting the resolution approving the growth management map amendment number CD2025-one GMMA by the City of Rochester, to amend approximately 145.5 acres from urban expansion beyond 2,050 to near term urban expansion on the city's growth map. It's, moved by Councilmember Keane. Second. Seconded by Councilmember, Wall. I just had one question for and making sure we're doing this right. We have one public hearing.
We have three things. Are these all majority, votes or is there anything that's a super majority? The first two are super majority. Okay. I just wanna make sure because we're missing one person tonight. So Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes six zero. Moving on to the comprehensive plan amendment. Is there a motion on this item? Sure. I'll make a motion adopting a resolution approving comprehensive plan amendment number CD twenty twenty five-two CPA, consisting of land use change classification on 158.2
acre site, amending the classification on 136.27 acres of property from urban reserve to medium density residential, 9.23 acres of urban reserve to commercial and business development, and 12.7 acres of industrial designated property to commercial and business development. Moved by Councilmember Miller, seconded by Councilmember Fredericks. Councilmember Miller, any more to add? Nothing to add. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes six zero. Moving on to, g five, which is annexation,
petition. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion. Moved by, can you read the motion? Yep. Make a motion to approve annexation by ordinance petition number CD2025-003ANX by the City of Rochester to incorporate approximately 158.2 acres of land into city limits with the application of mixed use general zoning on 21.94 acres and medium density residential R3 zoning on one hundred and thirty six point point two seven acres. Moved by council member Fredericks. I'm sorry. Portion. Same number two two Oh, yes.
Can you can you read the directing the city attorney? Yes. I can. I'm directing the city attorney to prepare an ordinance on first reading. Second. Moved by council member Fredericks and seconded by council member Palmer. Any more to add, council member Fredericks? No, sir. Any further, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes six-zero. Thank you. Moving on to our reports and recommendations. First up, we have our, discussion on our 20 or adapting, a resolution on our 2026 state bonding priorities resolution.
And we have miss Heather Cochran here from Saint Paul in person. Take it away. Thank you, council president, council members, teammates. I'm here, as you, heard, to present to you a continuation, really, of a discussion you all had a couple weeks ago on potential bonding priorities that we'd like to submit on the city's behalf in time for the state's deadline, which unfortunately comes, quickly here and potentially, kind of a little bit out of sequence than we normally like. If there's a special session with a bonding bill, we would take that into account. But, wanted to sort of take your feedback that you shared a couple
a couple weeks ago, present back to you, an option, a resolution, and then, move forward in that fashion, at least for now, for the June submission. Do I have? Got it. It. Thank you. And as you saw a couple weeks ago, we're in kind of the beginning stages of this, long process that happens with how we request state bonding, funding from the, Minnesota Management and Budget State Agency, which then gets reviewed by the governor's office and legislators, capital investment committee chairs, the entire legislator legislature or delegation, goes through tours in the fall, legislature convenes in early February next year,
and then ideally, moves forward with funding projects. This is also just one part of our larger work at the capital, as you know. Bonding priorities that you all are reviewing are are not our entire portfolio of things that we advocate for at the capital. That discussion will happen a little bit later in the fall of this year. So, again, wanna reiterate that these three projects you see in front of you, are are just a piece of the puzzle. And I'll talk about some of the items that you brought up as ideas and how we might be able to factor those into our larger, priorities later. Again, things that make a good broadening project have to be capital in nature,
regional in nature. Great if they're feasible, great if you have some urgency readiness, but also being able to sort of do the dance that is sometimes involved where it's take Many, many years to, receive funding for some of these projects. This is a very colorful chart, not meant to be something that you look at verbatim, but to show the art and science involved in some of this. And as we really do look at the ideas that you all, presented us back with a couple weeks ago and how those might fit into some of the criteria, some more formal criteria, some, you know, lessons learned with previous requests, and then looking back at the successful projects that have been funded not just from
our city, but across recent bills. I guess the the part to take from this is that those suggestions and ideas that you all discussed a couple of weeks ago were were really great in a lot of ways. Some could be, potential bonding projects as they get flushed out more, and we've got, really great teammates kind of working in some research avenues on what those might be, thinking about trail projects, thinking about other, capital investments, that align with with the work that's happening at the city. And then some, you know, might be better as, requests by other entities that we could think about how we might interact with that
or larger efforts from other groups, that advocate at the state capitol. For example, the efforts around shelter for people experiencing homelessness is a, proposal that's been in front of the bonding committee from other advocacy groups for a while and something we've supported at large in our priorities, but haven't taken the lead on again because sometimes those facilities are not publicly owned. They're owned by other entities, and so it makes more sense for that to be led by a a group that's gonna be more directly engaged in that. So without further ado, here are the three that we've present back to you.
Again, based on feedback, based on looking at the criteria, based on, our previous, reception of the projects by our legislative delegation, and again, really appreciate the the support and work that we've gotten with our delegation on these. At the end of the day, we present to them our delegation ideas and and what you all have listed as priorities, and then it really is a partnership where they're helping advocate for these to their, colleagues at the capital and to the bonding chairs. So you'll see the airport project. Again, airport parking infrastructure and energy components, this project is ready to roll once the funding is,
secured for for what the vision of that project will be. It's got great sense of urgency. We wanna continue the momentum on this. Again, we're kind of in this, little bit of, odd timing, I guess, for a lack of a better phrase, to see what might happen if there is a potential bonding bill in the coming weeks. If any, special session deal would include that, this would continue to be our number one project based on our previous priorities, but then also seeing, what what might be possible possible going forward. Number two is the, slightly rebranded, renamed project previously around sewer for housing. This, again, received a great,
reaction and really met meets the moment, I think, in the discussion, both locally and at the state. So a lot of, feasibility to this, which is a really great, story to tell, and we'll continue to kind of build out the narrative and, reasons and examples related to this project. But there's a lot of economic development, housing infill, providing improved experience and housing access for people. It relates to a lot of your potential strategic priorities. Number three is the newer one you'll see on there. This, was discussed a couple weeks ago again. Wanting to think ahead, and again, these take multiple years,
usually to daylight and get momentum around as we look towards the transportation needs of the community, wanting to really provide for, a holistic view and and to layer into some, momentum and federal funding we've gotten already on South Broadway, if that raise grant were to come through, thinking about the corridors into the city, both at Civic Center Drive and South Broadway. So some good potential. Also, road projects tend to be well received bipartisanly at the capitol, and I think we can make a great story, to share on some of these. I won't dive in. We have slides you can see on each of those projects.
Something to also think about and and, again, won't dive through all of these, but a lot of them do relate back to your potential strategic, priorities, helping level up things like the transformational or transformational capital projects, housing access. Clearly, that aligns with the sewer request, and even thinking about environmental stewardship. Obviously, with the airport, it's not just a parking lot. This is really trying to meet the moment with how do we be sustainable in providing, a good experience for users of the airport and also something that would provide half the energy used at the terminal. There's There's a little bit more detail on each of these,
which I'm happy to go through if you want, but I know we talked about them previously, so wanna be respectful of your time. Ready for questions. Can you, go back to the the three of three projects? So I understand the airport. Okay. Airport parking has been on one, and East Sunpro sewer for housing opportunities has been two. This session, explain how planning for Civic Center Drive, South Broadway Avenue kinda got bumped into third position. I know it was discussed here, but I don't know that we as a council came to making that three.
Appreciate that. So question around the prioritization with number three related to that planning for Civic Center Drive in South Broadway. I know it's something that, a lot of departments have been sort of working out, thinking through, impacts as our our downtown corridor changes and, driving patterns, can change and the opportunities that exist to convert, or think more holistically in a complete streets methodology to those, thoroughfares that are essentially, based on that preliminary research we've been doing, probably the busiest, municipal streets outside of the metro area.
And so trying to make a case that this isn't just a neighborhood street that we're trying to ask for state money for. It's really a regional asset that helps provide the economic direct that helps drive the economic, activity that happens in our city. Council Member, Palmer? Good to see you. I'm assuming we're not getting any bonding for '25. Your guess? Oh, that's a big question. I think we're always still hopeful that there could be something, and we want to keep the door open. I'm going to assume LGA didn't get boosted for Rochester this last session. I didn't know I was doing a legislative update at this time.
I'll just take that as a yes. So I don't, I I agree with with the president here that that number three really is too early. I'm thinking with a rapid bus, we won't be needing Civic Center Drive. So that's kind of the the hope that I have. So I'm thinking that, I would move the sewer to number one. I'm not sure asking for $3,000,000 is being the third largest city in Minnesota that that ranks up there because I think that they'll just pick the first one and say, Well, that's the cheapest. Let's give that to Rochester and move on. I think the sewer is number one. I have a different proposal and we kind of talked about it last time.
And I think that it would be better if we were working with the county, because I think number three is too early. But I'd want us to join the county and get a facility built for, mental health treatment. And I think that and illness and addiction. I believe the facility the size of about 500 beds is needed in Southeastern Minnesota and I believe the county would join us in that. And I think that that would be a leader in our Southeastern area. It would rank high, with our homeless populations in the need. As I was told last meeting forty four years ago, the state hospital was closed and I would assume that that would be a great
facility. I think the county would put it at their campus and use their steam for electricity and heating, but I think working together with the county but I think working together with the county would make us number one in bonding for all the state. So I don't know if other people have that same agreement. We have, we have a lineup of questions, so we'll we'll go to, council member Fredericks. Oh, my okay. Well, I just had a quick question. It it said, it would pay for half of our energy consumption at at the airport, this, solar project. What what is our annual, cost of energy out there currently? Council president,
council member, I believe that it is approximately $600,000 a year. Six hundred? So you're looking at about a $300,000 a year savings. That would have been here? It would be significant. K. And total cost of that project is? We've scoped it currently at 6,000,000 total project. K. This is based on, you know, estimates as best we have them. Alright. Could you just to follow-up on, council member Frederick's line of questioning. My understanding is that that we have to get started with that project, and so waiting to 2026,
What do we lose, if anything, if we don't get bonding funds in this year for this? What are we what are we faced with in 2026? Yeah. I think the airport project is interesting one. There's a lot of, landscape on that one because it does have some federal potential funding through the tax credits, which are currently being reviewed by the the budget work happening at congress, plus the state request, plus some local funds that go in to provide that non state match. Clearly, projects get more expensive over time,
so that's something that happens each year when these projects don't get funded and why there should be a bonding bill very frequently, and projects should be funded, as regularly as as possible by the state. Clearly, the lack of, what we would hope as a good service we could provide to people who use the airport as that continues to deteriorate, it's, you know, something that we want to urgently fix. So timeliness, cost, impacts. The further this gets drawn out, the less cost savings we can have for the energy use, which, again, goes back to something the city would eventually you know, if the airport can't cover those energy costs,
then it comes back into the city's budget. So it's Okay. I'm sorry. I interrupted council member, Frederick's question, so Okay. Continue. We're team. Alright. Just I just wanted to follow-up to, number one and two for me personally would be would be the, to address our our homeless population and our mental health population to get them the help they need and to have a facility in place here in Rochester that could serve. I don't I don't know if it's possible to serve statewide. If it is, great. He said 500 beds,
that's that's more than I had envisioned in my head but and I don't know the real needs statewide but obviously, regionally here, we see the need day to day. You don't look out the window. So I would like to see that addressed and obviously the the the East Sunborough sewer for housing opportunities. That would be you know, you could flip flop those one or two. I see that as as as real needs for our community. The the airport thing, it's a good it's a good value add. It's a good it's a good thing, but I like to I always like to address our needs.
That's that's what I like to look at. Yeah. I am done. Okay. Council member Wahl. Thank you. My, biggest question, is mister Palmer's question, and I won't ask you to prognosticate about, a possible bonding for 2025. Every day, I read in the news, different, opinions, and I'm sure you hear different opinions firsthand. But I will ask you to prognosticate bonding bill, it seems to me that there's, some proclivity for eliminating local projects in favor of, like, roads and bridges.
Would would you say that's probably true for 2025? I think been news reports that, yeah, either it's no local projects or it's it's pivoting towards a focus towards state owned assets, which is essentially the higher education systems that we have as a state to provide the, ongoing operations and maintenance for those buildings and, other state assets like DNR buildings at state parks and things like that. So when we hear no local projects, certainly, that's not where we wanna see a bonding bill land, and we want momentum towards any projects that again, all these projects are not we would say not just local.
They are regional in nature. That's why we put them on the list in the first place, especially things like our international airport. We certainly hope there could be a way to see things that way. So which leads to a third question, which is even harder to answer than the first two. With declining resources, what do you think the appetite is for a bonding bill in 2026? And, the exercise that we're engaged in right now, is it more place holding for better years? Or how do you see that? I wish I had the answer to that, but I think any year we do this best practice,
and it's an every other effort with every other year effort that we have to go through with the state agency to at least get on the list. And, really, this submission in June is to put us in a good position so that we are considered by not only the governor's office as he puts together his list, if he were to include specific local projects, which he's opted sometimes to do and sometimes not to do in his initial bonding bill, but really it's also to get on the radars of the bonding chairs so that when they are touring the state in the fall, we are one of the stops, which we certainly have been in the, recent cycles, and we wanna showcase our needs and our story as a city because not all
legislators come down here, and they don't see the needs and the great services that we provide, not just to our city, but all the whole region and the state. Thank you. Council member Keane. This is on our agenda June 2 because we have a deadline coming up. Can you because because I when I saw this on our agenda, that's the only thing I could think of. I had a very small view of the work in front of us. Very different than the discussion we're having here today. So I I had this view that we were trying to say 2025 is still open, but we have to put in our 2026 stuff. So, again, I just wanna make sure I I have that right.
Correct. Yep. We have to submit something to the state if we wanna be considered on this magical list essentially by, next Friday, June. So I've I've had, as part of my ongoing responsibilities, I've worked closely with, miss Cochran on the state legislature stuff. And it it can be really rewarding stuff and trying to figure this stuff out, but it's also really erratic. There's been a couple of years, the last three years where there was, bond it was a bonding year and nothing happened. And other times where one year when we had different things in there,
everything happened. So it's not this sort of, like, consistent thing. It's somebody else's schedule, and we're just trying to have some influence on it. And the things that I've sort of watched for it to be important is trying to be aligned with what the current thinking is. Like in Saint Paul Years ago, there were some things with the public realm and things. And that just seems to be out of favor right now. But the other thing that I think is important and I I wanna kinda share with my peers up here is be consistent. And this idea of, like, saying, like, okay. We've had this airport thing on there for two years. Now we're just gonna abandon it,
which we can do as it'll happen. I've seen things abandoned without ever getting funded. But that idea of being consistent helps get things funded because there's a fair amount of going on these tours where you said, yeah. We'll keep that in mind. And it's sort of it's on the table now, but it's in the it's in the out year. So, I my sense coming to this meeting is that was in the staff's thinking coming into this. The other thing is by the time we really do our 2026 legislative priorities, including bonding, I we'll know what happened in 2025. We won't be sitting here with an unknown open session,
which I I still feel that there's a chance there's gonna be a bonding thing out of there because it's there a lot of these, legislator legislators up there know that their community is needed, and they're gonna push to do something. So if that happens, I think we wanna, be on there. So my my input here is, as we go through the q and a and sort of our opinions, is let's, you know, try to get our our wants and needs on the table, but try to be consistent and know that we have a reset capability come September, October, November for what is really 2026. Thank you. Council Member Miller.
I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in, and I do understand the sort of mechanics of the timeline and the budget system that we need to make a decision today for the preliminary. You know, the airport parking project, I know we've heard differing timelines. It has to be done in this session or nothing. Now we've got a little more time. I don't have strong feeling against including it on the chance that something might still happen yet this session. Maybe we can reevaluate in October. But I do think that that, the sewer project obviously still needs to be one or two. Mhmm. And I would just say I I would love to see coordination with the county
should they be willing on a whatever that bonding project is. I think the news today that they've renamed their their parks department, parks and trails, gives us credence that a trail project jointly is a good project, maybe not for 2026, but in the near future. And on the the shelter, I would definitely be open to it, but I would look for them as health and human services to be the one asking bonding priority and not us leading given our differing roles. So I appreciate the opportunity. I hope that, this drives opportunities for engagement with the county.
But I would not be in favor of adding that today without those assurances. And I I would just say that I also see the consistency in looking at Civic Center in North Broadway in conjunction with our RAISE grant for South Broadway as making a a consistent case where this is a redevelopment opportunity for entrance into the urban area, including this proposal by Onward, which is moving forward, developing a section right along that corridor. So it makes a lot of sense to me. I think that's much closer to ready than either of these projects that we could
potentially do with the county. And I would support these as is, again, saying, airport, I understand, is not my favorite. But I think from the consistency perspective, it makes sense to keep it there for this stage. Thank you, council member. From my perspective, I, I agree that consistency is important, and I think that, the airport, parking infrastructure and the energy components, I think that we've been consistent on that. I as I said, the East Sunpro sewer, project has gotten a lot of traction,
so I really do want to see that included as well. I do have a question on kinda one or two because I know being up there, there is some, confusion on when we talk about different items, and there's been some confusion this year that sometimes we talked about the sewer project more than we did the airport project. Can you talk about a little bit about, the importance of the ranking of these projects?
And then I my my follow-up is, do we have to have three? Is that, part of the form that you have to fill out? I'll do the easier one first. The second question, no. We don't have to have three. We can have one. We can have seven. I think two or three is a good number because, for many reasons, one of which is two or three is easy to remember, honestly, not only for ourselves as we're advocating, but for our legislators who don't just have our own bonding requests to keep track of, but they certainly have them from the county and other entities as well and can only expect to to juggle so many things, continuously.
The housing project, we, again, were glad for the positive reception that received. And because it was new this year to our legislators, we did talk about it a fair amount to sort of bring them up to speed to tour them on what the project would be like, and a huge thanks to the teammates who helped with that and, explaining it to folks. The airport project had great reception also, and it was featured by the bonding committees two years ago when they did their last round of tours. And so we felt like there was good familiarity, good support. We, had each of our senators essentially chief author each of those, and so there was a little bit of strategy, and opportunities allowed for with that.
And I'm grateful to both, you know, senator Bolden and senator Nelson for their continued work in those. So just to kinda con conclude my comments, I am in favor of airport and East Umbro 1 And 2. I have some hesitation in elevating the planning for Civic Center Drive to this third ranking. Just from a standpoint, once it's in that spot, it kinda has a spot there. And I don't know that we have fully vetted what that to be our third
top priority, from my perspective. I am very intrigued by council member Palmer's, proposal of a joint project on, with the county on mental health, facility. I think it's somewhat nascent, and I I would like to see staff really work with the county and look at, you know, what can we grow, so that we have a project that can meet the meet the standards to be on a bonding list. And I I feel the same about,
council member Miller's project, when it comes to trail systems as well. So I I would be in favor of the two projects, and, not filling that third spot. So with that, council member Palmer? Yeah. I just wanna revisit. I I I appreciate mister Miller's comment, and I I think if the county thought we were at least talking about it and open to it, that they might think think that that was something they'd want to propose. I've been on the bonding tours and I've been with the bonding stuff and I think, to me, you want to think big. You want people to go,
Wow, this is a great idea. And I think cream rises to the top. I think the need for mental health facility is huge in the Southeastern Minnesota area. I think that us with the county proposing that would be phenomenal, and so that's why I think that should be our number one, if the county wants to sign on and I would understand that if we wait until June or later on to put that there. But I think that would be huge, for Rochester and Olmstead County and for the region. And I think when the state people come and they see something like that, they all see that in the seven county area going,
Wow, that would be a great facility that we could really use. And it's been, again, forty four years since we've had that type of facility here. Councilmember Keane. Yeah, again, obviously we've got differing opinions here of what, you know, the top priorities are. But I think, again, I'm going to just say taking that smaller view of we're trying to meet this requirement for the end of the first or second quarter. I'm gonna move to adopt the resolution supporting the city state, capital investment priorities, and the ranked order as presented. Moved by council member Keane. Is there a second?
Second. Seconded by council member, Wall. Council member Keane, you have the floor. Yeah. Again, I I did come here with the again, didn't spend the time on this. I really was looking at this as a we have to get this thing in. I am hopeful that there's still gonna be things happening in Saint Paul, But, you know, that that's just being positive. You don't know what's gonna happen. But I I think when we get into that September, October, there there's gonna be things like the airport stuff that if it didn't happen, it didn't it may not happen. We might have missed the window, and there's other things that are changing. We we do get caught up in the idea of it being solar,
and I think that's a big lead thing in the energy that comes off it. But there's two other important things with this project. One is it becomes covered parking, which is a big problem in our in our airport. And and that's the second thing. I wanna stress again, our airport. This is a city asset that we need to protect, and this is why this thing came to where it was. So I wanna give it this other hope that we get that one in there. As for these bigger things, I again, that idea of a major thing like that, I wanna make sure, the one thing that's happened with bonding that, that's sort of been hard on me is some of these things you get in
there, and then you're still like, oh, wait. We have to fund 50% of that from somewhere else. And then look around the room and say, where does that come from? Example being, we got the the, funding for doing the park project, and then we had to go out and bond ourselves to get the rest of the money for it. So these are things that have financial impacts on us. It's not just getting free money from somewhere else. So let's let's make sure we we develop those in full, procession and not just quickly based on, you know, what could really look good. Administrative zones? Thank you, council president. Council members, I just wanted to provide a little bit of information. There is an item on the county board's agenda,
tomorrow for, the Excuse me, for their bonding priorities. And the top three priorities in priority order that they're discussing, which may not be what they approve, is purchase and install equipment in the materials recovery facility that was removed from the MRF project in 2025 due to budget limitations, conduct predesign environmental review, and final design for proposed interchanges at County State 8 Highway Seesaw 3 and US Highway 14 and Seesaw 5 and US Highway 14 and construct and equip a commute
community reuse and recycling center. So I think a number of people have talked about it would be helpful to have conversation with the county about wonderful ideas here. There's probably some legal considerations and also judicial information that would be valuable to that discussion, based on what I'm hearing. But I just wanted to point out that they do have an agenda item tomorrow on their agenda, and those are the top three priorities and priority order that at least they're considering. Under discussion. I have a question on, again, going to the third item, planning for Civic Center Drive, South Broadway.
So council member Palmer mentioned he didn't believe that that was ready for bonding. I just I need, more teeth around how ready that project is to, to seek bonding funds? I can I can start and then we can you know, team can weigh in here? Mister Parrish, go ahead. The intent here is is to design. And, obviously, it's it's a third priority. So if you think about this, your first element of a design is gonna be a corridor study determining what is the best options and alternatives from an urban design,
transportation, and complete streets perspective. We know that both of these are in need. Broadway, I mean, you're in some form of construction and different elements of Broadway at the moment. So this is really kinda trying to finish that out and, you know, bring that home. Civic Center Drive and the ITS studies back in twenty seventeen, eighteen, that provide the the basis for the BRT on Second Street Southwest said, when you take Second Street Southwest down to one lane, you will need to evaluate the flow of Civic Center Drive because that'll be the primary vehicular corridor,
in that area. And so I think this is just trying to get ahead of that, but it is early. And I think the first part of the design is really developing your preferred concept, going through the engagement process. This is just asking the state to be a partner in that. And then as the project evolves, hopefully, a partner in the construction as well. And I defer to the rest of the team if they have other comments. Miss Steinhauser, go ahead. Sure. I think, deputy administrator Parrish explained it really well. I would also just say that, we really believe it builds on the the transformational work that we're or the transformation
that is in front of us in terms of public and private investment. We in addition to the studies referenced, we know that with the growth of the number one medical facility in the world, that patterns are gonna change. Second Street becomes the primary, public transit corridor with BRT. How does traffic and how do pedestrians and cyclists move along the other major corridors. And so the timing of this is, as, Mr. Parrish indicated, is studying it, then you move to planning, and it tees you up for future ask, several years from now in terms of when you do arrive at a final decision
pursuing, cost you're in construction dollars for the implementation of that solution. So it does seem early, but when we think about, you know, where we'll be by 2030 with the transformation happening in Downtown Rochester, this is just trying to track along that same timeline. Thank you. Very helpful. Further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Passes. Thank you. Moving on to item H2, which is the BioLab shared lab space project as DMC public infrastructure project.
And I'm going to turn it over to mister Josh Johnson to start off the presentation. Yeah. Thank you, council president, council members. Josh Johnson, strategic initiatives director. I am joined, here tonight with by multiple, Destination Medical Center teammates, one of which, Michael Flynn, will be, going over an overview of the economic development and, strategic initiative public infrastructure project. We're also joined by Susan Chase, who spoke during public comment. She is the senior vice president with BioLabs and also here to handle any questions that you might have directed towards her. The agenda that we're gonna hit on today is an introduction of,
of shared lab space, the requested, some of the background of how we got here, and then open it up for discussion. To kick us off, Rochester is really at a pivotal moment of its innovation journey. We've got continued growth with University of Minnesota Rochester. We obviously have the break breaking ground of Mayo's expansive Mayo, Bold Ford, Unbound Rochester. We've had other evolving innovation platforms that have started as seeds and now continue to grow here locally as well as the maturing of our Discovery Square district. The the life science ecosystem that we've laid the foundation for is now ready,
for the next step forward. Some of the, I think economic development initiatives that we often find come in different forms, you know, industrial parks, manufacturing, housing, corporate campuses. They're all very beneficial and they all play a role in helping communities grow. They help create jobs, they attract talent, and they bring new energy to the local economy. I'd say what makes this infrastructure project and economic development opportunity equally exciting but even more rewarding, is it accomplishes all those goals. It attracts talent, it retains talent, creates jobs,
and injects energy into our downtown and community, you know, wide. But what it also does is it'll help provide the fuel to turn big ideas into real breakthroughs in both health care and science, ideas that will drive cures and improve people's quality of life. To realize these goals, that's why we're here in front of you today, to request, support, and adopt a resolution approving, the BioLab shared lab space into Discovery Square and authorizing up to $8,000,000 in strategic redevelopment funds. There's still a lot of work to be had. There's development agreements that need to be done,
but this is the first step in that in that journey. And then the second request is authorizing the mayor to sign, on behalf of the city an MOU for the creation, launch, and long term operation of BioLabs as the shared lab space provider. And with that, I'll hand it to Mike. Thank you very much, council president, council members. Appreciate the opportunity to come and provide a little bit of background on how we got to today. The slide you've got in front of here is really intended to chart sort of delivering on the vision that was created when Discovery Square was originally adopted as a
project or a subdistrict of the DMC initiative. And the creation of that master plan identified a few key things that I want to read to you here. So the first is, for Discovery Square to be successful, we would need to create incubator and accelerator space and technology transfer strategies for start up and early stage biomed tech and tech companies that have the lowest possible cost of occupancy and low cost flexible buildings. The second part of the key findings were that due to the high cost construction and the primarily high risk non credit tenants,
it is going to be challenging for the private market to develop an adequate supply of that type of space and it will likely require the public sector to step in and help develop that asset. So, if you go back to the start of this timeline, that Discovery Square master plan that was commissioned back in twenty fifteen-twenty sixteen, they identified the need for an asset like this, an infrastructure asset like this in Rochester, if we were ever going to deliver on the vision of the Discovery Square District. You'll also notice on this slide there are three boxes that are outlined in a dark dotted line. And those three dates represent different feasibility studies that were conducted identifying the potential for
an asset like this to be successful in Rochester. And all three of those assessments pointed to the same outcome, which was if we could build an asset like this next to Mayo Clinic, in the Discovery Square subdistrict, it would be successful in attracting and growing high growth life science companies. So through this journey, we've talked to a number of different potential operators. Last count, it was eight in total. Vetted those companies quite a bit, toured their facilities, hosted them here in Rochester, and through that journey identified Biola Labs as the best possible operator for this infrastructure
asset in Rochester. And that was based on a number of things. The first is their impeccable track record of running spaces like this. You heard from Susan Chase during the public comment period. They currently operate 17 of these labs around the world and have developed a tremendous track record of incubating companies and helping those companies achieve commercialization success, exit, raise money, create cures, and turn into very profitable enterprises. You'll see what I think is maybe the most exciting part of this whole presentation. You see that map right now. And what you'll notice is in The U. S. There are a lot of locations on the coast,
but there's a big gap in the middle part of the country. And I think at this moment in time, it's really our opportunity to develop the anchor in the Midwest and become a center of gravity for innovation, commercialization in the med tech and biotech space in a pretty large region and do that here in Rochester. We've also developed a very important and powerful partnership in the recruitment of this asset in Rochester, and that is a collection of stakeholders that include BioLabs, Destination Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, Mission Bio Capital,
which is a VC fund that's affiliated with Biola Labs, the state of Minnesota, Mortenson, our development partner in the Discovery Square subdistrict, and the city of Rochester. This partnership will help underwrite the cost of construction, the cost of operation, the cost of equipping the space, and doing everything we can do to ensure that it will be successful. This is not only an economic development asset and an infrastructure asset, but it also becomes, I think, a key part of our talent development and workforce development strategy in Rochester. As part of the Bio Labs recruitment process, we had the organization come out to Rochester and meet with our public school system,
our University of, Minnesota Rochester campus and RCTC to talk about opportunities where BioLabs could align their needs with the capabilities of our local colleges and universities and really create a pipeline for students to get real world experience, to do internships, to gain access to a variety of skills that maybe aren't available in Rochester right now. I think it's also important to note that the type of asset that this represents not only presents opportunities for scientists and researchers, but opportunities in a number of business fields, other academic fields,
technical fields, people that can come and work in these facilities, and gain important skills as they further their education. What we really like to talk about whenever we have a public infrastructure project like this is what does the outcome look like? What are we hoping to accomplish? And what this slide represents is really, I think a pretty good estimate of what success at this facility would look like over the first three to five years. So Biola Labs, as I mentioned, runs 17 of these facilities around the country and they have a pretty good track record of how they scale, what full occupancy looks like, and what type of business activity you can expect.
And I think it's very reasonable to say that in the three to five year mark, when this facility sort of hits what we would consider full occupancy, that at any given time we'd have 20 to 25 companies occupying the space. Those companies, in turn, would employ probably 70 to 80 people. Some of them will be relatively new companies with one or two founders. Some of them will be close to potentially exiting the space and maybe have dozens of employees. These companies will be out in the market raising capital, both dilutive and non dilutive capital, to help further their operations. We imagine by year three to five, several of them will have exited the space either through acquisition or through graduation into
larger spaces in the region. We anticipate that an asset like this will help increase the number of clinical trials that are done in Rochester. And we think over the first three to five years we should be able to host at least 50 companies in this space, with the estimates that we've currently got. I think if you think about the story this represents in terms of what you'd see in an average day in Discovery Square, it's vastly different than what you see today, both from an economic development standpoint, but also from an innovation and science standpoint. As we've talked about this opportunity over the last few months, one of the questions we regularly get is why is there public money required in
these spaces? And the reality is, and we've got examples here of other BioLabs locations that have been opened, in the past few years around the world. And the reality is this business model does not work unless there is public investment. And it's not just with BioLabs, with the other vendors, the other operators we talked to over past few years. There's always a public funding component because these spaces are, highly technical. They're very expensive to build. Again, you're talking about a customer base that generally, is capital poor but needs access to this very track record of health care innovation and developing new ideas,
if there wasn't a requirement for public support, we would have an asset like this in Rochester already. With the amount of innovation that comes out of Mayo Clinic, if it wasn't for the public funding requirement, we'd have one of these probably in Discovery Square already. Lastly, I want to talk about risk mitigation. So as we've approached this project, we've looked for a number of ways that we can improve our chances for success and mitigate the risk should this not work. And I think there's two things on this list that we want to talk about. The first is we're going to have a very robust governance model that has participation
and support from the highest levels of leadership at Mayo Clinic, BMC, and Bio Labs. They will be managing the progress of this asset on a monthly basis to ensure that we're achieving the goals and objectives that we've set out. And I think with the high level of support we have at these institutions, if for any reason it feels like it's not working, we'll be able to adjust strategy very quickly, and move in a different direction. And the second thing I would call your attention to is the third item on the list, the clawback provision. As we negotiate the development agreement to underwrite the infrastructure investment in this space, we're gonna work to construct an agreement that says,
should for any reason this space terminate being a shared lab or should, the building owner choose to pivot away from this asset into something else, there'll be a formula that dictates how much, of that initial investment the city can recoup in the form of a clawback. And that will need to be negotiated as part of the development agreement. But we've made it clear to our partner in this effort, Mortenson, that that's gonna be important and they've agreed to include that into the development agreement. So we have all the confidence in the world that we'll be successful based on the model we've built, but we are protecting the downside in the event something happens and it is not
successful. Lastly, we know this is an extraordinary project and an extraordinary request, but we think it's because it makes sense because it's an extraordinary opportunity. And there's a lot of ways we've identified six ways here in which we think that this project is special and unique and different than the other types of investments we've brought before this, board before. And I would just call it a few of them. The first of them is that initial one on the list of revenue effect. We're talking about an infrastructure investment in an asset that has the potential to generate a tremendous return in ways that other, public infrastructure projects historically have not.
So talking about creating new companies that have the potential to raise tens of millions, if hundreds of millions of dollars and generate wealth, at levels we've not seen before. I think the second that I mentioned is there's currently a void in the center part of this country for an asset like this. And I think if we can build it here in Rochester, we create a center of gravity that's not only going to capture and maintain the innovation that takes place in this market that historically has left this market. How do we maintain that innovation here? But also how do we become a draw in the region for that type of
innovation to come and land in Rochester. And thirdly, I think the employer diversification potential that this asset determined is creating these new start up companies at scale scale and surrounding them with an ecosystem that helps them grow and be successful is one of the best ways we can do that. We maintain the success of our anchor institution in Mayo Clinic, and we surround that with, high growth health tech innovation companies that are generating tremendous amount of economic activity and by the way, they're also developing treatments and cures that help improve people's lives. So, in my opinion, this really represents,
I think, one of the most exciting investments that DMC has had the potential to be a part of. On May 22, we took this opportunity in front of the DMCC board, and, it was unanimously approved by that body. So appreciate the opportunity to bring it to you and, present it to you and answer any questions you might have. Well, thank you, mister Flynn. And, I was, one of those members of the DMC board who enthusiastically supported this. I just just looking at that map and seeing the the gulf between the East
Coast and the West Coast and to literally have a flag on that map for Rochester in the biotech space, I think, is going to really open the door. And congratulations to you and to the DMC team on at your tenure mark. I really think this is this is a tipping point opportunity, and, I'm very excited about seeing, the fruits of what come from this. So I do have a question that, I want you to just,
elaborate on, and it's the talent and recruitment and retention. Can you talk about how having that flag here in Rochester is going to bring new talent to Rochester as well as, as you mentioned, retain the talent from Mayo Clinic that in the past may have gone elsewhere with their ventures? Sure. So I think the answer to that question is really based on the fact that we're talking about here building a physical asset in terms of the underlying building infrastructure.
But what Biola Labs brings also is a tremendous ecosystem that has the ability to wrap around these companies all of the expertise, the capital, the other things they need to take these ideas and turn them into, successful ventures. And I think that capability is what attracts entrepreneurs from everywhere to say how do I not only go be part of, a location right next door to Mayo Clinic, but how do I become part of a community right next door to Mayo Clinic that has the ability to solve all of these non clinical things I need to solve if I want my business to be successful? We talk to innovators at the clinic all the time.
And the challenge that we face is not necessarily the idea. There are no shortage of ideas there on treatments and cures and ways to improve people's lives. The challenge is how do you take that idea and turn it into a business? And that's really the capability that Bio Labs represents. To do that at scale, to marry those ideas with capital and non clinical expertise to get those businesses stood up. And that's what's going to be the draw. The asset, the physical asset is sort of the means to the end. But the ecosystem and that network and the capital that gets wrapped around that infrastructure is what really is the game changer.
And that's ultimately why we selected Bio Labs because there's no other operator out there that brings that full suite of services that is going to make this market, again, doubly unique. We're already unique in that we have Mayo Clinic. If you put BIO Labs next to Mayo Clinic, you've really created an asset there that is without parallel probably anywhere in the world. Thank you. Councilmember Fredericks? Yes. Yeah. You mentioned seven to 80 employees. Are you saying that is in total or per company? I'm saying that at any given time, we'll probably have 20 to 25 entities, businesses in the space. And in total, they'll employ 70 to 80 people.
Okay. So some of those companies will be one or two people. There'll be a physician coming over from Mayo Clinic with an idea that takes up residency in Rochester bio lab facilities, it's not uncommon to scale to 10 to 15 employees by year two or three. And generally, at that point, you exit the bio lab space and graduate into your own space, either in Discovery Square, in the Bio Business Center, or out at RTC. You'll move into a bigger space that's not in the bio lab facility. Great things come from collaboration. I really like the idea of having a space that houses several different places because inevitably, they're gonna end up working together.
Absolutely. I like it. Absolutely. Council member Wahl. Thank you. I believe you said early on that you vetted eight different, companies for the possible management of this? Correct. And, if those other seven companies were to put dots on the map, are any of them, close to us or in the Midwest? So yes, there are some in the Midwest. So yes, there are some in the Midwest. You can sort of think of these operations in two scales. There's the BioLab scale, which is a large global enterprise that brings with it venture capital and a global
ecosystem. And then there's a number of what I would call sort of smaller, bespoke, 2,500 feet, no equipment, we've got some space and we've sort of put something together. That second model exists in a lot of places. But it's not really the same thing we're talking about with bio labs. If you think of the bio lab sort of global scale of shared lab operator, there's one in Chicago that I would sort of call on the same scale. There's one in St. Louis that's probably on the same scale. You know, Madison has one of the small sort of bespoke operations that I mentioned and we benchmarked them and looked at them and they are,
they do a good job for the purpose they're trying to serve but in my opinion it wouldn't make sense for us with the Mayo Clinic five hundred steps away. So a couple of other large scale ones. Are there other communities that are thinking about opening such, bio labs? I think every community would love to have one. It leaves a way if you're in the sort of the health tech space. It is a way to supercharge your ecosystem like no other. Again, the challenge is, you need to have a base of innovation that an organization like BioLabs would be
interested in locating in. And you've got to have the ability to put together this public private partnership to underwrite the cost of it. And again, we're very lucky to have Mayo Clinic here generating ideas and we're very lucky that we have this DMC mechanism that allows for the creation of this public private model. Other questions, comments? I'll just say I'm very excited about this project. I got to preview it a little bit with the DMCC meeting, but I just think too about our recent discussion of strategic priorities and economic resilience, not losing our core economic anchor of Mayo Clinic, but also investing and diversifying beyond that and how would we support these new businesses.
And I think this is right in line with this discussion we have there, granted at a much larger scale than a small informal business finding their way into a formal space. So I just think I'm glad that you have the partners there in the operation space and the Mayo Clinic and the venture capital space, but also with the, employee development of the training, UMR, Rochester Public Schools because I I can imagine we don't have a spare 70 to 80 lab technicians and other people in our community today, but that will be developed through this investment.
So I'm very excited about it and, look forward to supporting the project. Thank you. Council member Keane? Yeah. The one thing when I look at something like this, and I I appreciate the way you put there the packet, and you've got the $8,000,000 that DMC is gonna use to build out the space, and then the partnership comes from the other partners involved. One thing that if I look at it and say, yep. What if you had 6,000,000? What if you had $10,000,000 What makes it $8,000,000 What's the sweet spot there that said, This is what we should do? So it's a great question. It's based on an evaluation of the size of space this market could support.
And there was a lot of discussion and conversation around, the floor plates in two Discovery Square, 20 five thousand feet, 24,000 feet. There were questions around, do we try to do a full floor? Do we try to do half a floor? And so there's an evaluation of what does our potential pipeline of deal flow look like, what do we think we can draw regionally, internationally, sort of what does that, steady state look like when this thing is operating at capacity. And then translating that, Biola Labs is really good at knowing for every resident and for every employee, you need a certain amount of space to accommodate them.
So there's a math problem that goes into trying to figure out what is the right size for this market. And then from there, we work with our development partner to try and figure out to build world class R and D lab space. What does that cost sort of per foot to get us, all of the infrastructure and the facilities we need in the building? And that's what drives us to this math problem of up to $8,000,000 So it sort of comes up with number amount of square feet times what we the cost per Right. You figure out what your market can support and then you figure out what it costs to build that from an infrastructure standpoint because that's what DMC can underwrite and
that's where that number comes up. Okay? This is different to me than other DMC investments in the community in this way. Most times when the DMC board approves something and then the city does, it's almost a handoff to the city. And it's the city's responsibility. When we talk about public realm and things like that, it's our project. In this case, DMC continues on into the MOU and is, in my view, a fairly major player in it. Is that different than most DMC developments or investments? So I think, you know,
the development agreement that will actually, allow for the capital to be spent on this will be between the city and Mortensen. So So we will not be involved in that. The MOU is, the opportunity for us to make the world aware of this investment on a large scale at an event called BIO, which is the largest biotech industry event in this country. It takes place once a year and takes place June year. And what we want to do with the MOU is capitalize on the fact that, if we get through, the vote tonight and are successful and the other two agreements that have to come
together, one of those is between Mayo Clinic and Biola Labs on funding the operation and the other agreement is between Mortenson and Biola Labs on leasing the space. What we want to do is get all of those three agreements finished by September so that the construction of this project can start. But we want to take advantage of this opportunity to announce to the world that BioLabs has selected Rochester, Minnesota for their next the next star on their map, as they like to say, is going to be in Rochester, Minnesota. So the MOU we're going to sign on June 16 at this BIO twenty twenty
five International Trade Expo is really outlining the fact that we want to get those three agreements done in the ninety days so that we can start construction on this. So DMC is a signer of that. The city is a signer of that. Essentially every party That's been involved in getting this coalition put together is going to sign that nonbinding MOU that essentially just says we as a partnership are gonna work to get these agreements finalized so that we can start construction. So as far as the agreement to to spend to deploy the capital, that follows the same path. The MOU is just allowing us to make an announcement at a fairly large public
international event. Okay. Good. That that yeah. That distinction between the MOU and the execution of the project is different. I was drawn to your chart when what we're really funding here and what success could look like. It is what I would call, like, aspirational goals, but they're not performance metrics. Are there things that should be measured as far as saying it's 2028, and here are the four, like, you could lay down these performance metrics. Would would the DMC EDA or the, partners be willing to say, yeah. This is what we're going to do,
or is it more like this is just trying to create a vision of the future? So, that circle chart is really based on the pro form a Bio Labs puts together to look at this model in Rochester and say this is what success looks like. This is what the business model has to look like for this thing to essentially balance. So that is not I mean it is aspirational, but it's not hyperbolic or it's not it's reasonable to what we think is possible here given the innovation partner we have in Mayo Clinic, given the size of the facility we're building, what we think is achievable here.
There is a governance committee that's being created that is going to manage deal flow into this biolab facility very closely and will set all sorts of objectives around occupancy, around pipeline building, around sales and marketing. So that governance is being created and I think those performance metrics will be created in that body to make sure that this thing performs like we all want it to. I think what is exciting is we have, all of the right people at the table to ensure that this will be successful. And they are very motivated. Nobody wants this to not work.
No. I actually did go over, like, the operational model. And I do appreciate the way that all partners really do succeed if it succeeds. And all partners have risk with underperformance. Absolutely. And that's I think that's an important way to to move forward. So I'm I again, I have like to support this. But I guess I I still wanna understand. I I see in the this is the MOU side, not in working with Mayo, there's a to be determined name on the the MOU. Do you feel you've got, like, that this is something that they are pushing slash you us to do?
Or is it something that, if it's there, we might use it? No, no, no. It's the former. They are, I will say that in my three and a half years here, and I have colleagues that have been involved in this effort much longer than I have, I don't think we've ever experienced what we're experiencing right now in terms of the desire and the excitement and the motivation to make this work. The TBD on the MOU was more a matter of trying to figure out who the best, most appropriate person for Mayo to sign it was. And part of that is because there's a lot of people that want to be part of this. And so, there's been a determination made in the last twenty four hours about how that's going
to proceed. And so it wasn't a TBD because everybody's sort of sitting back waiting. It was a TBD because there's a lot of people that are very interested in being part of this and we were trying to figure out who's the best person. Okay. Well, just, you know, just to make sure I'm asking my question because I did do some follow-up and talked to some Mayo people today. And I agree. They are they are invested in this as an important thing to help what they do doing it locally as opposed to what they've been doing and sometimes doing it virtually across the country. So I think they are bought in. But again, I think it's a critical success factor to this $8,000,000
investment that Mayo, you know, uses it as a leverages it as a important thing for their, innovative innovation business. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Councilmember Palmer. Well, I'm very impressed in in this is wow type of thing for me. So if you're ready for a motion, I'll make a motion. Go ahead. I'll make the motion, adopting resolution improving the BioLabs shared lab space project at 2 Discovery Square as a DMC public infrastructure project and authorizing up to $8,000,000 in strategic development funding for general state infrastructure aid,
GSIA, to support the project development and number two, approving the mayor as signatory to the memorandum of understanding, MOU, for the creation, launch and long term operation of BioLabs Rochester in Discovery Square, Rochester, Minnesota. Second. Moved by council member Palmer and seconded by council member Fredericks. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Appreciate it. We will take a six minute break. Well, I looked at the clock there.
Recording in progress. Our next item is h three, which is a development agreement between the city of Rochester and Mayo Clinic, vacation of Third And Fourth Avenue Southwest. Miss Steinhauser, take it away. Great. Thank you, council president Schoebring. Cindy Steinhauser, deputy city administrator. I'm here to present the item related to the city and Mayo development agreement. I do wanna say joining me this evening, we have outside counsel from Kennedy and Graven, Rachel Tierney, who is joining online. Also have city teammates here, public works director,
the city engineer, and assistant city administrator, as well as mayor representatives, Aaron Sexton and Bradley Lehr, who are, here in support of this item. So, the action before you is requesting that you adopt a development agreement, between the city of Rochester and Mayo Clinic and to satisfy the conditions imposed by the council when you approve the street vacation in November 2024. So just wanna talk a little bit about, key milestones related to tonight's action. So again, in November of twenty twenty four, you approved the street vacation of Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue Southwest.
Tonight, you're being asked to consider approval of the development agreement. And following your action tonight, just know some other milestones that will happen is there will be continued underground utility work, demolition of the Damon Ramp will begin this year and, in August. And also, thinking about this work is aligning and positioning for the eventual opening of the new Waterman Osmond Building, which is scheduled in 2013. So, large building, a lot that leads up to that. So, what you approved in November 2024,
your action required a couple of things. First of all, it required that you execute a development agreement prior to the recording of the street vacation. And also tied to that street vacation were five conditions as you see on the slide above. I am going to walk you through each of those, requirements or those conditions. So the first condition is around easements. This is requiring that the agreement may have grants both the city both temporary and permanent easements for existing utilities. This meets conditions one through three in what you approved in your street vacation last
November. And also incorporated into that is that Mayo develops a stormwater management solution. The management solution that is proposed is an underground stormwater holding vault, which they will design, install, own, and maintain, and yet the city has access to maintain and make improvements should we, should we not be happy with the way in which improvements are being made or the facility is being maintained. And then it also identifies right of way cost share for right of way maintenance for certain streets. This is things like snow removal,
routine improvements, and maintenance of, streets. The development agreement also speaks to pedestrian access. One of the conditions is that a public passageway be provided, as part of the street vacation. The development agreement includes an eight foot public passageway from 06:30 in the morning till 10:00 at night, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year. Mayo is responsible for maintaining, this permanent easement. It also establishes a permanent easement across Annenberg Plaza. Right now, there are it is public usage, but we wanted to, memorialize that through a permanent pedestrian easement.
So that is also included in this agreement. It is not a condition of the street vacation, but we decided to clean you know, address that through this mechanism. Also included is that Mayo, is responsible for implementing the improvements from their traffic study, specifically that there are, improvements at the intersection of Civic Center Drive Northwest and Sixth Avenue Northwest, and then, of course, that they be required to restore the North South bike connectivity that gets removed and is lost as a result of the street vacation of Third And Fourth Avenues.
That, the requirements for restoring that North South connection is based on a standard that was recently constructed on Broadway Avenue. That is a cycle track, separated cycle track. That is the maximum solution in terms of what Mayo is responsible for. That does not mean that ultimately it's a separated cycle track. We will be engaging a consultant to do additional engagement, particularly with the bike biking community, to understand where's the best North South connection. And depending on the street profile,
we'll be working with public works, in particular to understand then what does that, north, North South, bicycle connectivity look like. I do want to say that there was a lot of work done by some pretty incredible people. Here's the city team that worked to bring forward this development agreement. You have it in front of you. You know how significant it is in terms of the language that's in there and the many exhibits that are attached. Also want to acknowledge the Mayo team that worked on this. We could not come together and work on this collaboratively if we if without these
teammates coming with that spirit of partnership and understanding where we want to be in terms of making sure that the city is protected in terms of, the, the development that happens, but also then continue to allow the development to progress so that Mayo meets that twenty year, third 02/1930, year construction timeline for their project. And with that, I will just say thank you and open it up for questions. Thank you. Questions for miss Steinhauser. Council member Keane. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate this coming back, and I do remember in November that we approved this.
I wanna make sure just on the, the pedestrian access, the language is just a little bit hard on me. There's an eight foot public passageway through the area, to be built building that will link the Osmond and Waterman buildings. Does that imply does that mean coming from the North Side on what was Third Or Fourth Avenue, you can get to the South Side? Yes. If you think about if you envision the the new Waterman Osmond building and there's that loop road that goes around the church, right, off of Second,
comes in and off of Second. It's there's a there is a connection point that connects Osmond and Waterman, and so this is, providing an eight foot pedestrian passageway through that connection between those two buildings onto is that First Street? Okay. So it is north south, but it's at an angle. So it And Yeah. My my peer found a, a drawing, but I I missed it in in that thing. So, but the language is connecting buildings as opposed to so I I have no interest in doing any buildings in Mayo. I wanna go from the North Side of downtown to the South Side.
I can walk through there between 06:30 and 10AM. Six yes. That is correct. 06:30 and 10PM. Yeah. 10PM. Yes. Yes. That is correct. We specifically put that language in there, so that people would under that it was clear that we were not solving for the pedestrian passageway by making people go through a building, but rather through that much smaller, link that connects the two buildings. I think that's good. It just it almost sounded like it was something put in so a Mayo patient could get from one building to the other. And it's really for anybody to get from one side of the closed act closed
streets to the other side of the That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Council member Miller. I guess just to clarify, the way I read it is there's a connection between the buildings that Mayo is maintaining and the easement will go through that connection of the buildings. That is correct. And I I think it's helpful for Pearson. Maybe the city clerk could bring it up. There's an exhibit in the packet that makes it a lot clearer, gives an overhead view of the diagram of the buildings and shows where that would happen on the northwest side of the connection. I don't recall which exhibit it is. Yeah. K? F 1.
So that k is the bike lane. Bike lane. Yeah. I think it's F 1. It's not loading for me. My question is Yeah. No. That's the bike. That's the bike lane. I think it's F 1. F 1, exhibit f 1. Yeah. That's the eight foot. So my question is with the, the schedule from 06:30AM AM to 10PM, is that schedule permanent along with the easement, or what are the mechanisms should that need to be adjusted? Who has the power to adjust it, and how would that come to us? I might lean into Rachel to answer that, but, it's it's memorialized in the development agreement, so I believe that any amendments to the the development agreement would need to come
back to this body. There is some provision, for minor, amendments in the resolution. One of the things that we talked about as a team, City and Mayo, is to understand how effective and what's happening in terms of traffic during that time and should there be some adjustments, what does it look like in winter versus summer? And we agree that at the end of a time, a year or two, to evaluate and say, is this an is this the right window of time to to allow for that public hours of access. And should there be a change,
how would that be approved? Rachel, are you on? Can I can I lean into you under that question? I think it comes back to the city council for an amendment. Can you confirm that? Yes. She is there. Rachel? Can you hear me? Can you can you increase your volume, Rachel? I don't know if I can. There. You we got it. Go ahead. I just yell. It would actually the the time is actually part of the easement as well. So it would take an amendment to the easement agreement. So the parties would have to agree and then amend that timing. Thank you. That makes me feel much more comfortable.
My second question or third question is with the calculation of the maximum amount, for the standard of the two way bikeway that's in the Broadway design, how many blocks of bikeway are used to calculate that? Or Sure. Sure. That's a great question. So we took, first of all, we took what the, per block cost was, all things in, for the, cycle track that was built on North Broadway with a little bit of, adjusting for inflation because that's been a couple of years now. And that came to about $60,000 a block. When we looked at possible scenarios,
likely streets that would be the quarters to restore that North South connection, I think eight blocks was the maximum likelihood. And so that's how we arrived at that $480,000 amount. Thank you. And so final question, what is the time line that we would expect on the next steps? I know it's not part of this per se, but on the city side, what is the time line we might expect for consultant to engagement to recommended design? Yeah. Our goal is to bring you something by, the July for that consultant to come on board and go right into then engagement with particularly with the biking community.
Great. Thank you. Thanks. Council member Palmer. My questions are more for Public Works on North Broadway. So we have a cycle track on North Broadway, correct? Correct. It's my understanding that it's really hard for us to maintain that. We've definitely learned that there's challenges just in the phasing as storm events happen in the wintertime, as private properties are moving snow and our streets are being cleared. So obviously, as Cindy indicated, we wanted to make sure we preserve the most protected facilities such that we can create opportunities for people who maybe aren't comfortable riding on the current lanes that exist,
which are paint on the street with a slight bit of buffer and our team puts delineators out to add a little more visual cue, but still doesn't give bike riders a real feeling of comfort in that lower stress environment. So it could turn out to be a two way cycle track. You know, we really, we just need to make sure we preserve the ability to build something protected that can, again, help get people through and around the downtown core. So I I think mister Luxein has a and it or I'm sorry. Tyler, go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to add perspective on that. Keep in mind, this is a token amount. Right? So we use that to scale a potential cost of something going forward, and that would be a conservative number, as compared to some of the solutions that we might implement. So this would keep us covered for whatever that future design solution is, if that makes sense. Not that we're gonna we're not going to construct the exact same thing necessarily, but we wanted to be able to scale the cost off of something that existed. Well, the the as you know,
I've been involved with North Broadway. And in the new section that we're redoing on North Broadway, we didn't add a cycle track. And we basically have a cycle track that goes really nowhere. It just goes in a circle. We do have problems with people using it, not going the right direction with it. Isn't that correct? We've seen that. Obviously, this is also the first time we've constructed this sort of facility. As we do identify areas where that would be the preferred treatment, people will become more comfortable as they understand how to use that sort of facility. So it really comes down to each corridor,
what the type of use is with with that next phase of North Broadway. We saw, you know, a little less of an intense focus as you're getting into downtown and more connecting people to businesses, the Park Corridor. And the preferred solution, as we continue north along that corridor, was a multiuse path that's wider that allows people to both bike and walk. So it really is unique to each project, but we need to make sure that we're providing that connectivity. And, we don't wanna be confusing people. And I don't either. So so if you go south of of
Civic Center Drive, we redid that in front of Panuku Can. We didn't add a cycle track to that area. Correct? Correct. We that project was more constrained just to the the roadway as we were putting in sanitary sewer. I think the key takeaway here is while the exhibit identifies the, you know, the alternative that we use to base the cost, we're not trying to be prescriptive. We wanna be able to study and best understand what that future connectivity North to South looks like. Okay. I guess I don't have a problem with what we're doing for Mayo Clinic.
My problem is if we're going to do a bike facilities, I want to make sure that we have businesses from downtown that are involved with this and and I don't want First Avenue to become the bike lane and then have no businesses or parking in in First Avenue. So, I I wanna see a good balance, on this and not just from a few people who have a vested interest in it, but all the communities. So that's what I'd be looking for when it comes back to us. Yeah. And if I might, just we I emphasized the bike community because they've not been as engaged in past
practices. But absolutely, it is there are multiple stakeholders because we're talking about businesses downtown that would be impacted depending on where the location is. We're talking about impact to pedestrians. So it's about creating connectivity, and restoring that North South connection, but there's multiple stakeholders that need to be involved in that conversation. So the so the downtown business association will be involved with that discussion? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Other questions? I have a question kind of timeline the overall timeline for, the development agreement and the unbound project.
What are the next touch points that, we will have as a council? So, following this, we have more agreements to, negotiate. So we have, another what we call UPUI agreement. You approved one last fall. That was related to, UPUI B2. We now have UPUI B3. So we have that cost share agreement that needs to come forward. Then we also have and Rachel, you jump in if I'm forgetting one then we also have, as I think I shared with you previously, as we think about
additional improvements underground and above ground, how do we build off of the guiding principles that we, developed this dig once philosophy? How do we make sure that we're coming into this space and we're making the kinds of improvements that we're not disrupting it again a year or two later or five years later or even ten years later, right, that there's significant investment. So that is another, agreement that we'll be negotiating related to other caution of other, areas that are not triggered by a traffic study, not triggered by,
UPUI work, not triggered by civil engineering work because of the building. So for sure, we have a UPUI cost share agreement coming forward, a general cost share agreement. And, Rachel, am I missing any other agreements? Rachel? That I can think of. Alright. Thank you. Is there a motion on this item? I'll I'll make a motion adopting the resolution approving the development agreement between the City of Rochester and Mayo Clinic to satisfy the conditions imposed by the city by the council when it approved the vacation of third and fourth Avenue Southwest Southwest. Moved by Councilmember Keane and seconded by Councilmember Palmer.
Councilmember Keane, any more to add? No. I I think this has moved in in a in a good direction, especially the idea of the good working relationship between the city and Mayo as we do these major changes downtown. The the idea of, like, the that whenever we're closing roads, we're limiting movement and causing those set of things. The fact that we had our bike lanes there that we're losing that thing, and I think these are all being addressed now. So let's let's hope we move in in a good direction over the coming years. I just keep saying that this is a great investment for our community and what
a great opportunity for us to be growing. Yes, there's some roads that have been closed but it's going to be phenomenal when this is done. And did you say we're not digging up for ten more years, anything? We Not your guarantee. Is that what you're saying? I'm I'm not gonna say that just yet. Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to item, H4, which is the former, f 10, contract for Fourth Street Southeast and Nineteenth Avenue Southeast intersection improvements.
I'm gonna turn it over to mister Spindler Craig to, discuss this one. Thank you, council president Schubert and council members. We appreciate your patience today as we work through some of these last minute developments on this item. You heard some reference to that through the open comment period. I won't substantively address those comments, but would simply tell you, that we do not agree with the comments and believe that the Citi team has handled the bidding irregularities, professionally and appropriately. This is an important project with significant risk if there is undue delay.
To mitigate that risk, we recommend tonight that you reject all bids and authorize a rebid process. With that, we can try to answer any questions you might have particularly related to the project itself with the team present behind me. Is there any, discussion on this item? If not, is there a motion? I'll move to, reject all bids for the project and authorize advertisement of bids for opening on Tuesday, July 8. Moved by council member, Keane and seconded by council member Fredericks. Any further discussion?
Council member Keane? I I just wanna clarify that the importance of the timing of this that is but we are adding at least a month, probably longer into the process. Does that move it off of a certain construction season, or do we still think we're in this late summer, fall? Thank you for the question, Councilmember Keane. Members of council, we obviously acknowledge that it sets back the start of the project a month. It still allows us the opportunity to get the bulk of the work done in late summer and into the fall. I would envision some carryover work as we think about turf establishment and just general
cleanup and punch list items in the spring of twenty twenty six. But it doesn't set us back such that we can't complete the project yet in this calendar year. The project yet in this calendar year. Alright. Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. It passes. Moving on to h five, which is the downtown historic district property preservation, program funding. I pulled this item, and I actually will move the item. Is there a second? Second. And, I pulled the item because, it it was discussed at the DMCC, board and passed the DMCC board.
But, actually, two of our local representatives on that board, voted against it, regarding concerns on adaptive reuse and, reuse, for rental housing. And I abstained but do support the measure but abstain to give my colleagues an opportunity, to weigh in on the topic. My understanding is that after the discussion at the DMCC board that, the DMCC staff is going to, reevaluate the, criteria. There's been a lot of interest in these grant programs.
And, so take a look at, that. I don't know if, miss Steinhauser, if you have any more to add to that. Councilman Schoebring, I think you captured it well. I think it's been, a year into the program. It's been very successfully used. It's stimulated almost $3,000,000 of private investment. A year in, it's good to, take a look at what's been funded, the impact it's making. And as I understand it, we'll be bringing, that analysis and any modifications to the DMC board at to their September report back to their September meeting.
Thank you. Any further discussion on this? Council member Palmer. Well, I support all four items, and and I think that the grant I support all four items and I think that the grant program is important for our downtown businesses so that they know that we have buy into it as a grant program. And this is, to me, an investment for, the future of Rochester and I'm glad to support it. Council Member Wall. I agree with council member Palmer. I think that, this grant program was, one of the linchpins toward creating the historic district to begin with, that some of us were a bit reticent,
but we needed to show support for those people who have invested in our downtown historic buildings. Thank you. Council member Miller? Sure. I I look forward to supporting all four projects as well and whether an adaptive reuse of a second floor or roof, these are improvements that stay with the building and I think of much like we've authorized, the project to move forward with Bio Labs, that is investment in a physical space and owners will take advantage of that. Hopefully, we will create new economic vitality in the downtown and how we adapt these buildings to new uses that are relevant for today.
I think all four of these projects make sense and I'll be glad to support that and also look forward to the, the study that comes back in September. Council member Keane. Yeah. Again, I I I I wanna acknowledge that this is a valid public debate discussion because this idea of using public funds to, that end up being generating income directly for someone, I think it's a valid concern. But I think, again, with the historic district, the the overriding value here is the idea of trying to make sure these buildings can maintain or economically viable through through these sort of investments.
Two other small points. It really does challenge the mind, though, to think of it's a $450,000 or $500,000 investment in a building to to take what is the existing space and get it to apartment level stuff. I I can't quite get my head around that, but I'm assuming other people are looking through that. But the other one is, you know, watch out here. If if we've already matched 300,000, we're our our there's a lot this thing is going to be done pretty soon. That is getting enough usage that that we'll we'll we'll burn through these in a
couple years. And then you're back to the point of there is no value in being in there by these owners. So I'm glad to see the uptake, and I think you'll it's almost like an arms race trying to get something going before before the money's gone. But I think we will get to that point. Council member Fredericks. It's hard to monetize on an old building. Any improvement on an old building is gonna generate revenue, whether it's tuck pointing, whether it's roof, whether it's something nobody sees. It's gonna keep your tenants in place. It's gonna keep the fatality of that building in check. It's never ending. It's never ending.
And having an amenity, if it can keep that place full, if it can add another person to our downtown, map, it's great. So I I I stand with Miller in what he said. Seeing no other comments, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Passes unanimously. Moving on to h six, which is modifying the DMC development district boundary. Council member Palmer, you pulled this item. Yes. I did, and thank you very much. I will make a motion to approve modifying the DMC Development, district boundary.
Moved by council member Palmer. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by council member Wahl. Council member Palmer, you have the floor. Thank you. And I'm gonna amend that motion to instruct the staff to start the process to include the proposed park and ride on North Broadway in the rec center in the DMC district. Is there a second to the amendment? Seconded by council member Fredericks. Go ahead, council member Palmer. Well, there was some discussion two or three years ago about the park and ride, and and I understand that we have pretty much the financing for it but I think that, with the park and ride with 95% of the use going to be,
getting Mayo Clinic employees into the downtown by the park and ride and getting rid of the one out at the Haley Center, the old shop going north, I think is important. And I think that, they can start the process and it can come back to us and we can say no or yes, at the end result. And or DMC can say yes or no at the end result. But I think that it's a good thing to ask for. Can you clarify, council member Palmer, the verbiage of your amendment, how you characterized? Do you want me to reread the motion? Yes. Why don't you do that? I had it written down. Good. To instruct the staff to start the process to include the proposed park and ride
on North Broadway in the rec center in the DMC District. Okay. Discussion on the amendment? Yeah. Council member, Dean, go ahead. Yeah. I guess I wanna end ask the staff. And this is a I I'm trying I I understand why we extend the district sometimes because you can only use DMC money in there. But I understand this this park and ride to be funded through a federal thing. Is there something that, something that you that would that I don't know about that's going on with this project that makes it valuable to be in the DMC district? Miss Steinhauser,
go ahead. Thank you. I will try to answer that. I, not that I'm aware of. We received, we received federal funding for it. We have a local match identified at sales tax for the local match portion of the park and ride. And so, we never brought forward and asked be for a DMC boundary modification because we had we were able to identify an alternative local match. As I think has been shared, we when we look at boundary modifications, it's because we have exhausted other options for, local funding match.
And so that is why that never came forward, for the North Broadway Park And Ride. Okay. So just a comment here that I I I have seen some other times where we've changed the district, but it has to do with funding. But it also has to do with fitting in with the DMC plans. The the right now, I know that there's park and rides that you that we they're we're moving away from the rental to being city owned, both park and rides, but also, like this what do we call it? Part we don't call it a ramp. What it the some, like, mini ramp. But I I don't see it as a DMC project right now.
That that's something that I'm not aware of in their priority. So, again, I I don't see the logic here right now. So from where I'm at, I don't think I'm not supporting the the the amendment. Council member Palmer. So this is the first time that I remember that sales tax dollars were used. What what sales tax dollars were we using for the local match? I'm I might have misquoted that. I don't believe sales tax dollars are being used for that. That's what was said, though. Right? Yeah. It that that's what was said. But I might So where's the matching coming from? Just a match on that. I I, I don't recall that off the top of my head. I would have to look for that answer.
I'll have to look here. Okay. So I guess the the rationale in my mind, again, is that this is used predominantly as a ramp, which I think is the only ramp that we, use as Mayo Clinic employees that isn't under the DMC. And I think asking for it and looking at it is not a it doesn't mean we have to do it at the end, but I think that looking at it is important for us because 95% of the people who are using it are going to be people who are going to be bused downtown. And I think that that's important for us to at least look at that. And and if it wasn't for the DMC or for the for the employees being
there, we wouldn't be building this ramp. It's a but for. I've got a question, to staff. So I'm having a little trouble with the amendment as to that that, we are initiating it here at the city when it is the DMCC's boundaries. And I get, council member Palmer's, amendment. But I guess my question to staff is if there were additional boundary or added annexation, for lack of a better term, into the DMCC,
boundaries, would this be the next one that that that city staff would work with DMC staff to work into the DMC boundaries? Council president, I think what miss what deputy city administrator Steinhauser is politely stating is that we have have not recommended and don't recommend that. The funding for the park and ride has been sourced. I I believe it was from 2013 sales tax. Maybe I'm incorrect. There was a point in time when we were talking about that.
My understanding is it's roughly 7,000,000 from FTA, eight hundred thousand from state bonding, and a match from an I IIJA matching grant at at the state level. Oh, that's right. We got an additional grant. I apologize for forgetting that. We had talked about, a different source. I guess what I'm saying is this isn't a recommendation from staff. Thank you. Council member Palmer. Yep. Nor did I think it was. What what is IG what what did you call it? It's a MnDOT state grant. Okay. A IJA matching grant. Council member Miller. So my question, for staff is a different but for.
But for the fact that this is a BRT line, would we ever have expected a boundary modification? We is it not true that we gain an advantage by being able to locate maintenance facilities for the bus line off of more prime real estate currently? That is correct. So, there's there's a couple but fors. Right? So the to your point, the fact that we can co locate this where we already have operations creates an efficiency, because it would be co located in the public works facility where we already have, a fleet maintenance system set up.
So there's some synergy there. The other, as well as not taking prime downtown real estate, normally on a rail project, it would be at the end of the line. This is a bus rapid transit, so we're able to locate it off-site. The other, but for is only because we have to show individual line item match for FTA grant. If we could have just shown it as one lump sum match, we would not be doing a boundary modification request. And I would also just note that this is this is a project that has been a six year partnership with DMC. It has been both on DMC's priority list justification
for this boundary modification as opposed to, considerations of other items. Council member Wahl. I, support the, amendment. I think that it opens up possibilities, for the future. There should be another ten years of of, DMC funding for things in in in our city. We don't necessarily know what will come up. I also don't hear, the amendment saying we will do this. I heard the amendment asking for the council to start a process. We don't know exactly where that process will lead.
Would I take that correctly, mister Palmer? That's correct. Council President Schubert, may I ask a clarifying question? Is the amendment tied specifically to this request? If so, I would, ask that if this council wants to pursue that, they unpack it from this request and provide it as a separate requested action. We would not want this boundary modification for a priority public project by the two bodies to be held back, in any way and compromise our federal application,
reimbursement process because we have extended, consideration. And we'd have to start the process over. It's gotta go back to the DMC board, which doesn't mean till September. There then it comes back to this board. Then they Got it. DMC has to hold a public Got it. Council member Palmer, do you wish to withdraw your amendment? And, and I don't I don't think we can for the simple fact that we have, a second. And we Well, you and both you and council member Fredericks would if you the two of you agreed to withdraw your amendment, then we no longer have an amendment. Understanding. And and It's up to you. I We can we can disagree.
First of all, I don't want us to screw up the the the the, public works one. That I'm not intention of that. But my understanding is once a motion is made and seconded, it now belongs to the council. City clerk. City clerk, can you confirm that, the mover and the seconder of a motion can withdraw their motion? Michael? Council president, I believe that they can withdraw. Yes. So you have the option. I'm not saying you I'm not telling you to do it. I'm just asking the question as to further,
miss miss Steinhauser's, request. If you choose not to, we'll take a vote on the amendment. I don't wanna delay the the the the motion the first motion I made. So, yes, I will, resend that. And council member Fredericks, do you agree? Council President Shubring, can I just make one clarification? Go ahead. And and we can certainly follow-up wherever this lands. We can certainly follow-up with an email of the full, funding sources. But there is I I I I am understanding that there was 2,000, 13 sales tax funds used for a portion of the matching grant.
But as for the exact number, I would have to figure out how much that was. So I can follow-up with an email and clarify that, but I did wanna put on the record that sales tax the 2013 sales tax is a portion Okay. So we have withdrawn the amendment, and there is an opportunity under other business if you wish to, bring up another But we don't vote during that time. Well, then I will ask a parliamentary question. Once we take a vote on the, the measure that's in front of us, the item that's in front of us, are we able to take a second motion?
I believe that we could. It's on this item, but to not mock up this item, we should keep it very clear that the resolution would be passed as stands, and then an official action or a different motion would be taken if there was an additional direction. Perfect. Okay. So we have, the main motion now. Is there any further discussion on the main motion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Passes. Is there any further business on this item? Mister president, I'd like to make a motion. Let me see what I got here.
A motion to instruct the staff to start the process to include the proposed park and ride on North Broadway in the rec center in the DMC District. Is there a second? Moved by Councilmember Palmer and seconded by Councilmember, Fredericks. Any further discussion on this item? Go ahead, council member Miller. So my question would be to staff on timing. Since there are funding sources identified, what might this action do to the construction likely timeline of that parking right project? I would have to defer it in.
Again, that word I'm going off the top of my head here, but, what I would suggest is that it wouldn't impact the construction funding. And, potentially, there are other items down the road that this opens up opportunity for, but I would suggest leaving the project as the funding sources as is as that's what was determined and and established. So I don't think it would impact the construction at this time. Council member Palmer. Nope. I'm done. Thank you. Any further discussion on this item? Seeing none,
I'm gonna call. I I I am going to ask Kirk Keisel to take the role. Council member Keane. Nay. Council member Miller. Nay. Council member Wall? Aye. Council member Fredericks? Aye. Council member Palmer? Aye. Council president Schubring? Nay. Motion fails. Moving on to, ordinance first readings. Go ahead, mister Spindler Craig. Thank you, mister president. Item j one, an ordinance annexing to the city of Rochester approximately 33.58 acres of land located north and east of the intersection of Fiftieth Avenue NW and
Valley High Road NW. Second reading, item K1, an ordinance amending and reenacting chapter 92A of the Rochester Code of Ordinances relating to a gas franchise. Is there a motion? Moved by council member Keane, seconded by council member Miller. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes, k two. An ordinance annexing to the city of Rochester approximately 67.77 acres of land located North and East of the intersection of Eighteenth Avenue Northwest and
50 Fifth Street Northwest identified by PIN number zero eight four seven three eight, zero five seven one eight five, zero five eight one eight two, and zero eight four seven three nine. So moved. Moved by Council Member Wall. Second. Seconded by Council Member Fredericks. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes. No tabled items. We have several items under other business. Council member Palmer, first up, sales plans for city property. Yeah. The the question I have is that we have quite a bit of property that's
out there, and and I don't know when we're gonna come back with an idea when we're gonna be, making these available to the public. One of them is the traffic building down at, Northeast Rochester. The other one is, the Park And Rec existing building. I'd like to see if we can get that on the market before we move it. And then Silver Lake Electric plant, I had a conversation with the, executive director with, RPU and they have plans on that, but I had brought that up and I believe I had one other piece of property on there. But we had about three years ago, a list that was sent to us.
So I would, I guess, ask to have a list updated and and and presented to the city council if everybody would agree to that. Clarify a list of Available properties to, dispose of, that the city of Rochester owns. Council president, that's on a July study session Perfect. I believe. That we got that done. Okay. Good. We're done with that topic? Yes. Number two number two is and and I and I wanna clarify this is is that, this RPU thing, and and this is something that I've been involved with for at least over a
year and that is that they have a, electric, bank, coming down from their Marion substation. It's it's had the Ninth Street Southeast Southwest Bridge out for over two years, which I don't think they would do that again, but that's there. And then also on Slattery Park, they're in the park and they've taken up the trail there. That makes it really difficult to move ahead. I understand that probably that won't happen again, but but I've talked to a lot of different people. Even the bicycle, did you call it meandering or what did you guys do? Med City meanders.
They they, they even had to change their route. So that's one of the items that that I wanna make sure that next time they do a project that they think of parks and and public. The second thing is, development agreement or development people are are looking at how do we do things the most efficient way. There are some dry utility hookups that are having difficulties and I've talked with the executive director of RPU and he's working on coming up with a different plan and making sure that we're more efficient in our services.
And again I'm gonna compliment RPU and their staff that the water department has been listening and so has, the construction people. But I'd like to make sure that the city council understands that delays from city staff makes it hard for for construction. Sometimes, we've been delayed seven months. And, that that is that's hard for for, making houses affordable. Those are my two Those are my two items. Did you want, mister McCullough to expand any? If he He looks like he's ready to pull the microphone. Well, then go ahead. Go ahead. Good evening, council president Schoebring,
council members here. I have had Tim McCullough, general manager for RPU. On the first point on the Marion Road duct bank, this is the last year of what has been a five year effort to construct the substation down the Marion Road area all the way to connect to downtown. It is very true that we, hold the bridge, the pedestrian access bridge in the Soldier's Field area aligned with Ninth Street, just about a year and a half ago, I believe. It was right at the beginning of my tenure here, and I've been here just about two years. We did provide a reroute for the trail access there. So as you know, the, as you can see there,
there's been a a reroute to the trail, but no doubt there's been an impact to pedestrian access there. I have talked to council member Palmer about this and have committed that any future project, including the project we're doing currently at Bear Creek at Slatterley Park, is happening more efficiently. There's a lot of circumstances that happened at the time. There was a staff error that was made in pulling a bridge too early when the fabrication of the bridge wasn't quite ready at the time. And, unfortunately, we've had to sit and stare at a missing bridge for eighteen months, and that's,
that's a reality that's there. We're working through it. We've, we're doing much better on the Bear Creek Park 1. I just drove by both sites today. I'm happy to report that we're, exceeding our construction schedule at the moment. We're on final grading at the Ninth Street Pedestrian Bridge in Soldier's Field, so we expect to have that open here maybe by the end of this month for pedestrian access. And one of the reasons that the Bear Creek Park Bridge, has had, some delays into this construction season is we also have been navigating a heritage site, a potential burial grounds,
and so we've had to do supervised excavation under, archaeologists and the state archaeologists as well. We believe we can get that completed, and we're within weeks or very short months of having that project phase completed as well. So, we apologize for the impact of the community. It has been a hard project there, but I can report that at the tail end of this project, the trails will be restored to new, and there's a lot of new infrastructure that'll be brought as well to these. So, no doubt there's been some impacts there. On the second item,
RPU has been actively engaged with public works peers as well on the streamlining efforts around the development process and some of the water infrastructure and electric infrastructure pieces. There's a a number of priorities there and RPU is contributing to two of those. And one is coordinating with our dry utility peers. Dry utilities would include gas, telecommunications and electric, which all go in a common trench. So we have been coordinating with, the gas company and the telecommunication companies to see what streamlining we can provide,
to help make that more efficient and work better with developers. We're committed to that process. We've been at the table. It's going a little bit slower than I think everyone would hope, but there's a intent to follow that through, and there's a commitment from RPU to see that through as well. I think we can find some real opportunities, and we appreciate the development community reaching out and pointing to issues that I think are very solvable in that. So Administrator Zounds, you had, something to add? It's not about this item. It's a separate Oh. Comment. Any further discussion on, council member Palmer's business?
Go ahead, council member Miller. I guess, just a quick comment. I appreciate that this has been a learning opportunity for everybody. And I think, my only comment, and I appreciate Councilmember Palmer bringing this up, particularly the trail connectivity, is just as we move forward as a city, we have an active transportation master plan. We would never start a construction project on the street without a a detour in place. And I just hope that we work towards that philosophy for all modes, especially as we consider the broader downtown redevelopment changing transportation patterns generally. And so I appreciate, even staff engagement with teammate. To make sure when maintenance is being done in in these summer months that vehicles
are parked off the trail, out of the right of way, out of the travel lanes, whether that's a a street, a trail, a sidewalk. And so I I know that we can all do better, and I appreciate everyone's comments tonight. So thank you. Thank you. That's a good segue. So we can all do better, and I just wanted to correct something I said during bonding, conversation. The solar arrays that are being designed for the airport, should they ever be able to be accomplished and are they will reduce half of the electric load, but we were blessed with mister McCullough being here this evening,
and he kindly shared with me that half of the electric load will not equal half of your bill. So we will work with them to get a more accurate number. Also, he reminded me the solar will not be working at night. So it's not the number that I quoted, although that would be half of your, total utilities that they report. So just wanna clarify that. Thank you for the teamwork. Thank you. Any other business for this evening? Seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Moved by Councilmember Miller. Second. Seconded by Councilmember Fredericks. All in favor, say aye. Aye.
Any opposed, nay. We are adjourned.