When you want me to count her down for you? Recording in progress. Please rise as you're able to, do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, a nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, and welcome to our 02/03/2002, '20 '20 '5 city council meeting. We begin every meeting with our open comment period, and I've got a list of at least 11 names here.
Just to go through our rules for open comment, it's an opportunity for for anyone from the public to speak on items that we will not be having a public hearing on, during the later parts of our agenda. Each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of twenty minutes. If we go over that twenty minutes, I will ask our our counsel if they'd like to, suspend the rules to, to extend that period. But because of the limited time, we wanna make sure that, everybody has an opportunity to speak. I'd request that each speaker,
be concise to allow more people to speak during this time. And, participants are also encouraged to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of this 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 the city clerk over here to distribute. And, when you come to the podium,
please state your name clearly and make sure that the so that, the clerk has your information if you do need follow-up. So with that, I will, start with our list. And the first one up is Judy Young. Yep. Come up come up to the speaker, and then here's the the timer right here. It'll give you a warning about a minute before you supposed to wrap up. Got it. My name is Judy Young, and I live in Ward 1. I am on a number of disability advocacy groups, including the Region ten Quality Council.
And very important to the City Of Rochester, the cross disability focus group. We had a meeting today from one to 02:30, and it came to our attention about the regional complex and our concern that doing phase one when the community engagement surveys indicated, indoor facility, you know, would be, what the community wants. By doing outdoor, we're eliminating, many disability activities, especially for, Special Olympics. We need cornhole space,
which is now a sport. We have 50 to 60 athletes throwing, cornhole bags at chip shots and it doesn't go real well. So we just would like you to, take a look at that, the data you have and maybe give, disability groups a little explanation of why that change happened. The other thing is I noticed in the final report, for the complex is that many groups were asked. There were, IMAA, Islamic group, different youth groups. There was no disability group, we noticed, that was not asked.
There are several disability groups. There's a Sam group. There's region ten quality council. There's, you know, ARC Southeast Minnesota that could have been invited to give their input. So we ask that in the future that you don't forget about those. And, I'm on several of those. So and then my son, Rob, is here, and he just would like to this is quite the experience. He would just like to say hi. And he's one of those special Olympics. It's gonna represent team Minnesota in The USA games that are in Minneapolis next year.
Thank you. Thank you. Moving on. I I know that, Judy did give a very impassioned speech. Going forward, please let's refrain from applause during public comment. That will just give us more time for others to speak. So thank you. Moving on to, Brie Thermos. Bree? I I I think it's Bill. Oh, I'm sorry. Bill Thermos. Is that youse? I'm Bill. Sorry, Bill. It looked like b r e e instead of b I l l. It's my penmanship. Okay. Go ahead.
I'm with Timberland Partners by Bill thermos. I'm with Timberland Partners. We only manage Preserve On Maine, which is located on the South Side, right? Next to the complex that you're looking to possibly put in there. We just had some questions on how the access to this is gonna be. Is it gonna come through our road that's there will be further south? And is there a presentation? I know you can't respond, but that'd be helpful for us to know how the access to the new, area would be. Second item was, related to the sewer system. Would you be bringing in sewer to the project? We are using a lift station currently,
and that's problematic for us. So we were wondering if there's a source system if we'd be able to tie into it. And then the third piece for us is The way this land is pitched when we have heavy rains, the water runs towards our building when there's a. All this are conduit that takes the water away from our building, the wind up with water in a building. So when they're doing the plans for the new programs, they can keep that in mind when they're pitching it so that we don't have the water coming towards our property, that would be very helpful too. So, we're we're very much in favor of the project. We think it's a wonderful idea, and we're right next to it.
It'll be fun to be a part of it. It's just those couple three things we're just curious about. So that's all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. Moving on to Sarah Jourty. Good evening. My name is Sarah Jourty. I live in Ward 5. City Council Members and mayor Norton, the decisions surrounding the location and design of the sports complex have the potential to provide economic stimulus and meet the evolving needs of Rochester youth. The daily reality our youth face is growing more hostile, exclusionary,
and unwelcoming, particularly for our youth from historically marginalized communities. Youth have growing fear and anxiety. We need safe and equitable spaces after school and the sports complex can help meet those needs. Our PS Community School coordinator reports that lack of engaging and safe after school activities for youth can contribute to housing instability, as unsupervised youth can make decisions that result in eviction from their rental units. Although there are options of school age childcare and Boys and Girls Club,
these are not meeting needs due to cost, wait lists, and limited locations. Elementary, middle, and high schoolers need equitable, safe spaces to be in community together after school. As an AmeriCorps member at Longfellow Elementary, I witnessed firsthand the benefits of enriching after school opportunities, including enhanced self esteem, improved social and emotional regulation, and better engagement and success in academics. I urge City Council to conduct a thorough needs assessment of the youth of Rochester
with particular attention to youth of color, youth who are dreamers, and LGBTQIA plus youth prior to making final decisions about the location and design of the sports complex. I urge you to consider the formation of a youth coalition, including youth and adults representing sports teams and representatives from non profits like RPS, Community Education, and Boys and Girls Club, just to name a few. In a world of increasing fear, you, city council members and mayor Norton, have the community have the opportunity to lead with love.
And our community members will follow your lead as we demonstrate for Rochester's most vulnerable and frightened youth that love is greater than fear. Thank you. Thanks. Moving on to, Mark Bransford. Hello. Mark Bransford. Three seventeen fifteenth Avenue Southwest. I didn't mean to say that I do echo the, the woman that spoke about, disability assessments, both on this side of the and not or from the the side of the dias. I see that missing quite a bit. So I I would urge that to be part of the equation. So okay.
I lost time there. So, tonight's selection of the site for the sports complex is the culmination of multiple approvals from the city council, state legislators, and finally, and most importantly, the passing of the referendum. Our chain of decisions and already significant expenditure to reach tonight's approval marks the conclusion of the selection process and the commencement of the development phases, which will be managed by our incredibly talented staff. So this is important, phasing a project is standard practice. It is important to maintain consistency in our approach and avoid selectively deciding when phasing
is appropriate. For example, the dam replacement project will be phased and initially it was it will not include several key features presented to the public, such as trails and bike lanes due to funding limitations. However, these elements will eventually be implemented. The city will follow through on phase two of this project just as with numerous other projects. The current plan is comparable to those implemented in cities such as Des Moines, Coralville, Bettendorf, and Cedar Rapids. These cities have experienced significant economic benefits from their sports complexes.
They have served as catalysts for businesses, housing development and significant tourism dollars. As an illustration events in Des Moines generate tens of millions annually, while complexes in Bettendorf and Coralville contribute $10,000,000 to $25,000,000 per year. If you can start wrapping. Yes, weigh this against the investment of $65,000,000 Sports Complex represents sorely needed economic diversity that will yield substantial returns to Rochester. This is not speculative or wishful thinking. We have concrete examples of successful outcomes. I look forward to your discussion and approval of the site and the green light
to continue. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on, to Nick Campion. Council first continues. Alright. I haven't timed this, so I'm gonna go as fast as I can. Council president, mayor, members of the council, first, thank you for the opportunity to speak, and and thank you for your service to the community. I know, without saying complex issues like this, no pun intended, take a lot of time to figure out and to figure out how to move forward. I've been accused of many things, but I've never been been accused of being brief. So to try and contain my arguments, I'm going to read a a little bit,
which isn't my standard, but I'm gonna jump right to the punchline. I think building a sports complex at the Seneca site is undesirable for the city of Rochester. This site is poorly integrated into our travel and lodging apparatus. And I think that, a lot of this is being driven by the idea of use it or lose it nature of sales tax. Unfortunately, the long term costs of a poor site outweigh and dramatically exceed both the planning and construction costs. And so I think pausing to evaluate the whole picture here is healthy. One of the most important charges you have is maintaining the public trust.
At the risk of arguing a point I've heard a hundred times sitting in your seats, a bad outcome here is worse than no outcome. We're we're saddling the city with generational maintenance expenses, attempting to construct this, facility during the time of the highest construction prices in the history of Rochester in a location that seems suboptimal. I just can't understand the rush. I could potentially overlook many of the drawbacks of not understanding the long term operational costs of facilities like Soldier's Field or what we're gonna do with the fit future
of the Silver Lake Pool if this site felt like a slam dunk. If you can start wrapping up. I will do just that. I think a site that is at the, Intersection Of 52 And 63 encourages regional visitors to come and leave. And I think that we need to think more about how we integrate it into our great hospitality and lodging services throughout the rest of Rochester. I'm gonna skip to the conclusion, even though I got a bunch of great points here. I hope you consider alternatives. Sometimes the best course of action is rejecting the only option.
Waiting rather than saddling my kids, hopefully they'll come back or stay, with paying for a poorly realized idea is and should be considered a bad option. Please look at viable alternatives. Thank you. Thank you, mister Campion. Moving on to Diana Lacette. I'm sorry if I messed up your name there. Hey. This is my first time here. I'm kinda shaky. I'm here to speak about a few issues that we're facing as renters. This is my oldest son. We live in the same building but different units. And it's at Silver Lake. And,
we're on a housing program, and we are still experiencing black mold, water issues, musty smell, and tracting windows. We have violations from the city that were, written up quite some time ago. Yep. And they've been ignored as well by management and the landlord. I'm talking also for all the renters that are renting that building. We have pictures. We have videos. We have everything that we need to move on whichever direction this is gonna go in. I don't know.
But there's so much more about the laws this management and landlord are breaking, and I thank you. Yes. Thank you. You if you can give some of your materials and your provide your address to, the city clerk, we'll, follow-up with you. Moving on to, Casey McGregor. Hello, mayor, council. Welcome new council. I'm Casey MacGregor. I have three bullet points today. This one number one, the study session on January 15 was not recorded. It is important to note that typically there are two sets of attorneys representing opposing
views like in a courtroom. One for argument a and another for argument b. During this session, we had two attorneys present a singular viewpoint, which I believe did not fully capture the complexities of the issues. Specifically, I would like to emphasize that the city administrator is not an elected official. It does not possess greater authority than the council. I found the praise to the administrator and the city attorney excessive. To ensure comprehensive understanding, engage in additional set of attorneys who can provide an opposing perspective, I think, is crucial.
This approach would contribute to more balanced and realistic view of the matter as the perspective presented seemed to reflect a very left leaning ideology. Number two, a few months ago, mayor Norton expressed the enthusiasm of regarding the Green New Deal and how much Rochester was poised to benefit from this federal funding. However, with the recent comments from the new president Trump, who stated the Green New Deal is canceled and referred to it as the Green New Scam, I'm concerned about the potential implications for Rochester specifically. How might this development affect the city's ability to secure funding that mayor Norton and
the city anticipated? How will this affect energy prices in Rochester? Number three, the sports complex. I have been opposed to this initiative from the outset, and I believe it primarily caters to affluent individuals. My background has shaped my perspective to view this development skeptically. Additionally, I would like to I would appreciate further clarity on the financial projections associated with this facility. Understanding the potential implications for taxpayers is essential, particularly regarding the costs that may arise once the complex is operational. Thank you.
Ms. McGregor. One second. The who pays the salaries, utilities, janitorial services, health insurance, benefits package, etcetera. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mahathi, Candimal. Hello. I'm gonna raise it. Oh, never mind. I can't. Okay. Hi. I'm Mahati Khandimullah, and I live in Ward 5. And I just wanted to spend some time talking about the Rochester Regional Sports Complex like a lot of other people here have spoken about. Just for some context, I grew up right next to Soldier's Field, so I had summertime access to a lovely park and wintertime access to the various
courts and other activities happening at the YMCA. Unfortunately, the YMCA has shut down, and I think it's really sad that kids today just don't have a similar space that they can engage in. I know when I was growing up, I used to play basketball for hours there, and it just kept me away from just spending my time watching TV or playing computer games. And as you all probably know, the amount of activities and opportunities for kids has drastically gone down, post COVID. And I think, of course, this isn't a complete solution to that problem,
but I hope that having some parts of this sports complex accessible to the public will help, our youth have some sort of an indoor space. I think this not only aligns with the city's goals of, you know, equity, but I think it also promotes long term economic growth. This is because cities thrive when, young people remain or return in the city, and that's because they're high spenders. They, you know, pay at restaurants, bars. They pay rent. They shop. But without adequate opportunities while growing up,
it's, you know, really hard for people to want to return back to Rochester. And so, anyway, thank you for your time, and I hope you consider these while deciding how the sports complex benefits our community. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to Al Lunn. Thank you very much. I'm Alan. I was a past board member of the YMCA actually. And with the dissolution of Y, I'm echoing some of the comments being made, particularly from previous speaker. The fact is the wire had social responsibility youth development and those missions need to
be carried on. With sports complex, you will have a chance to really reignite that kind of support and service for a community. So I'm urging, we should consider development and design of the sports complex to also bring in maybe utilizing what the widely known adopted methodology with the community, which you call designing. You bring in various aspects to really figure out and determine from various perspectives what are the requirements from groups that may not be considered,
in general. So, that, that would be my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Ron Menninger. Hi, my name is Ron Menninger. I'm in Ward 3. I've been a resident for twenty years. When I came to Rochester, I thought it was gonna be a good community. I was wrong. You would think it is a great community. I love living in Rochester. I have three comments to make. Brief. One, I think this is a great idea, this being the sports complex. I did not know this previous speakers and Sarah Jardine. However, listening to the eloquent comments of Sarah, I would urge that Sarah's thoughts be considered.
I've never met her before, so we didn't gang up on you. I think she pro provided a good model of how we could approach the usage of the facility, which is my third and last point. Consider having some metrics that would identify the optimal usage of this facility so that we don't become like a lot of the professional sports stadiums across the country, which really bother me when I see them sitting there idle. So consider concrete metrics that would optimize the usage that show how great this exciting
project can be. Thanks. Thank you. Molly Dennis. One of over there. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm Molly Dennis. As the illegal gag order censure has ended, it is sad that council has silenced both the public comment and public hearings last month. However, in this period of public transparency and government accountability, it is important for taxpayers to know where their tax dollars are being spent. I know from personal experience, our mayor wines and dines foreign dignitaries. However, from my focus right now will be on council members' potential misuse of public tax
dollars. Sadly, new council members have not even attended the required council meetings, let alone many have missed very important community events. This council member pay stub, which I have right here, I have a council member pay stub, shows that for forty hours, you, make over a thousand dollars a week. This is a council member. So as a former council member, I kept track of every hour I spent, and I hope that all council members are doing the same. Both Palmer and Doreen both have publicly stated that they consider their council job a
part time job. So I believe they should be paid also part time. Perhaps council members who do not put in the forty hours per week recorded, they should donate half of their over $220,000 income to charity, maybe just only a hundred grand of it. This, this would help rebuild public trust that I've heard so many people talk about. Transparency is trust and integrity does matter. Speaking of integrity, not only was I sent a letter from council member Dorian threatening me not to attend these council meetings or church,
but I also was sent a threatening letter from a lobbyist group, which was politically funded, that gave money to several council members, that, threatened me as well. This is not right either. Elected officials should be paid the hours that they work and be transparent with the money that they receive from political donations. Thank you, miss Dennis. City council is non partisan full time, and I believe Miss Dennis, your time is up. Transparency is public trust. Is your Thank you for that Match ours. Thank you. Thank you. That is all I have on my list.
Are there others that wish to, be heard during open comment period? If not, I will close the public comment period, and we will move on to, call to order. Clerk Easley, if you can call the roll, please. Council member Keane. Here. Council member Miller. Here. Council member Wall. Here. Council member Fredericks. Here. Council member Palmer. Here. Council member Dohring. Here. Council president Schubert. Here. Mayor Norton. Present. We will now move on to the city administrator's report.
Administrator Zelms, please take it away. Thank you, council president, council members, mayor Norton, members of the public. I wasn't planning to start this way. I normally start by thanking our teammates for, acting with respect, integrity, safety, and excellence at all times, but I also just wanna, echo the comments from Open Comment and wish Rob well, representing, the state of Minnesota at his Special Olympics, next year. So keep practicing. And, with that, I would move on and just point out we do have some, fun events coming up this week, at the public library on Thursday, February 6 from five to seven.
You are able to go to the winter book sale. Just a reminder that, booking in the ramps is free if you get there by 04:01, and stay. And so you have the opportunity to go to the book sale that is supported by Friends of Rochester Public Library. You also have an opportunity to renew your membership there if you are a member or to become a member if you're interested. Did also wanna point out that, while we had a little warm up, we have social ice coming to Rochester, February, Friday and Saturday. That will be from four to ten each night downtown. Again, ramps, if you get there at 04:01, free. You can't park overnight for free,
but you can park overnight and pay a small fee in the morning. Also, street parking and surface parking are free after five and all day and evening on the weekends. So hopefully, folks will head out. Maybe it'll be the perfect temperature. We also did just wanna point out that we have Minnesota Parks Artist in Residence, Cassandra Buck. She's at the Oxbow Zollman Zoo. So those are the dates in February, the seventh, eighth, twelfth, fifteenth, '20 first, and twenty second, '11 to '2 PM for the first four dates, one to 5PM for the second two. You can check that out.
You could scan the code or you can, Google Oxpose Omen Zoo and and, head out and check that out, our partners at Olmstead County. And then, we do have an upcoming open house on February 12 from 04:30 to 6PM at Rochester Public Library right across the street. That will be for East Center Street reconstruction, and that's the second open house for that. So, just wanted to point those things out, and, that's all I have. Thank you, miss Stones. Moving on to the mayor's report, mayor Norton. Sure. Just a couple of things tonight. First, thanks to the public. I think it's, great that we get input.
So appreciate so many people coming to speak today. And regarding socialize with the which our city administrator mentioned, there is a fam jam family activity on, I think it's the eighth, the second day. So if activity on, I think it's the eighth, the second day. So encourage folks to bring their littles out for that. It's great fun. Just a reminder, we have a new council. I think some of you have gotten these emails, but not everyone had heard about it. The National League of Cities, which is the parent organization of the League of Minnesota Cities, has their congressional cities conference, the CCC, March tenth through twelfth. I'll be going for the board of directors and some committee meetings,
but, I know this is short notice for a lot of you. If you can if you are free, you could come. I know some of you are not because of the short notice. There's a second opportunity for National League of Cities conference in November, which is a city summit, which is really focused on, city issues as opposed to, federal issues. Although this year I feel like I need a federal update because everything's changing from day to day and hopefully by March we'll have a little more information. So I just wanted, to give that as a reminder. And one of the activities that the, National League of Cities has been working on is something called,
cities of opportunity. The city of Rochester participated in this, several years ago, and they've they've redone their theory of change. So, is of opportunity is, to find ways to advance health equity and well-being in your city, and they've changed it. So now you the first section, which is in yellow, are things you can do individually at home. There are online courses. There's it's kind of a self training. And then as you gain capacity and interest, you can move over for teams. And then you can have teams of folks that can, participate on a project that the city determines with their staff is the direction they
wanna something they wanna work on. They'll provide you support. It's really a great opportunity. We got several grants and funds brought back to the city of Rochester as part of that team's work. And then the last one is an alumni forum for some of us old goats, and I'm gonna participate in that this year. They've asked me to help share having been through this before. So just thought I'd point that out, and I'll I'll ship it to you. Those online courses are free and easy to do, and, you can do them at your leisure. Family service Rochester turned 60. It was their sixtieth anniversary, which was really remarkable.
And, it's one of those many, many nonprofit organizations we have in the community. And, council member Wall and Daring, joined me today, at that anniversary. I know, you know, we all show up for things when we can. And so we had a couple of folks there today to to welcome to thank them for the past sixty years and welcome them toward the next sixty plus ahead. And the programs they do vary from social service type organizations to, things like, meals on wheels, which so many folks in our community really need. And they've been focusing a lot on aging and helping our community,
even the city of Rochester, adjust as the population ages. And we do some universal design. So anyway, very interested and interesting and wanted to say congratulations to them for sixty years. Again, we have an international relations committee event to talk about the Germany and Japan trips. It looks like the Japan, trip, to our sister city, Akita, as well as Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Tokyo is filling up. So that looks like it's a go. We still have another month or so to find out if we have interest. I have had some calls about the German trip as well. So if anyone is interested in that,
again, the dates are August in Japan and September during Octoberfest, in Germany. So it should be a fun time. And, this is also, I love to read month, February is. So some of you may be invited if you haven't already or if you're interested, let me know. I already have a full calendar of reading as public and private schools and nonprofits around town. So it's really a fun time. My passion has always been and always will be children and education. So it's real joy for me to be able to support kids. And it really,
dovetails nicely with the year about youth. And one way to do that is to read to them and support them. So that's what I've got for today, and I will pass the, I guess, mic. Thank you, mayor. We appreciate all of those events. Moving on to, the order of the agenda, are there any changes to the order of of the agenda? Staff, council members? Seeing none, is there a motion? I'll move to approve the order of the agenda. Second. Moved by, council member Keane and seconded by council member Wahl. All in favor,
say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Passes unanimously. Moving on to our consent agenda, council member Miller is pulling item f 19. Are there any other items that, are being pulled? And, we will invite a a motion to approve and block items f one through f 18 and f 20 through f 21. So moved. Moved by council member Palmer. Second. Seconded by council member Doring. All in favor say aye. Aye.
Any opposed say nay. Passes unanimously. Moving on to our public hearings. We have two public hearings on our agenda, this evening, and, we are actually going to hear, there are two items related to the same application. And so, mister McGill will, make a presentation on both items, and then we will hold a public hearing on, both, as they're related to the same, same application. And then, we as a council will take,
two motions on those items. So with that, I am going to turn it over to mister McGill on item g one, which is an annexation by Bigelow Homes LLC. Thank you, council president Schoebring, mayor Norton, members of the council. Good evening. My name is Desmond McGill. I'm with the community development department. The subject to annexation request is for 28.8 acres. It's located on the Northwest side of the city, just east of Sixtieth Avenue, Northwest and approximately 500 feet south of King Arthur Road.
It's surrounded on all sides by the city. At the present time, the applicant is requesting the UDC default, zoning of the R 2 Zone District, for the site, which is low density residential small lot. The applicant has also submitted a concurrently running zone change, application, which consists of five parcels, within the city of Rochester that totals, about 39 acres. The applicant looks to develop a 68 acre single family residential development, consisting of 220 homes, generally 55 by feet wide by 120 feet deep and,
is proposing an eight acre park plan dedication on the site. The minimum lot width requirement in the R 1 zoning district is 60 feet. The applicant is seeking the r two zone change to accommodate the 55 foot lot width minimum for the development. The underlying zone district or P2S comprehensive plan district is low density residential, and the proposed r two zoning is consistent with this classification. Both the development review team and the planning and zoning commission are recommending approval of these requests, and commission unanimously approved,
the annexation and zone change by six zero vote. That concludes my introduction. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, mister McGill. At this point, we will invite the applicant up, and the applicant has, ten minutes to, discuss, both the annexation and the zone change. So take it away. I'll be done. Please introduce yourself. Tony Bigelow, Bigelow Holmes. Good evening, mayor, council members, council president. Good to be here. It's been a while. Yeah. We're looking for, 60 acre total development. I guess it said 68 in Desmond,
so I wanna find those extra eight acres somewhere. But when we annex in the property, it'll automatically become our two. The existing part that is annexed into the city is RDR 1. So we thought we'd make those two match up, get a better density, a little over eight acre park. So we're excited about this. We'll have single family homes in there, detached, slab on grade, split levels, ramblers, two stories. I think we'll have a good mix, and I'll take any questions from any of you. I don't know if I need to. We'll call you back after the public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. At this point,
I will open the public hearing. Members of the public will have five minutes to discuss, the annexation and zoning of this, application. Are there any members of the public who wish to be heard on this item? Absolutely. Come forward. Introduce yourself. I wasn't prepared for this, but something came up as I heard about this. My name is Colleen Spillers. I live in Ward 2. So I have a question about this. So you said a mix of homes. So are we looking at variable costs? So, like, lower income homes for affordability for families would be one question. And secondly, I have a question about the schools.
So which school zone is this in, and how will this affect families and schools and rezoning of schools? I'm a teacher, so this affects me greatly. Like, you're looking at 220 homes for families. How often are we gonna have to restructure school zones and bus lines and all that kind of stuff for adding a huge lot of what I mean, I don't do I don't do housing very often, but 220 homes seems like a lot. So those are just some questions I have. Thanks. Thank you, miss Spillers.
This is a public hearing. If you wish to be heard on this item, please step forward. This is a public hearing. Anyone who wishes to be heard on this site item, please come forward. Seeing no one, I am going to close the public hearing and invite our applicants back up to, address any questions that came up during the public hearing. I don't know if I can answer any question. Once again, Tony, big, little big homes. I don't know if I can answer your questions about what schools they'll go to. I have not looked into that, personally. Although, 220 homes sounds like a lot. This is probably about a ten year project.
I mean, I'm hoping it's five, but it'll be realistically ten plus years. And that's all I can answer that. Do you have any price point for these, Well, yeah. I I think affordable housing is a moving target always, but this will be what we consider affordable workforce. We did Kingsbury Hills development, actually one of the first two thousand one, and so we spent quite a bit of time developing that area. This will be similar to that. I don't know the price levels of the homes right now. We're looking at a year away before we can start building homes.
So high 3 hundreds to low 4 hundreds right now in today's dollars. That's all I can answer. Thank you. Thank you. We'll call you back if, members of the council have additional questions. At this point, I'll open up to my colleagues to ask staff or the applicant any questions. Council member Keane. Yes. I think the question come up about 68 acres of development and 60 acres, and I think the answer is the parkland dedication in between there. Is that a a developer decision or a city decision or a negotiation or how does that come to be?
Well, there is a standard, Parkland dedication for every, you know, unit that Yep. Has come in. So, I believe this probably covers what what is required of this development. Anything that, may need to be extra, the the parks department would look to obtain the rest of it in, in lieu cash. Okay. I don't know if that's the situation on this one. But Yeah. It it looks like it is the developer's choice if they wanna do land or Yep. Or fee. And I I didn't know if there was a park, like, need in this area or it's helpful to get it or there's a park person
stood up if you wanna. Council, mayor, members of the board. Yes. In this case here, this is a long time development plan that was put together between the development community, mister Bigelow, primarily, and the city sat down together where Parklands would be located in the state general area. This This has been planned for probably fifteen to twenty years, if not more. Okay. So it was planned to be a park location from the very onset. Okay. That's what I was looking for. Thank you. Other questions from council members? Is there a motion on this item? On the first one, the annexation, g one. Council member Palmer. I'll make a motion approving the annexation by ordinance petition number CD2024-eight
a n x by Big Willow Homes to incorporate approximately twenty eight eighty four acres of land. And number two, directing the city attorney to prepare an ordinance for the first reading. Second. Moved by Council Member Palmer and seconded by Council Member Fredericks. Any further discussion on this item? Council Member Wall. I'm very happy to support this and the next motion that will be before us. Bigelow Homes has done great work in Northwest Rochester, not just this neighborhood, but a farther Northwest neighborhood by Gibbs School.
Neighbors are happy with their homes. I look forward to the great work they will bring to this neighborhood as well. Thank you, council member. I I will echo what council member Wall said. I had the opportunity a couple weeks ago to, to, see the Red Hawk project that Bigelhoe is working, with the county and First Homes on. And the the the objective there was really to see what, what, the developer can provide at a very low cost at slab on grade,
split level, and those, those homes are now selling. I know that that the land is not a part of it because it's in the land trust, but they're selling at the mid 200. So, I know, mister Bigelow, your company has experience with, providing housing at a truly affordable place. So keep it up, and we're looking forward to, what you have in the site. Any other comments? If not, all in favor of the annexation, please, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Thank you.
Passes unanimously, motion on the zoning g two. I'll move approval of zone change number c d 2024004 z c by Bigelow Homes LLC, changing the zoning designation on 38.8 acres from r one to r two and directing the city attorney to prepare an ordinance for first reading. Second. Moved by, council member Keane and seconded by council member Wall. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye.
Any opposed say nay. Passes unanimously. Thank you, mister Bigelow. Moving on to our reports and recommendations, h one, we have a presentation on Chateau Theatre operating agreement renewal addendum, and I would invite, Josh Johnson to make the presentation here. Yeah. Thank you, council president, mayor, council members. Josh Johnson, strategic initiatives director for the city. Tonight, we are here for request to authorize a one year renewal for Threshold Arts to
operate, the historic Chateau Theatre from 05/19/2025 through 05/18/2026. A couple of items that I wanna just reflect on a little bit of history here. So back in the summer of twenty twenty one, the city went out for a request for proposals to for operation of the Chateau Theatre. At the time, there was a working group that recommended three proposals. They brought those proposals back to a study session, and then out of that came the recommendation to, the recommendation to, engage with, Threshold Arts to operate the Chateau Theatre for a period of three years. We are coming up on, three years on May eighteenth of twenty twenty five.
So one of the questions would be why are we requesting a one year renewal right now? I think, the most obvious is unless we renew it, the Chateau Theatre will go dark, after May 18. The second answer that I would have is, you know, I I'd say we're still trying to wrap our arms around what the Chateau Theatre can be, and what it is. We've learned a lot when we acquired the property. The most recent use was as a bookstore. There was a interim period there where it was being used as an exhibit space, but not a flexible event space. So what we've realized over the last three years is there was a lot of
deficiencies. The acoustics were bad. The electrical, only had one, basically one setting. Lights were either on or off. So we had to do a considerable amount of light work, electrical work, plumbing work. The bathroom, weren't ADA accessible. So we went out, received a grant, remodeled the two existing bathrooms, created a bathroom in the mezzanine to make that space more flexible, and then create another bathroom in the front parlor to make that more flexible. We've also, updated the audio, the visual, the, you know, projector to make the space much more flexible. So, I would say that, you know,
and I I wanna acknowledge that Nora Anderson with Threshold Arts is in attendance. So I would acknowledge that we've had you know, this has really been a partnership over the last three years. Threshold Arts has had to operate and be flexible and really be cooperative over all of those, different facility improvements. Now we you know, next steps looking forward, we've engaged in a consultant to help us understand, you know, what can we do to maximize the facility even more. And and those are things like one of the primary ways that a theater can be, you know, fiscally, you know, operable is liquor license.
So one of the council's, legislative priorities is to make a carve out for the Chateau theater to be able to have its own liquor license. Whenever you have events or weddings or concerts or anything, you know, all of that funding right now is actually walking out the door. So, liquor license to make a facility sustainable is very, very important. Other things like the mezzanine, that's off the skyway, that can't be utilized because of ingress, egress, and bathroom location. It can't be utilized at the same time as the Main Floor. So that's an unoccupied really, you know, we're not taking advantage of of that space. Also, maximizing the facility's capacity.
The consultant that we're engaged with owns and operates Gannada Theater in Minneapolis. Very similar theater, very similar vintage, very similar size. They actually have a higher occupancy level than we have even though our facility is bigger. So finding out ways that we can be creative, make improvements to fire life safety to create more occupancy. We also are analyzing the acoustics. We've done we've put in some acoustic panels, but it's still not concert quality, so that impacts the types of concerts and and events that we can have in there. So they're working with a consultant. We've identified some creative ways, some treatments that we can do to the ceiling to make it acoustically better without
interfering with the historical, you know, characteristics of the ceiling that would involve like hanging ceiling panels which we can't do because it's a historic building. The other next steps is identifying facility improvements. So we're working with our facilities team to understand what work needs to happen. Probably the most critical work going forward is there's some plaster on the ceiling and on the walls within the front parlor area that needs to be corrected. That will involve working with a historic preservationist in order to analyze and complete that work. So we still have a long way to go. The plan is to work with a consultant,
identify the facility plan to figure out when the timing is right for the next round of improvements. And then this would also be really the first year that threshold arts has been would be able to operate the facility without interruption of other improvements. I failed to mention that we also went through a complete HVAC and cooling project during that period, which resulted in temporary heating. We also had temporary bathroom. So that's all to say that Threshold Arts has been a great partner, has been very flexible and that's why we're recommending one year renewal with Threshold as
we work with consultants to then bring back a proposal and a presentation of next steps on ways we can better utilize the facility. I'll take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Questions at this point? Well, I'll start. So, Mr. Johnson, if you can talk about your talk about, kind of the next round of improvements, and and I I really appreciate what, Threshold Arts has done. But I get a sense that we're kind of in this holding pattern, and we really haven't as a city landed on,
you know, what is our vision for the historic Chateau Theatre? And so can you talk a little bit more about what this study it sounds like the consultants are doing a study. What are you looking for in that? And maybe I'll just start and say what I'd like to see in it. I'd like to see us really looking at, you know, what are the capabilities of the site. This is a in two years from now, this will be a hundred year old property. It is on the National Historic Register. And so really what can we do
as we are now with improvements, but what are the what what's what can we do if we really built it to a state of the art facility for destination arts and culture and with costs. And then as a council, we can kinda look at, you know, where where where it can be in that place. But I I get a sense that we there was a report about a decade ago, and we didn't really act on it. And now we're kind of in this,
let's program it, but we're really not, like, saying what we want for the future. I know that's long winded, but if you want to respond, go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, council president. What we're looking for out of the consultant and the reason why we selected this consultant is, one, she is, you know, developed, remodeled, opened up, very similar facility. And she did so during, you know, it was when she first opened it was during COVID, then she went through the George Floyd, uprising and then and then she experienced significant,
street renovations. So she's not only had to operate and And start up a historic theater, but she had to do it during construction. And as we're all aware, we're going to be experiencing a significant construction coming up. So what we're gonna be working with her is to develop some business performance to understand what are what are the use areas that we're not currently maximizing the space. So that could be food and beverage. She works with an independent food food and beverage, company to help operate and have people in her theater during times where there's not events.
So that's how do we use the front parlor better. There's also, different types of programming and entertainment that we could try to draw into Rochester that requires, you know, larger, breakdown and set up of events and and that and that takes people. So it's really creating a business case and a business business analysis of how do we how do we effective effectively use each aspect of the chateau. And that's the front parlor, that's the main space, that's the mezzanine areas, that's how do we how do we better activate the alley. And maybe it's all for one event, but maybe we could have three separate events also happening at one time.
Did that answer all your questions, council president? You touched on them. Let's see if what my colleagues have to ask. Council member, Keane. Yeah. I'll kind of follow-up a little bit. I guess I'm I you you mentioned and it's important that you you say there's there's work that's gonna happen between now and May of twenty twenty six so that we know better. And there's probably some sort of time schedule where the staff would get move us towards, like, this is what we want to be or there's two options or three options. But I I'm trying to understand that a little better. It sounds like it's very driven as you keep using the word theater.
Is this like public space? Is this an activation goal? Is this operating model? I, I maybe it's too early to be asking that. I think right now, what's in front of us is extend from starting that in three months to starting that in fifteen months. Yeah. Thank you, council member McKean. The what the feedback that we've got, we're just working very preliminary with a consultant is, you know, this space can be just about anything that we want it to be, you know, at all times during the year. So in order to do that,
you just have to be able to program it. You have to have the, the, you know, the right everything I keep saying, right acoustics, the right audio, the right visual, the right projector screens. So it's not just a theater. I mean, we can bring back recommendations. In order for it to be just a theater, there's going to need to be significant changes and that that alters what you can do, you know. By creating a theater, you're limiting what you can do for private events, for conferences Yep. For, you know, we've had Latino Fest in there. They've had wrestling, programming in there. So we I think our our goal or strategy has been how do we make
this as flexible as possible and engage the most broad community that we can. Okay. Yeah. Again, I just hope we have some way of both engaging the council, but also the community in those sort of discussions as we move that forward. I I know that when we got into this, there was a lot of different and some of them competing goals, but there was that activation for the community. There was that, like, third space or that space that, others wanted to use. There was also the operating model to make sure that the the city owns this but was not, like, paying to to do keys and and calendar.
Do we have any sort of metrics on how this has been running lately? Do we I see a lot of antidotal that we have this good event. Do we have these that are successful. But do we have any sort of, like, three one one numbers that say that the you the usage in there is 80% satisfied or much less? Do do we have anything like that? Are we managing that? Are we How does that work? Or where where does the city come down saying when we say, this is working well, what are we basing that on? Yeah. Thanks, council member Palmer or Keane. I apologize. So what we have in the contract is KPIs.
I think we need to understand once we go for the next renewal or next round of RFP, whatever comes out of the the analysis, is are those KPIs what we wanna be monitoring. Because currently, it is effectively running how we approve the RFP. I would say it is the approved the RFP three years ago, and based on the KPIs that are in there, they're being met. I'd say that over 50%, you know, in in this report, 50% of the activation is free events or walk in events. I think we also need to prioritize, is that what we're looking for or do we want it to be more,
you know, what types of events do we want more of? And that's gonna impact, you know, the financial stability of the of the theater as well. I know, miss Steinhauser had, wanted to add something, and I do have three council members, that do want to speak as well. So Oh, sure. Thank you, council member council president, Tubring. Just wanted to build off of what, mister Johnson was saying in terms of, you know, we've done work on the building. We've had an operator there that has done has performance measures, and obligations in the contract that she reports out on in terms of community events.
What we've never really done is a true operational assessment and as Mr. Johnson indicated, it's really an opportunity for us to understand what's the market opportunity in this facility. Are there events that we hadn't anticipated that are a perfect fit for this facility as well as events and types of uses that we say not going to work for this facility given x y and z. And from there be able to build a business plan around the facility based on one that is market driven, based on some of the data that we know about the kinds of events that
miss Anderson has been able to pull into the facility. And if that's the how what that builds out then in terms of a recommendation for what, the future use of the facility should be, how do you want it to be managed and operated. So so understanding the business case study, and opportunities that we should try to embrace and and other activities that we should let go because it doesn't make sense because it requires extensive capital investment or doesn't make sense for this market or resources that we'd have to put to it would be to to,
would not outweigh the cost benefit analysis for the operation of the facility. And from there, then make a recommendation to you about how we what's the best management model going forward. And if that management model going forward, continues to involve an operator, then the process for either renewal or selecting and selecting and allowing for a transition time if appropriate and if applicable. This is the kind of business where you book business well in advance. So,
there are obligations booked at this facility that we wanna make sure get honored. We have communicated to miss Anderson to not book Beyond so that we are not putting ourselves in a situation, outside of the extension. So, but but in doing so, you, do miss the opportunity to book business two years out, for example. So all of that comes into play in this analysis that we wanna bring forward to you. I think we indicated it would be about two months. Is that correct? So just trying to show the connectedness of where we're at with in terms of
the building, getting it, making the improvements necessary, bringing on management, and now really trying to build out a business, pro form a for the facility and bring that forward to help you understand what your obligations with the this facility might be going forward. Thank you, miss Steinholzer. And and just and just to clarify, just to close out on that, I I am interested in making sure I mean, I know the KPIs we have, but I'm also interested in, does the city have, like, the the the city other entities that are coming to use the space? Do we get feedback that it's working? Do we get feedback that, that it's being run efficiently or equitably and I want to make sure we as
a city know how that is and not just turn that over with our space and say, you know, do what you can. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Keane. Moving on to Councilmember Walt. When did the city purchase the theater? I wanna council member, I wanna say 02/2015. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And this is no attempt to lay responsibility at the feet of anybody here. That predates virtually, I think, everybody in terms of leadership or staff responsibility. But if we own this thing for ten years,
how do we not have I'm just ask, how do we not have a vision already of what this should be for us owning a pretty significant piece of property, downtown? If I might jump in and and mister Johnson can add to it. So there was a community visioning process. I would say, really great intent and and a really, genuine input from the community. But I would not say that it was grounded in economic realities. That's the very expensive one. A very expensive one. And we're trying to bring some economic realities to a future vision.
But that vision is long time past. There there are still community members that would like to see that vision in that facility. We hear that on a regular basis, and we're trying to ground a future vision, give you the kind of decision points, the kind of information you need to make a decision on the future vision. Is it a community center? Is it a community center that, also has a, for profit business line of business? Is it a is it a wedding venue? Is it a, is it a meeting venue?
Is it a combination of both? Is it purely free events and cultural and then, you know, a cultural asset that we allow the community to use for, as you see, if they're over more than 50% of the current use is free. Does that is that the model that discounts a lot to see? So I appreciate some of the nuance you have brought to that still frustrating. Do we believe that somehow a two month analysis is going to lead us to a certain outcome or specificity that we'll be able to move forward with a vision in a year that will erase the uncertainties of the past decade?
Yeah. Thanks, Councilmember. I would say, you know, the vision of the Chateau is really contingent on the funding available for the Chateau. So, you know, all the improvements that we've made, we've made while funding has been available us to make them. So depending on on what we want to see from a community in terms of a a theater or performance space is gonna dictate the amount of funding needed to make that happen. So we're we're trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible while also providing the best experience and entertainment options for the community. And that's I think what this analysis is gonna provide us is what can we
do now? What can we do in two years, three years, four years, five years to continue to, improve on the success of the Chateau. Council Member Palmer. Thank you. And so tonight, we're here for the one month for one year extension. We talk about partnership and all the things that we've done to our partner that we've had COVID recovery, we've had temporary bathrooms, we've had construction. We don't know exactly what we're doing, but yet to give 57% for free. I mean, I have to applaud them for what they've done as a partner. I think they've been a great partner. In saying that, I think it comes to the city council's job to make this a priority because
we've kicked this around a long period of time. And Mr. Johnson, funding, do you have ideas where we're funding? Are you coming to us in two months with funding? Or but how do you fund if you don't know what we're going to want to do? Thanks, Corporal Palmer. And that is the conundrum. And that's why we want to have support for the funding request that we're going to be making, especially working with our DMC partners. And I don't know, miss Steinhauser, if you had anything to add to that. Yeah. Thank you. So we, this is exactly what the DMCC board asked us, for They passed a resolution actually last year during the budget process that says if there
is future capital ask for Chateau Theatre to help them understand what is our, our operational and capital plan going forward as it relates to this facility. So DMC has been the funding source for the capital improvements there. We have, leveraged that funding to get, federal funds as mister Johnson indicated to do, make the restrooms handicap accessible or ADA accessible. And so, in order for DMC to seriously consider, future capital funding of improvements to this,
they want to see what is our operational plan, what is our long term, maintenance plan for this facility. So so in my experience that when we did Soldiers Field, DMC gave, I'm going to say, dollars 10,000,000 to the city to do it and and what they said to us, you tell us what you're going to do. And so what I'm hearing is that what we need to do is come up with an idea of what we're going to do. I guess my suggestion would be that the city council does a priority of of making this a priority of ours. But I would also like to see us maybe take seven city council members and
or six yes. Seven city council members, have us pick somebody to represent us on a on a committee and come up with what the community really wants. And and maybe that's the way that we need to go with this is is is the city council to have some representation and say, okay, what does the community want, let's have a deadline, let's move this ahead. Mr. Johnson, would that be helpful? Thanks, customer. I think any feedback is helpful. I'm gonna look at, miss Steinhauser and miss Elms to think about the logistics of that, but I I agree. I think it's helpful to get,
feedback from the community. I would say, we would want to put some parameters around that. The the last time we did that, I think it set the wrong expectations for the community that people thought that the building itself could be renovated to the level where you could get a Broadway production here. And the reality is that you could not get a Broadway production to, traveling production in this theater. A whole bunch of reasons why. Couldn't do it logistically space wise. Even if you could do it logistically space wise,
the per seat cost would price us out of the market. Like, those are the kinds of parameters that this that we would want to the community to understand that it it there are some things that absolutely would be off the table because the facility is not of the size and, does not have the kind of physical, attributes that certain certain venues have that could compete for those kinds of uses. And so, again, I would rather us try and find a way to do some engagement with the
community rather than have a task force that, guides what the community wants in this building because it's gotta be grounded in economic realities. It's gotta be grounded in the physical constraints of the building. And if if money was not an option, absolutely, you could do a lot of renovation to this to make it desirable for different kinds of, uses. But the reality is we money is constrained, and we want to work within our constraints. Well, just to finish up quickly, I I I appreciate the partnership that we've had. I think they've done a great job,
better than I ever thought we could do. So I appreciate, especially with all the different items that we've thrown at them. I still think this should be a priority for the city council and I think that the council could take it and move it ahead. Thank you, council member Palmer. Council member Doran. Yeah. I I I agree with council member Palmer on that. Just a a a couple of questions for some clarity. First, mister Johnson, I heard you say on numerous occasions tonight that, the desires to make the space as flexible as possible for a variety of groups to participate in
the space. And I would just, urge in the review process, to maybe rethink that a little bit. As a as a lifelong participant of of this operating space. Secondly, I'm I'm concerned hearing feedback from community groups, artistic groups who have utilized the space, who aren't coming back to the space, either because they had a bad experience operationally or the the setup of the space wasn't adequate for what they wanted to do. So I'm wondering in the review process how those voices are going to be lifted
up. I hear the importance of community engagement. I don't know how realistic that is in a two month time period. So if you could explain a little bit how how those groups are going to be contacted to get feedback for space, that would be helpful for me. Yeah. Thanks, council member. Two months is a very condensed time frame. The engagement would have to be pointed stakeholder groups, people that have utilized it in the past, working of course with our our partners at threshold to get their experience in the past. So the the community is going to the community group that's going to be,
you know, reached out to are going to be, like I say, pointed partners that have utilized it or potential future users of the space. If if for us to do a much more broad community, wide, it would it would obviously take much much longer and the scope of work would be much bigger. One follow-up. How are you going to determine who the potential future users of the space are when we don't have a vision for what the space is? Good question, council member. So this would be relying on the consultant's experience, you know, advertising, promoting, getting different types of, of events and entertainment options in.
Okay. Council member Fredericks? Question is, can all the events that you I'll turn my mic on. Can all the can all the events we envision on holding at the Chateau Theater be hosted at the Civic Center currently? Thanks, council member. I mean, they're we we look for oh, I don't know if I can I don't know how to answer that? Miss Steinhalls, do you have a Council president, council member, I would say it depends. If you're having a free puzzle night, it's probably not gonna be hosted at the Civic Center based on the amount of cost and activation that you need in order to be able to pull that off.
Having the smaller space, like the chateau be available for something like that is a much less costly way of turning on that building for a very low to no cost event of that nature. So if you're talking about, music and the arts, potentially, but, again, it depends on the artist and what how their op their business model for how they operate. So I think you start to see on this dais how we don't have a vision yet because even here, we've heard different viewpoints of how people would like to see this operate.
And so I would encourage you when you're in the next phases of your strategic planning and having your one on ones with the consultant, this is a high priority for you in whatever way that's a priority, that you provide some of that and that we encourage the consultant that we're working with to also reach out to council members to understand the parameters within which you're thinking right now, so that when we bring something back to you, it is something that is valuable. The main thing that we're doing is trying to come up with a business case and operating model for something that has challenges in the sense of there was a
vision. It was very costly, perhaps not achievable economically even in the operation of it, and, a space that what we were able to come to a vision for in the RFP process was a very flexible space. If it wants to be different based on this council's viewpoints, we would need to know that sooner than later. Thank you, administrator Zelms. Any other council members that wanna be heard on this? Yeah. I wasn't finished. Go ahead. Alright. Thanks. The I just think about it the way I think about it, I guess, is we're trying to own and operate and maintain two spaces.
Because if we can achieve everything we're trying to do there there, why not own, operate, and maintain that space a little better and go to the market with that piece. We're gonna hemorrhage a lot of money getting it ready to do what we're trying to do. We're gonna hemorrhage a lot of money. I already know what we put in the heating and cooling. I mean, it was a boatload. And if it goes back if we sell it back to the private sector, we're done hemorrhaging money there, and the person with the right interest, all of a sudden when it's on them, they'll make it work. They'll figure out how to make it work. That's that's just my opinion.
Thank you, Council Member Fredericks. Council Member Miller. So just a question, as far as the coming back to us, is that the March study session where we see an hour on the most recent calendar? Council president, council member Miller, we actually adjusted that during your study session, in order to be able to come back to you at a reports and recommendations, and because we had a lot on the calendar, if you wanted to have a study session and ending at 06:30 is not critical to your life, we could do something to be able to get some feedback, from you before May.
Again, if money is no object, then we have a really different conversation to have with the operator. I'm barely confident it is, but not certain. So I I guess then as a follow-up, in in May or whenever this comes back, should we look to the Granada Theater as a model of what's likely to be proposed since we've heard it's a similar size space, similar vintage, similar considerations? I mean, is that a model that if we want additional information, we should look at their calendar, their layout to get a preview of that to guide our is does this vision
meet our vision? Thanks, customer Miller. I would say we're not trying to replicate what the ground is doing, but I think in terms of just physical size, you know, it's located in in in a condensed downtown. It's in Uptown Minneapolis. I think it's a good benchmark to see what type of, you know, variety of program that they have and and how they make it work. So, yeah, I think I think it's good to draw inspiration and ideas, but we're not trying to replicate what they're doing up there. I guess that that's my question then. As we think about this, as we think about the process, coming back in a couple of months, as as we think about the lack of a specific vision today,
what should we be looking at, right, to gain ideas or help set that vision when there's there's not an established process? I mean, I think I would very much support Councilmember Palmer's recommendation that we we have some additional input between the study session schedule and the meeting schedules to help guide this because I I I do council perspective. Mhmm. Yeah. Thanks, councilman Miller. I'd say one of the ways I look at it is is is what's missing. What are we hearing from our contingency that we don't have downtown? And there's tiers to our event centers. What is what is the gap in the tiers right now between what the Chateau Theater is and what the Civic Center is?
I also think how can it be complementary to the other things that we have downtown? Right now, the Chateau Theater really act complimentary to things like Latino Fest or Social Ice, which is coming up or Thursday's downtown. And it provides that that community benefit that, you know, if we were to sell and lose all control, we we would have less control over, sort of that, you know, those free events, those walk in events, the people that might just be here for an appointment that, you know, have history with the space and wanna just walk in and see it. So I'd say, yeah, look at look at what you think we're lacking in the market and use that
as your your guidepost. Thanks. And just as a final comment, I will say that I do think that that is the uniqueness of the Chateau versus the Civic Center. It is connected to our downtown. It is a space that people can walk in if there's a free event or even a ticketed event that has capacity and I would applaud the threshold arts operation to provide a variety of events, both evening entertainment and adding on to our public space, because I think it is a valuable public space of City of Rochester. Thank you, council member Miller. So, on our agenda, we are simply authorizing an extension of the,
the, contract that, Threshold Arts has with with us. Yet during this conversation, a lot of things came up. I think my sense is that what I'm hearing from my colleagues is we want more than a two month study. We want a little more, information on the cap the capacity. And if there is a way to say, you know, this is the low end, this is the mid middle, this is the high end both from a from an operational cost standpoint and a
capital cost standpoint. And then also what are those funding models that we could potentially tap if we are looking at, you know, the top of the line. That I think may help us get a sense of, you know, some guide popes on this. And then also I agree and as other council members have with Council Palmer's suggestion that we have some kind of community engagement on this. It has been ten years since we've done any visioning on,
the historic chateau. I think now is a good time to do that. So I leave it to my colleagues. We have one agenda item, which is an an extension. If my colleagues wanna make a motion on that or or any other, items that's up to the body, administrator zones. Council president, council members, mayor Norton, I do think it's really important that if you lengthen this process, you should expect that a year of operator extension is probably not enough. So perhaps the staff could come back with ideas for how you could provide your
input within that time frame. And if that's not enough information when we bring it back to you in May, and you want more robust engagement, then you might make that decision then. But every month you wait, it's probably another year that you are operating with the current condition. Because we have to get it into a budget cycle. We have to get in front of DMC. We have to understand what the cycle is for if you're gonna make the improvements. You have to make the improvements, if if any, and then you you end up moving forward. So if I'm not hearing that everyone wants robust engagement.
Council member Palmer talked about having a council member. I think work with the consultant. I'm suggesting that you have opportunities now. Perhaps we have the consultant reach out to each of you. You provide some of your feedback. You have people that you think they should reach out to. You could provide that. And that you share also if this is a major priority, rising to the level of a strategic priority that you share that during your one on ones with the consultant that's doing the strategic priorities at at that strategic level of why like, what you would want to see happen with the Chateau.
You can do that and, I mean, if you want to lengthen the process, that's fine. I just want you to understand the implications of that. Miss Steinhauser, did you just I think you to have. Sure. I just I I think what administrator Zelens has said is absolutely on point. I would also, say that what we can do is go back and look at what's covered under the current contract. And, if there's something missing, we can ask for what would that additional analysis cost and what would the time impact be to the project. I I do really appreciate wanting to engage the community, but as council I I too have a background in the arts.
And as council member Doring said, it it while it's important to get the public engagement, what's more important is to understand from potential users, people who are going to book the facility for their use. Does the use meet their needs? Does it meet their needs? Does that translate into an operational opportunity for the facility that translates into a good business plan? So, well, I don't want to say we don't wanna do community engagement. We wanna do targeted community engagement around those potential groups who are likely to be the book of business that we would go after because that is what is going
to tell the better story of what should be the vision of this facility and how it gets used. Thank you, miss Steinhauser. Councilmember, Keane. Yeah. I I think it's time I get a on a motion on the floor. I'd like to authorize the Chateau Theater operating agreement renewal addendum effective 05/19/2025 to 05/18/2026. Okay. Motion by council member Keane and seconded by council member Miller. Council member Keane, go ahead. I guess a couple of points. I I do get a little distressed listening to this discussion because we we come into 2025 with a lot of execution responsibilities.
And if every time we get something comes in front of us for action A and we decide to make it another priority, we're going to have trouble staying with our top things. Chateau has always been a difficult property for the city to own. As council member Fredericks points out, we are competing with ourselves in many areas. We mentioned the civic, auditorium, but there's a civic theater too. I've always thought that the chateau is much more of a unique location in in square footage on the heart of the city, and there's things we're trying to leverage that way. And I think that's a better direction here.
If you did end up taking this idea of, like, the lowest you know, the the cheapest middle and then the more the high end, it's it's a decent way to go. But I think that low end should consider, we should have a process to in the past, we've looked at turning over public property to the private sector. We did it it with the armory back in 2016. It's a big difficult process. But in that case, we did find an outside group that wanted to kind of activate that space. We'll all, like, grade it differently whether it worked well or not.
But I think that is something that should be, on the horizon is that is it is it something that the public has to has to own? I remember the time that with the city did buy this and it was the distressed time of that that it was, you know, what's gonna happen to the chateau on the hard on the Peace Plaza, and it was the early DMC days. And I I would still question to say, was it an emotional decision or was it a good, like, practical, the city needs this because and I think it's something we have to we may have to wrestle with in 2025. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Walt?
Ultimately, I will support the motion and I'm thankful to Administrator Zones and Mr. Johnson for some back and forth we had over the past couple of days. It didn't satisfy all the questions that I have, especially a condensed time to try and put together a vision. It seems like we're putting a lot in the basket of one person, a consultant, who comes to us, not perhaps appreciating what the Chateau Theatre has meant to some in the City Of Rochester, not me, I don't have a big history with it,
but some people do. I am just hopeful that we're not sitting here in one year with at about the same place that we are now as we have the past nine years, I guess. So, I would love to move this forward. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Palmer. Well, originally, the City Council years and years and years ago voted not to buy the Chateau and then it became a bookstore and it was owned by a private firm for a long period of time. I don't think this is long enough. And so I'm going to amend the motion to make the end date December of
twenty twenty six. Is there a second? I'll second it for discussion. The rationale for that is I think we're trying to push this too much and I think that we need to move it ahead. I don't see six more months will be very helpful to come up with an idea. It gives a little bit of it gives a lot of time for the current person, our partnership that's there to keep planning ahead instead of saying, oh, jeez, I'm going to drop dead on this date. It also gives us that time to influence other or get other influence. Part of the problem I have is I'm not I'm not a theater person,
and and so asking me about theaters is goofy, and so I don't really wanna to do that. But there's a lot of people out there, and I think we forget a really good story and that is a civic theater, which was should have gone bankrupt and in a dent and they fought back and I believe that they're now at 300 nights a year. So I think there's lots of opportunities. I don't want to be frustrated, but I think that we need to give it enough time to make the right decision. So that's why I make the motion to extend it to December of twenty twenty six. Council member, did you extend it to 12/18/2026 or did you give a date?
I did not give a date. It just is December 2026. As a seconder, I'm gonna suggest December 31. I will accept that, amendment to that motion. Okay. Discussion on the amendment. Council member, Keane. Yeah. We we got the staff that's been working on this. Is there any reaction or reflection on this? Thanks, council members. We would like to confer with our operator, sort of give you both of that recommendation, but we see no problem from our side of it. All right. Any other discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, all in favor of the amendment say, aye.
Aye. Aye. All all opposed say, nay. It seems to have passed four at least. Sounds like seven zero. Oh, okay. I didn't hear much. Was it seven zero? Do we wanna roll call or It was seven years. Okay. Alright. Onto the main men the main motion, we have a motion amended, on the, extension of the Chateau Theater agreement to December 30 from, 05/19/2025 to 12/31/2026.
Any further discussion on this? Mayor Norton. Thank you. If the person that we're extending should choose not to or should choose to end at a time earlier, do you is the contract written as such that there's a way for the two of you to agree to discontinue? Council president, mayor, council members, I I can try to answer that. It's a it's a good question. Usually, we don't do business this way, but this is maybe a, in some respects, a minor enough of a shift where we can do it with some level of
confidence. But it is important to recognize that what you're approving, tonight, if you go forward and and approve this motion has not been specifically agreed to, by the other party and we will sort through that in the next few days. If for some reason there is a need to come back to you because there's not been a meeting of the minds, we would we would do that. Otherwise, we would also at the same time evaluate the terms to see if it gives the parties enough flexibility that we have an agreement. Thank you, mister Spindler Craig.
So with the motions on the table and back to the main motion, and I I really have to echo, a lot of what, my colleague, council member Wall said. I think we're looking for some kind of community engagement. We're looking for some kind of vision. We're looking for options. I think it's a little bigger than maybe you thought coming in here. We're now extending the time, and so, I think, we'll, and and to, administrator Zalms Point, those of us that have passion about,
how the historic Chateau Theatre moves forward, please talk to our, our strategic planning partners on that, and, we'll move forward. So, if there is no other discussion, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll take a, six minute break. Recording stopped. Recording in progress. So we are continuing on our reports and recommendations. We are at h two, which is the regional sports and, recreation complex real estate acquisition and phase one planning.
It looks like we have a team, to present on this. So, Ben, are you leading us off here? So I will give I will give it a start and, yes, many teammates to help as we go, especially, if there's questions following the presentation. But, thank you, council president and council and mayor. Walk through just a few slides here to discuss the, maybe, the three, requests for council action. If you just wanna oh, there we go. Perfect. So first one would be, to discuss the purchase of the property for the Rochester Sports and Recreation Complex. Second requested action would be to,
direct the city and design team to continue with, the first phase of the complex focusing on the outdoor amenities. And then third, to, have us continue exploring future funding options and partnerships so that we can realize the full vision of the complex. So we'll just, grounded a little bit of history here of the project. So the first time that this current extension of the local sales tax was, brought before the council was in January 2022. That was the full local sales tax renewal,
which the, regional sports and recreation complex was, one of those projects. It was approved by the council members and, forwarded on to the state level. At that time, in the spring of twenty twenty two, action was not taken. The bill was not approved at the state level. So that left, the local sales tax as unrenewed at that point. It came back before the council in January 2023. Again, reaffirmed, same list of projects, same dollar amounts, all those things just carried over from '22 into '23, went up to the state legislature again at that point.
Then at the local level, we also, during that year, conducted a community engagement and, gaps analysis and other things here locally that was going on at the same time that the information was up at the state legislature and those things were being heard. Ultimately, in May 2023, it was approved at the state level, came back to the local voters in November of that year, and approved, the local sales tax renewal at that time. Very shortly thereafter, and that'll be our first action we'll consider this evening is,
the exploration into the site. So we had a team of city staff members and others who began looking at sites. We began with a list of 15 plus different locations around Rochester that fit at least the minimum criteria of having about 80 acres or larger that could handle the complex that it was imagined in in, the summer of twenty three. We took that list of 15, have, brought it down to a final list of three, and at that point engaged with civil engineering to really make sure that the,
complex would fit on that site, investigate other things like infrastructure cost, fees, begin negotiating on, purchase with the agent that we, brought in at that time as well, so that we could, again, have those final three that we could evaluate, more, completely. Couple other items that are on that timeline there as well is the operations, team. We brought in a operator who could help us through all of this planning phase. They started in March of twenty twenty four, going through confirming and working on the market study and developing an actual pro form
a, so we know how the facility could operate each year. Late twenty twenty four, we brought in a design team to help us as we, work through the initial design concepts and also a construction manager at risk, which was kind of the final piece to assemble the team there so that we could get cost estimates and really have all the data we needed to continue to progress with the project. So the first action, slide on that or the the site selection. And of those three sites that were brought back, again, did an in-depth analysis of each.
And, the one that we are bringing forward this evening to recommend would be the, Seneca site, Mid Seneca, it's called. And this would be, you know, Southeast Part Of Rochester. And the reasons why we feel like this is why we believe it's our our our recommended site. And there's a lot of things that we really like about this site. It gives us the space that we need, not only to, see the full vision of the facility built, but also gives us some other space that we could bring in some complimentary things onto that site. It's easily accessible along,
very near highways, Highway 63, Highway 50 2, also not far from Interstate 90. So getting to the site, would be easy to do. It when you add up all of the infrastructure and, costs that go into it, including the purchase, it is the most affordable of the three sites that we were looking at. And, again, incorporates a variety of ways to get to this site. It's along where the future Willow Creek Trail will run along the south end of town and be able to connect right into this location. So you can get there not only by vehicle,
personal vehicle, public transportation, as well as, bicycles or other things to get into the site. The other thing that we like about this site is that it's a mix of existing amenities around, be that restaurants, hotels, retail, but also opportunity for expansion in that area. So we see it being a a great mix of that as well. Moving on to the second item and a couple more slides here on the design direction that we're, heading toward at this point. So as we brought in the design team and the construction manager at risk, really started to get the estimates.
And knowing that our budget had been approved at the state legislature and by the local voters for $65,000,000 We were faced with the very apparent reality of what can we actually build with $65,000,000 when we consider that also needs to include the purchase, infrastructure upgrades, a lot of things that a person attending the facility won't see. They're just things that were part of that cost as well. And we really saw three options. First option being try to do a mix of an indoor and outdoor type facility
and quickly ran into roadblocks with that option. As we developed, we had our operator team as well as our city teammates, working to develop a operating budget, what that would look like year over year and it would require, we believe a significant subsidy to run a facility like that. We also felt there were challenges of being able to have that regional impact. It'd be hard to host tournaments, perhaps say it's four outdoor fields and four courts, wouldn't really be that attraction to have a regional impact. And and, you know, just would struggle in both of those ways and not be what ultimately the community
was looking for in this facility. So with that being ruled out, we then left with two options. Those options being first, not first, but those two options being one, an indoor focus facilities that would be, basketball courts, the other amenities that had been identified during, the community engagement process as well as our gaps analysis and market study. And we'll talk about that in a minute. Then the third option being the outdoor focus where it would be the outdoor fields, pickleball courts,
other things that would be built out that were part of, again, that community engagement and gaps analysis that was done in 2023. So this is a list of those amenities, again, both on the indoor and outdoor side. As you'll see as we walk through it, you you've likely read through your packets already, but know that we're, you know, bringing forward that recommendation of starting on the outdoor side. Those amenities would be eight, diamond sports fields, so baseball, softball, two artificial turf soccer fields, 12 pickleball courts. And then a lot of things that we built around that that would make for
a great, tournament site also make for those varied amenities that our community could enjoy, trails, outdoor basketball courts, playground, accessible playground, other support facilities, restrooms, all those types of things, parking, easy ways in and out of the facility. And that would be on the outdoor side. On phase two, the indoor side would be those eight basketball courts, some indoor turf training space, other things that were identified by the community, the walking track, multipurpose community rooms, sports perform Sports medical partner,
other things that had, bubbled up as interest and and, gaps that we currently have that that would be fulfilled that way. And then, again, when the entire complex was built, we need more parking and and more ways to get there, so that would all be added in during the second phase. A couple slides here of some images of the different type of amenities. See, artificial turf diamond, fields, the pickleball courts, large playground. Again, these are just images of other, projects that have happened around the air around the region, across the country in the last few years.
Again, large playground, outdoor basketball, dog park, trails, again, things that, we could see in this outdoor facility. So getting back to those two options. What our team has put together, what we've identified along with our operator and others of what we feel the opportunities and challenges would be. We're starting with the indoor focused program. Again, it would have that community appeal be available year round. We think getting to eight courts is a differentiator that creates that regional impact that we're looking for. It also potentially if we want this directions that outdoor development could happen in smaller
chunks, phasing would be a little bit easier than at some point just building the entire building. On the challenges side, it would construction would take a bit longer. So it would extend that opening day timeline. Some of there's more variables when it comes to the indoor facility. We don't have a medical partner that we've come to terms with, for example, or a sports performance partner, or exactly what do some of those other support amenities around the eight courts of the the anchor of that building look like. So we would need to, get that sorted out,
get the partnership discussions accelerated as quickly as possible. So we'd really know what needed to be and what wanted to be on the indoor side of that. When we developed the pro form a with starting with the indoor only facility, it quickly became apparent that it's it would be difficult to operate at a breakeven level. It would require some subsidy in order to run that facility. Less economic impact as we evaluated again what other facilities are around the region around the state of Minnesota. There are more indoor like basketball,
volleyball, wrestling type facilities that are running large events right now. So we would it would be perhaps we feel more difficult attracting some of those tournaments to come in Rochester, starting up new ones. It would be a longer on ramp to have the economic impact, that we would desire to have in this facility. And the cost estimating that we received from our construction manager at risk, This was about 85, 80 eight thousand square foot building. So eight basketball courts takes up the vast majority of that square footage,
having enough support facilities around there, and trying to make sure we could have the community rooms, indoor play, other things that were important that we feel are still important to this project. It could be very tight in the in the building in order to try to deliver as much of that as possible. On the outdoor side, again, that number eight, that quantity of eight is, we feel is that differentiator. And 8 Diamond Sports Fields would be a differentiator for us. In fact, we would be the only facility in Minnesota or any of the adjoining states that
would have a full size eight full size baseball fields that could be convertible down to smaller size baseball or softball. Other facilities around the area of artificial turf, they're a mix of the small and large sized fields. We would have the ability to really customize that, size and experience for whatever tournament we were gonna host here in Rochester. It would have a lot of the other community assets that were identified during the gaps analysis and community engagement, the pickleball courts, rectangle artificial turf fields.
Currently, my microphone Get a little closer there. Perfect. Yep. Sorry about that. It gives us opportunity to extend that engagement period where we can go and work with those partners in order to figure out what that indoor facility would look like. We feel over the next few years, it'll be a less competitive construction environment. There's a lot of building construction planned as we all know during the next few years here. But on the outdoor side of the artificial turf and other things that would be going not quite of as much of that as planned in the City Of Rochester. So we feel that would be a positive for us.
And as we looked again at that pro form a and the operating, arrangements, this would be much more likely to breakeven, have a net positive revenue, not require as much subsidy. And we heard that during the open comment period this evening about making sure we're trying to be financially sustainable. And we feel starting on the outdoor side puts us in a better position for that. As well meets that regional significance that's important for the sales tax projects. The pro form a actually estimates more people coming to the facility for the outdoor facility versus the indoor,
even though the outdoor is a seven to eight month type facility just with the number of tournaments and number of teams we could have at the complex on a weekend, as well as all those community members, and visiting teams who would be here, you know, during the week, community use, all those types of things, we'd have more, impact on the outdoor side. Challenges, obviously, State of Minnesota during the winter, right, can be challenging. So this would be, likely seven to eight month, season, but would give us the opportunity to press that as far as we could with the artificial turf and lighted fields,
as long as the weather was reasonable, players would get out there and play. Outdoor focus, potentially, again, when we talk about those partnerships and fundraising, it may be more difficult. We believe to sell some of those fundraising things versus selling, those things for an indoor facility. A couple other items just to talk about here quickly on the program. So we definitely recognize that the community needs, the gaps analysis, and community engagement really wanted both the indoor and outdoor components of this facility.
So as we've worked with our estimators and construction manager, to develop what this program could look like, we're continuing to explore ideas, what can we do to offer some indoor recreation amenities that can be available during the wintertime. You can see a couple images on the screen here of, bubble type facilities. There's also fixture of fabric facilities. Think the tennis courts at the rack. There's other ways potentially that we could find, a way to offer some sort of indoor recreation, whether that be cover some pickleball courts,
perhaps a basketball court, a small patch of turf, things like that to, again, be able to offer that amenity. So we do, we have and we'll continue to discuss with our design team and construction team about how we could make that a reality. Also, looking at the other facilities that we do already have in Rochester, how can we continue to maximize the usage and programming at those facilities? And, that's something we, you know, continue to to explore and work towards try to be better stewards of all the
facilities that we do have in Rochester. And then the third action, just a a one slide here on this action would be, what can we do to be able to realize the full vision of this facility? So these are a few items that we've identified as things to continue to explore on ways to expand our budget. As I mentioned before, we have had some initial conversations with private organizations or private non profits about coming in and partnering in this facility. I think when we look again back at the
property that we're looking to purchase, it is a property for 160 acres, has some additional space than what we need for this facility. Are there ways to utilize some of that acreage that can come back and help fund, some of this investment into a phase two. So again, items that we've, began exploring, had some initial conversations on, and, if this were all to move forward would, you know, fast try to move on this and develop more, concrete ways that we can get to funding both the indoor and outdoor side of this complex.
So again, the three, requests for council action to consider would be purchasing the site, continue moving the design in the direction of the phase one outdoor focus, and, then directing the city team to continue on exploring ways that we can expand on the budget and and realize as much of the full vision of this facility as possible. Those are the end of my slides. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Council member, Fredericks. Yeah. Early on, you mentioned complimentary pieces to the sports facility. What do you envision as complimentary pieces?
So we've it's hard to limit that answer, actually. I think, you know, you look at the, items like it more in the entertainment realm, whether that be restaurants, whether that be, the hotels for lodging where people would stay, those could be complimentary. We've had some other, groups in town reach out about could we develop, could we partner on something to offer more indoor play, for example, would be one. We've had a couple of the offshoots of, like, your entertainment golf type of facility that there are around the country as well. Could something like that be,
adjacent to this facility and complimented in that way? Those would be a few of the initial conversations we've had. Good good thoughts. One other question. It it isn't really a question. It's just for clarification. Mister Spindler Krage, since the voters have approved this project and we are already collecting sales tax money, does the city council have any other option but to proceed with the project? And that's in light of all the emails and different things have been flying around in Hublot we've been hearing. This is set in motion. We we're already collecting the money for it. Our option is to proceed with a sports complex. Is that correct?
Council member Fredericks, mayor, council members, I I think the short answer is, yes, you are obligated to proceed in that direction. Great. Thank you. Council member Palmer. Thank you. Well, first of all, Mr. Bolt, thank you very much for all your guidance and professionalism. I know you work really, really hard on that. You know we worked hard together on the presentations to the sales tax extension, which was a hard thing to do, and you really led some good leadership on that. So thank you for doing that. I know it wasn't easy.
We've got the Chamber here today and the Chamber helped us with the sales tax extension and there was four items on the sales tax extension that made it work. There are some groups who did not want to participate in helping us with that sales tax dollars and that's unfortunate. But you went through the time line here and we started this in 2022, is that right? Correct. And one of the things that I learned from you was that the artificial turf is important for the spring and the fall and during like July rainstorms. Can you explain that to me a little bit?
Yes. Thank you for the question. Yes, the artificial turf, again, one of those differentiators we feel is believe is very important for this facility. It creates it to be a bit more weatherproof. When a storm rolls through the area, we break during that storm. Once the front is through, we've had our thirty minutes since the last lightning. We're ready to get going again. So, yes, this facility would be one that has artificial turf lights, so we can play, into the evening, you know, after the sunsets and and make it a facility that is more reliable when you
can come into facilities of natural grass and and, and, excuse me, in fields and those types of things. If you get washed out, it could take several hours to recover that and get back to playing conditions where on that artificial turf surface, we're able to get going again pretty quickly. And and I I'm gonna assume that that you wanted to build both the indoor and the outdoor facility. In saying that, I'm assuming that you've made that decision or your recommendation is let's do the fields first and do a really good job of that and then work our way to do do a really good job of the indoor.
Is that kind of what you're thinking? Yes. Thank you for the question. I think as we've looked at this and I acknowledge the, you know, history we had sharing sales tax presentations and those types of things, creating that information out there. It is really the city team's desire to see this full vision realized. And we feel that getting a great phase one out there that's successful and that, is great for our community, creates that regional impact, works financially, that will make it more realistic to see the full vision realized and get to
phase two and again that full vision. And and and this is really an economic driver. The the park board hasn't been involved with this, have they? We have informally shared information with the park board over time. Yes. We we felt like this, was living at the city council level, I guess, would be my answer to that. Mayor Norton? Allison, did you I mean, I mean, administrator Zelms, did you have something? Thank you. Council Yeah. President, I just wanna add something to the question about wanting this to be a fully
successful indoor experience in phase two. What maybe was missed in the presentation if you weren't looking at the first slide that said many more amenities in phase two of an indoor, The in putting indoor first based on the total cost, you do not get the full vision that the community put forward. And so that's one of our concerns is if you were to put that first, you would get about half of what the full community vision is because of the significant cost of purchase and all of the on-site and off-site, preparation that is necessary.
So I just wanna point that out. If you looked at the slide that had the indoor second, there's a lot more amenities in that, and it's expensive. And if you did the indoor first, you have maybe roughly $40,000 to build that. And what it wants to be is more like 60 to 65 excuse me, $40,000,000. And what it wants to be is more like a 60 to $65,000,000 indoor experience if you're going to actually achieve the vision that the community put forward. Okay. I have, council member Dohring and then mayor Norton. President Schoebring,
I have a procedural question before anything else. Is it your intention to take this as a three part motion, or are we are we gonna vote on one separate than two than three, or we're gonna vote on the whole thing at one time? Council member, Doering, it really depends on what the council wants to do. And, when we are now in the question and answer period. So, council members are asking questions, getting clarity on the issues. When we get to that motion, it's up to the council to make that decision.
I was simply trying to figure out how to frame my questions. So you can come back to me and if if Are you are are you there for your questions then too? No. I'll be I'll be back. Okay. Mayor Norton. So I have a number of things to say, and I'm wanting I'm wanting to do this procedurally correctly. So do you just want q and a, or can we talk about things and ask questions at the same time? I will be very flex flexible as your presiding officer here. Thank you. So there's a couple of things. One, I wanna clarify a point that was made earlier,
and I've heard it now said twice. And I'm clarifying it because I got a call from one of our legislators who who asked me to clarify if it was said, and it was. There is zero tax requirement for regional fulfillment. Zero. She went and talked to the tax people, and so we have to quit saying that. There are sometimes with bonding. There are sometimes with other programs. For taxes. There are not. So she asked me she I wasn't gonna say anything, but since that comment was met, I want I told her I would repeat it. So, there's that. So one of the issues that,
I do wanna talk a little bit about is this indoor outdoor, the indoor versus outdoor. One of the concerns I have, and I wanna know if you've thought about this, the community wanted both. They wanted everything. They wanted things you haven't even talked about, like curling and soccer. Right? I mean, they wanted everything. So, so we know that. My concern with the outdoors is that it's primarily competitive. The indoor, if we just do outdoor based on some of what I've heard from our legislators, I'm concerned, and I guess I'm wondering if you have thought through whether there will be any
interest in the legislature with funding one more cent for this if we only do outdoor first. Because I'm hearing a concern about that by some of them, and so I'm wanting to know if you thought that through. Who wants to take that one? Yeah. Administrator's arms. Council president, mayor, council members. I take the hard ones. Mhmm. I I just wanna point out that your resolution I I feel like it's important to point out that our resolution did talk about regional impact sales tax in committee did ask about regional impact, and the committee hearings that I testified at,
there were there were legislators that were asking about regional impact, and that gets asked of every sales tax that goes before the legislature. Whether it's in law or not, they ask it. And so I just think it's really important to share that, and we have thought about it. There's a number of different things on the list. That's why we're saying don't just say we're doing phase one. If you want to get to phase two more quickly than well, Ben and I are alive, we then we need to know that there's impetus from the city council,
the body, to continue to pursue that. And if there's concerns about anything on that list, then we should take them off the list. But currently, the legislature is in a moratorium on bringing forward new sales taxes. They aren't in session, so I'm not sure that they're going to be able to be successful at bonding in the near term. But we need to be able to share what the vision is and and share that the community wanted something more. I'm just saying, if you have if you move forward with the indoor though, you're not getting what the community vision was. The ability for that dollar to go that far and what we actually approved in
2022 when this started focused on an an outdoor complex with supportive indoor features, and the community dreamed larger than that. So if our legislators are concerned about that, We also can't use sales tax or many other taxes for operations. And so we heard from the community and from others that we didn't wanna have a significant cost to be able to subsidize the vision going forward. If the council feels differently about that, that would be helpful to know. If you're okay with a $500,000 to million dollar a year tax levy commitment going to a future indoor facility or
if you want to move forward with indoor now at about half of what the community was asking for knowing that that's a ballpark of what your operating cost would be, we would need to hear that. And that's a council decision, not a legislator decision. They they may not be supportive, but you need the entire legislature to be supportive in order to move something forward like bonding or sales tax, unless they change the sales tax process in the committees that they've been having over the summer and allow cities to do that locally. Point of order.
Council member Wahl, was not the sales tax bill passed by the legislators focused primarily on an outdoor, facility for the 65,000,000? No. Administrator Zelms, are you gonna take that one? Council president, council member Wahl, what you put forward to the legislature and where it actually got hearings was actually in the 2023 session. In 2024, the house did not have hear any sales tax bills, so we were only in hearings with the senate, and it was pretty much the same thing that we had put forward in 2022
that got conference, but then they didn't find agreement. So the bill that we had brought forward, which we provided you again today, talked primarily, and the dollar amount that we were looking at was primarily about outdoor. We thought maybe we could get something that would be indoor based on the very conceptual report that came in 2023, which is about a five percent design report, no construction manager at risk, no site selected, no clarity on what off-site and on-site improvements were of low number on purchase price. And what the legislature talked about in the committee hearings that existed,
which were primarily in 2023 and only senate in 2024, was what the council advanced and had been continuing to move forward. And for clarity, because I I I want a little bit more order as the I have the floor. So, mayor Norton, I I and I've asked this at other meetings when we have discussions that are very robust, which I really appreciate. I think it's really important that we speak to the chair to not across the dais.
Thank you. Mayor Norton. I don't know who to look at now. I was looking at everybody before. So, so I'm gonna raise some issues then. And and and I will just say, when we went to the legislature the first time and the second time, it was with a dollar amount and a vision. It was not specifics. Those were not detailed until after it got approved. So the legislature has listened to the community and put our legislators and several of them, and chair Schoebring, you were there, expect this to be focused, at least one of them, very strongly on what the community said when we finally got to that process in
2024 after the bill passed. So, I'm just saying, if we if we if our own legislators do not think we have done due diligence, they may choose not to support it the next time we go forward. So I was I'm just saying, we just need to be aware of that. So I'm gonna reiterate just a couple of things I'll do really quick. Location, in my opinion and opinion of many people that have spoken forward, this isn't the right location. It's too far out and awkward to get to. I have, you know, I had a favorite site of the some of the ones that were selected. I am just going to say it's not the staff's fault.
It's no one's fault here, but I am deeply disappointed that people that own funds or own land are more concerned, and I know it's capitalism, but about their own profit than they are about leaving a legacy of profit for the community. And I just feel like some of the land prices, didn't weigh that option about how important for the community that legacy would have been. So I'm just really disappointed that those central locations were not selected because I think it would have been the best had the best impact on our community.
One of the reasons I say that is about the availability and accessibility, which we heard at the beginning and I agree with, that folks are looking for us to replace the YMCA, The y or the family y, it used to be called, and then the YMCA. They want those facilities that people can walk into, which is my concern, indoor, outdoor, for basketball and exercise. And I think many of them thought, rightly or wrongly, that that was part of the vision. And when it is far away, not accessible to people, it makes that much more difficult,
for them. As well as this concept that was raised earlier about accessibility for people with disabilities, which, you know, I I respect, that and and at risk youth, which, you know, that was a a very wonderful comment and and thoughtful comment that was made about that. We do tend to be focusing more on competition. And I understand that's a model that will be sustainable, but I don't think it's what the community had in mind was a competitive it's it was part of our discussion. Yes. I will agree with that. I do not think that was really what was in the mind of a lot
of the community members who wanted something they also could have used. And when you say phase two and phase one last fifteen years, of sales tax extension, then that concerns me that phase two is so far out. I mean, our kids in kindergarten will be in college, so I I do worry a little bit about that. So, I'm hoping that this council will seriously consider the indoor outdoor option with a bubble if you can't afford a full process. I think that option, not ideal, but I think it will give the community access to that space that they want
despite its distance, which, again, I prefer to be in town. But if we can't have it in town, then there's that. So we talked about phasing. Again, the phasing ten, fifteen years of phasing to wait for phase two really concerns me. So I just I wanted to say that. I I also wanted to say, that doing something competitively for large groups is great. And I think I understand the rationale for that. But again, please make sure please make sure that we don't wait fifteen or twenty years for the indoor option and things that are for this the people who voted for this
and who live in this community now. Don't make them wait fifteen years for phase two. Find a middle ground if you can't. Thank you, mayor. I'm gonna pick up and I I will go to, council member Doreen in a in a minute, but pick up on the the community aspect. And I know, council member Palmer, mentioned the, the sales tax extension, the, successful campaign, that the chamber was a part of. I remember that campaign and it did talk about that over 40% of the sales tax dollar is paid for by visitors coming here.
So I do understand that visitor aspect of it, but we also know that over 50% of that sales tax dollar is paid for by residents of this community. So I'd like to hear how you see the balance of the regional sports, sports tourism, with the needs of the community and speak beyond the regional sports center, how holistically the rec facilities that we have here in Rochester,
how can we improve the access for residents here? And when I say, access, I mean, I know there's a big piece of it that, clubs provide. There's value in that. But how do we also then provide that open access as well? So I know it's a loaded question, but, I know you're the guy to answer it. I will do my best. Thank you for the question. I would say, first of all, it all comes down to how you program the facility. I mean, having a tournament quality facility is also a great thing for our community members if
we're programming in that time where it's low cost or free access to the site. So what can we do on, you know, the the weeknights, for example, or afternoons, during the week when we wouldn't be looking to run a tournament, but we would be able to have local teams playing games there, have drop in time at our other rec facilities, whether it be the National Volleyball Center or the Recreation Center. We have open play times, open volleyball up at the volleyball center on Friday and Sunday nights are packed. There's, every court is full of community members out there playing volleyball.
I envision that and we've worked talked with our operator as well as our internal team about how can we, again, program that facility. We can run local leagues there. It can be just your recreation level leagues, great organizations like Rochester Youth Baseball or Rochester Youth Softball Association. They're doing programming for, just those beginner kids, T ball, kindergarten age kids all the way up through the high school aged kids that are our community members or in surrounding communities that are participating in those. So to me, it's about how do we,
program it and schedule it and build that into the, weekly and and monthly schedule for the facility to be able to offer those, local options for for our community members. I think another component of that is the support facilities that we would build around the sports fields. So we would have the playgrounds, pickleball court, a lot of, lot of enthusiasm around expanding what we have in our system for pickleball courts, lot of community members are participating in that, their numbers are growing. So that's a great local amenity that would be available.
Again, the playground, the trails, just the kind of the the green space, the the passive recreation that comes with having a facility like this where, again, folks can come through on their bicycles or as a, you know, family or group of individuals and be able to enjoy the spaces like that just at a passive recreation level. Okay. I have one more question then I will turn to my colleagues. Can you talk about, how the, the site selection as well as starting with outdoor will enhance our ability to attract,
potential sponsor sponsors to then help with the the bricks and mortar. So it's been my experience in the research that we've, been looking through with our operators and facilities. We've gone to facility tours around the region as well to see how they're operating and what's successfully for them. And being a facility where we're bringing in both local community members, but also bringing in out of town visitors to that facility, you know, as an advertiser or someone looking for a partnership of that kind,
having as many eyeballs on something as you can is how you can be successful and have those partnerships. So, again, building that facility where we can run a lot of events, where we can have our community members coming through the site on the bike trails and other things like that. That's how we envision being successful with, working on those private funds and being able to expand that so we can expand what's, within the facility. When it comes to, this location, specifically, having that access where, access where, we're near a highway, major roadways, I think is helpful, again, when it comes to having those partnerships as well.
If if I can just perhaps respond to a previous comment. One thing we did, and mister Yetzer can correct me if I give the wrong information here, but we looked at what is that population with about a mile radius around each of these sites. And this site, the affordable, housing type of, infrastructures around the site is not too dissimilar from, one of the other sites that was in that within about a hundred houses difference within that one mile radius. So we feel like there is that local benefit of walk to bike to,
community members who could get to this facility and participate in activities there. Thank you. Council member Dorey. Yeah. I was trying to figure out how to list my questions. So I'm gonna list them I'm gonna start locally and then go to regional, if that's if that's okay. When is the trail connection going to be completed? So it is actually achievable to get there through multimodal transportation. I would ask mister Niggenberg to help me with that answer. Thanks for the question. Right now, we are in a feasibility stage of that trail design. We plan on taking that trail feasibility through towards the end of the year and
then start the design phase for construction in 2026, '20 '20 '7, so for completion. So timing wise, it'll work out fairly well with the overall construction of the project. Yep. Thank you so much. Then as we consider I my preference along with the mayor's would have been a more centralized location. I understand that that was not a possibility. So what kind of public transportation plan is happening currently so that the the facility is much more accessible than it is currently? I can take that one. Thanks, Council Member Doreen. Just currently,
the the site is currently served with thirty minute bus service on Route 206. So it is served regularly with transit service already. But certainly, as this develops, our transit plans can be updated to to take a look at is that the right amount of service or should that be increased. Can you talk a little bit about Route 206? Does that what are the hours of that that, particular, run or or pathway? Yeah. It looks like it currently runs in that area from 05:50 in the morning to through 06:20 at night, and it connects to the downtown transit center,
which then connects to the rest of the transit system. K. So what I hear you saying then currently is that if a if a a young person who did not have access to a personal vehicle was going to participate in a ballgame that ended at 07:15PM, they would not have access to public transportation to get home currently. Correct. Okay. But that's something that we can look at as we continue to plan and phase out the plan. Right? I'm a big component of adaptive sports for those young people and and older people
who are are, are are, have physical differences, have been a longtime supporter of the Rochester Raiders. So, the high school, sports team that plays adaptive softball, adaptive, floor hockey, and adaptive soccer. Has there been any thoughts to making these fields adaptive use fields? So creating dugouts, that are are large enough for wheelchairs to have a facility out there to where, folks can store additional fencing to make those, fields, shorter. I just talking at a fundraiser on Saturday with the softball coach.
They appreciate Miracle Field, but that is not accessible for for some of their athletes at this point. So, what plans have been put into place to draw those kinds of tournaments to Rochester? Thank you for the question. So we we have looked at those types of activities. In fact, we had a couple members of the Special Olympics organization. We're part of the twenty twenty three work that we did as we consider this. I think, you know, as we look at that universal design, how can we make it accessible, creating, make sure we have the easily accessible trails up to all the fields,
for example, so that, you're not trying to navigate, uneven ground. That sort of thing will be important. The portable fencing is certainly in our plans, for that use as well as, you know, going from the different age groups and different sizes there. So those are definitely on our mind, and we would be reaching out again if things move forward this evening as and we start getting into those more detailed design questions, relying on our partners that are in our community, as you mentioned, the Raiders, Special Olympics, our own adaptive recreation program accessible rec within the park and rec department.
You know, we have great staff there as well and great clientele and families that can help us with gathering that information to make it as, accessible and as universally available as we can. Mister Bolt, I really appreciate that answer. And this is where I'm getting lost and whether we're talking about just a site selection, if we're talking about design, we're talking about programming. So I'm gonna talk about programming for a second now. What's the intended who's the intended operator of this facility? Is it going to be operated by parks and rec, or is it going to be operated by an outside vendor? So to date,
the information that we've shared has been a third party operator. So that question has come up. How do we operate that? How do we kinda have some control within that? As we've looked at what other communities are doing where they have a private operator, they spell all that outright in the contract. You know, here's how many prime time hours we want available for this type of programming. Here's perhaps off peak time that we're also wanting to have for community programming, free programming, reduced programming. The way we develop the pro form a had some of that baked into it where the revenue we're able to generate on the weekend tournaments helps us make the
fields more available at a lower cost during the week or be able to mix in, some scholarship hours, things like that to lower the cost and make it more affordable. So that's where we're at today. We do not have a opening day contract for an operator. The contract we currently have is for a operator to help us through this planning phase. So it's about a, you know, eighteen months to twenty four month contract that we're working on right now. But, yeah, to be transparent, so far we have been, sharing and leaning towards that private operator to run the facility.
K. I have one more question, and then I'll I'll resend my time. And this is gonna be kind of the regional question. So in the presentation to diet and as in in our council pack, you talk about a little bit about, having the outdoor component be net positive, the indoor component not being net positive. Right? So what is that dollar amount that is net positive if we're projected to phase one outdoor before indoor? Great question and thank you for that question. So the pro form a that we've developed along with that operator,
has projected that by year two, we would be in the black, in the positive, and that includes being able to contribute towards capital reserve as well for improvements to the facility. So, and year two, it was it was close to breakeven. It was within a few thousand dollars. Year three, as we continue to expand the number of teams, for example, that could attend the tournament, things like that, get better utilization for the facility. The projections are for that to grow each of the first five years. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Council Member Palmer. Thank you. We've used sales tax dollars before RCTC, didn't we? Yes. Correct. And and we have an agreement that we operate that. Correct? We do. There's a a joint powers agreement where we have city representatives that, yeah, we meet regularly with the folks that run the facility from from the from our CTC from the state. Yep. So if if some people have difficulty getting into things, they could look at that for indoor stuff today, could they? Yes. The general And we Yeah. So maybe to expand on that question a bit,
so they've recently turned over their facility manager out there. We've been having meetings with, with that group. He he has looked at opportunities whether it be open volleyball, some of the drop in type programming that they hadn't been offering over the last few years to build that back in. There are other, community community accessible features like the walking track and other things that are out there. All those hours and that information's on the RCTC website. Isn't there six basketball courts there? There are six basketball courts. Four of those are more community availability.
The other two would be where the RCTC volleyball, basketball, their teams play. So some of the evening availability is more limited on and the performance court area, they call it. But in the field house area, those are all community courts. Yes. After 5PM, then they're available for community, reservation. Okay. And and maybe not a question for you, but maybe for the city administrator. But we've we've done CDBG money for gyms, helping out with that. And if I remember right, well, I do know that we did pilot programs with the school district on on gyms.
Am I am I getting that correct? Council president, council member Palmer, yes. You utilized some contingency from, the general fund in order to work with the, Rochester Public Schools to provide open gym on Saturdays and Sundays in the morning and in the afternoon, through the winter months of this last winter, which was sort of winter. And they utilized about half of the funds. And are you are you asking me to expound upon Yes. That? Yes. You did that. Okay. So I'm gonna go to adaptive rec. And my my boys were an adaptive rec and and we have it at the
old fire station and then we're rebuilding, Silver Lake Pool finally, and they're going to be involved with that and they're gonna use that. Is that correct? Yes. That's correct. So, yep. Accessible recreation right now is using the fire station at Silver Lake, the Silver Lake Station, as well as, some space at the rec center in 125 live for some of their programming. And, yes, the, families are very excited for the new Silver Lake Pool to open and be able to utilize that for summer day camp. And we're spending $7,000,000 at Silver Lake? 9 Million Dollars at Silver Lake, thank you, mister,
to upgrade that. Correct? Correct. Okay. One last thing and it's kind of an irritant of mine is that everybody complains about the YMCA. Well, the YMCA of the North took over the Y and they have closed at least six different of their facilities in the state. It wasn't being used and and it was not being successful, so that's why it closed. So so when people say, you know, boy, we wanna have another YMCA, we're trying to avoid that. Aren't we? I don't know if I can thank you for the question. I don't know if I can fully answer that question. I think one of the things that I've been charged to do with our team
is is to continue to develop the plan that could be financially responsible, and be sustainable so that, you know, we're following the the direction we've been given so far, from the council to try to do that effort. Well, since I've been on the council, we've done two projects that I can say that that we use partnership, and one of them was the track was rebuilt with the running club and then the second one was the tennis, club out to Kautsky. They probably funded half of those projects. Is that correct? That's correct. And there's a long history of of that in Rochester really when it comes to
many of the youth sports associations. They've brought capital to the table so that we could expand, put lights at outdoor field complexes or do other, expansion like that. So, yes, there has been history of that here. Thank thank you, mister Bolt. Council member Wahl. Well, mister Bolt, you know that I was one who wanted it all. It's it's disappointing. I do understand the outdoor, and you say that there is no place in the tri state area that has eight full sized baseball fields contiguous.
That's correct. I suspect that there are places that have eight basketball tournaments contiguous. That is Our our our basketball venue. And if I can just offer one sorry. One quick clarification, it would be eight artificial turf full size baseball. Okay. Yep. I think I agree with the approach, the outdoor first, since that is the greater differential in terms of the number of quality diamonds we can provide as opposed to the number of quartz, which can be replicated elsewhere.
My son runs the second largest girls basketball tournament in the state of Minnesota, just completed it this weekend, 182 teams on 18 courts. So even eight courts is not going to make the huge difference in terms of being able to run a huge tournament. Certainly, it will help. So while I would love the indoor and we'll work very hard with this council and with you to make that phase two happen with the mayor, I'm a little worried about that weathered sign at the outdoor complex that says coming
soon, which we have seen in other malls and it just, I don't know what soon means to you, but it's probably sooner than ten or fifteen years. I think that, I I can support what we're doing tonight even though it is a disappointment to me that that we can't move faster. I'm just shocked how little 65,000,000 can buck in our day. Thank you for your great work. Council member of, Fredericks. I've actually spoke once already. I can wait till the end.
Miller and Keane have probably wanna speak first before I jump in again. I haven't seen any indication from them yet, but You missed it twice. You missed it twice. Are you, council member Keane? Hey. Thank you. I'm sorry. Yep. Yeah. Again, I I've been listening to this and again, I I some of this, I think we get ourselves in trouble because remember, we have to get approved a project approved by the state and by the voters without doing any work to really say what it was going to be. We did and and then when we got when we did get it approved, I can remember some different
visions that were put forward to the community that had that I think most any member of the community could have saw what they wanted in those drafts. And I think that's what's causing some of our consternation tonight. And the the fact that, we've done this work right now to get to the point where we know the location costs, and we have, you know, the the there's others that might have been considered better but just could not fit into our proformas. When we start talking about that outdoor and the indoor, I started seeing numbers this week about like,
we we know we that your group has come to the point that if we continue on with indoor and try to get it to the point that we could bid it, we're gonna run out of money before we can get there. And I just wanna ground this discussion and the fact is, we can't go forward with everything without a different financial model. Thank you for the question. If I'm understanding it correctly, as administrator Zelm said earlier, to be able to build the full scale of what we what the community asked for on the indoor side, we we would not be able to do that with $65,000,000 that we have.
And I think that's an important, like, basis for this discussion. I mean, it's, you know, we'll it's February right now and we're in spending mode, but we'll get into September where we'll say, like, why are we have to raise taxes so much? And right now we have to right now we're in a in a in a process to get us to the point of staying within what we said we were going to do. And and I again, I wanna just establish that and make sure I'm not missing anything because what I don't wanna do is say ever onward and ended up with two plans and no money left. Because I think that that's what I thought where I was being told in the
last month or so is that if you continue on with these plans, you'll run out of money before you get something built. Yes. There's a lot of those soft costs that we have to spend before we can even get to building a facility that the community will be able to see and utilize. And to your point, fully 100% designing both the indoor and outdoor component would be more expensive than designing for, you know, the 65 you know, the $65,000,000 budget that we have, roughly $40,000,000 of which would be construction. Designing for that is different than designing for the full scope that would be,
you know, likely over a hundred million dollars. So, that's that that's, I think, answering hopefully answering your question about choosing a path forward now will be more economical, more efficient use of the funds. Another one of the base discussions we've been going back and forth, what I think for almost three years now, is that idea, are we building a sports complex with regional like gravity, or are we building a community center that has health and almost like modeled on a y? I mean,
I think we've had that discussion way back when, and I think we decided operationally that we were going to build something with regional attractiveness with the idea that that would be the operational model for an asset that they could then be used by the community. And that was the model we were on. We weren't we didn't fail to build a y. We didn't start out to build a y. Yes. Thank you for the question. Correct. We we the tension and and I think you touched on the the nuance there is building a facility that can have,
can be able to host those regional tournaments, but then have it available, program it, and schedule it in a way that it can be available for community use as well. I see there being, the ability to to attempt to do both. But, yes, being a community center, that was not a part of the plan as far as my, experience with the project. Okay. But we did have those debates and we have had that off and on. And it seems clear to me now eighteen months later that we didn't come to an agreement because there still are people calling me or writing me or or even
some of our state legislatures saying you didn't do what you said you were gonna do. And and I'm I I I don't know if that's a failure of us to communicate or if it's just the nature of the world we live in that when you float those ideas out there, everybody sees what they wanna see. And and I think we're dealing with some of that fallout here today. I think right now as I come here tonight, I do see the three part motion. One is, are we ready to purchase the property? And and that's a tough one because I think we'd all agree that we would rather it be something more,
you know, inner city and it didn't end up happening that way. The second thing is are are we ready to move on building the outdoor assets that we can put into the marketplace sooner than later? And then the third part is, should we continue on with the indoor thing with the idea of getting both better definition and some other funding sources? And and let let me spend a minute on this. This doesn't mean, like, what's the city gonna do to come up with this other money? This is really an an out call to these groups that say,
this isn't what we expected. And my take would be is like with the the foundation, and I I see things about medical. If somebody thinks they're going to get an indoor thing that doesn't pencil out for the city, but we're gonna buy it for them, I think they don't have a clear view of how this is gonna work. And I I saw it this past week with my mail that I'm I'm seeing people who had a totally different view of what they thought we were doing. And if if we can get something out of today as I hopefully when we go forward, that it's more clear to them that you don't wait to say when it's done
and then say it's not what I wanted. You if you need if you think that you want naming rights or you think you're going to do the gap analysis and fill it, you should be in the room doing that and not waiting until now because I think you guys have correctly said we're on a schedule to buy the property. And if we buy it, we don't wanna buy it and then not do anything on it. So, that's where I think I'm at. But I'm trying to I I'm sort of commending the staff to say, do not go out and overextend us. Don't don't build something that we don't know. How we're gonna operate into the future, and we're probably gonna have to hit the levy for,
you know, some some above and beyond park and recreational spending. I don't wanna see that happen. And it's my take right now that you've come to me with a recommendation that said, if we went a different way, we probably would have that happening. Yes. That that is correct. The all the information we have as of today with that annual operating budget looks more favorable to start with the outdoor. They have so we have developed, like, the full vision pro form a as well where we would have the outdoor assets and the indoor assets.
That pro form a also looks favorable. The the one that the two that we weren't able to get the math to work on was that one where we just did smaller scale kinda splitting the vision and, or just indoor only, the pro form a was gonna need subsidy for that. Okay. And and I do wanna make a comment on you said we're working with this operator. When I picture what phase one would be right now with these outdoor spaces and frankly, a fair amount of community space too with the idea of a, you know, a a regional trail going through there and,
a playground, a dog park, things like that. I think that fits in pretty well with what our park and rec schedule are operates right now. And I and I guess I would challenge the need that we need an outside operator that needs to be fed off the same place too. So it's something to consider on the out when we're in we're dealing with outdoor assets. Council president, council member, I don't know if that was a statement, a question, or a question statement. But I can maybe just share with you that as we have come forward with that direction, those are all things that we're thinking about, and everything is on the table.
We just wanna make sure that what's on the because outdoor is very different than operating an indoor facility, obviously. So we wanna make sure that we look at all of those options and understand if this is an expansion of what we do today, what does that look like? We have a lot of partners that are a part of that, but we also wanna make sure that we do have a new experience where, some of the ways that we have, funded things in the past, some people feel blocked out of that because some partner bought something, and it doesn't come with that thing that they bought if you utilize the field. So making sure,
you know, kind of like what you talked about, at your last study session, what do you want to be true in ten years to still be true, and what isn't there now that you want to be true in ten years. And so outdoor is a little bit different, but rest assured that just like everything else, we're we're looking at all of the options about what would be best for the community, recognizing that we are firmly, if approved, in a phased approach that is different than building everything. No. Thank you for that. And I guess I you also wanted to comment just on council member Dohring's quite
procedural question here that I feel the right action for this council would be to take a three part motion. And then if we wanted to try to, you know, amend any of those, we should do it as a group and not get into some road where we're off buying land but not doing something else. So that's what my hope would be and we'll see where it goes. Council member Miller. So, I wanna start, just acknowledging that I feel like a lot of what we're talking about is a limitation of transportation. And I I just wanna make sure I'm reading this clearly that the surface parking space for the fully developed site is about 13 acres.
Right? Of of the development. For the full For the full For the full vision, yeah. In in the in the presentation, it talks about some percentage of the 30 acre site and it looks to me that that calculates out to about 13 acres of surface parking. Yeah. It's about 1,400 spaces is what we're envisioning. So would it be fair to say that some of the other sites that would be more in town, right, in development are probably excluded, because of the extra need for for space for and that's just the trade off of transportation. Right? You know, we cannot expect necessarily that people are accessing the space in a multimodal way,
probably a large percentage by car without being able to park on-site. And that parking space just takes up, you know, in this plan 13 acres. So just acknowledging that because the other thing I was looking at is from where we are sitting now to the IBM site, it's about a 4.8 mile drive. From where we are sitting down to the proposed site, it's a 4.7 mile drive. It's just that our development has our population center is more Northwest than Southeast. Right? So, I just wanna acknowledge that I think a lot of the the difficulty of the
site is how we've grown as a city and the transportation plan that we have in the design and the access. Right? Because I hear that coming up a lot of how do I get to the site, how do youth get to the site, how do they use it, even beyond what's built their programming, like, it's just difficult to access that and it takes up 13 acres of our necessary land to to build the parking. Is that just probably more comment than question council president but I appreciate the the flexibility. So, it's just difficult, right? But I did want to ask, looking at the legislative language,
you know, I know we've talked about regional significance. One of the other pieces I read is it mentioned substantial community and stakeholder engagement and an equity equity focused co design team. Has there been significant community engagement beyond the operator and our staff team since the community working group last met in 2023? In 2024, so fall or summer of twenty four through fall of twenty four, our operator did and along with myself, I was involved on several of those meetings and phone calls,
but meeting with, sports groups, community groups, individuals, providing feedback. I've gotten a lot of feedback over, you know, the last two years as this project has proceeded, and I'm taking that information with me to the, to the meetings that we have about the, you know, project meetings. So, I would say, you know, in in 2023, we did quite a bit of community engagement as as you referred to, but we we have followed up, with several of those groups and and individuals in 2024 as we look to confirm, the market study and gaps analysis and and find how if there's things that needed
to be updated or tweaked. Okay. So, in the presentation, the engagement approach list at CWG participants in different groups and different individuals, would they say today that they've remained involved in that process, would you say? Like, would they see themselves in this proposed design or the the phase one action? I'm not sure if I can totally speak for someone else. I mean, they may they they would they would feel or, you know, they they would have their I would say that I've again, I've tried to be available. We did work through the fall of twenty four to to reach out to,
to several different groups and, speak to them. That's about the best I can answer that question. Administrator zones? Council president, council member Miller not designed this by committee. So so, I mean, to the to the extent that we haven't had people in the room going through the pro form a and and and hashing out, you know, what what square footage could something be like, we're not at that level of design, that that we could do that effectively. And I think one of my concerns to the point of your discussion on h one is that,
how and when you do some of those things can set expectations that are not necessarily realistic. And, I would hope that as we move forward, we would continue to do that. Once we have more site layout, there's a certain amount that you can do and that you can't do if you really want something to be functional. And so having it be within a realistic footprint that actually operate from an operating perspective, I think, would be important where maybe you can be tweaking some things or someone can say, you know, like, if we're talking about adaptive rec, you know, really, it needs to be that diamond because there's no way I'm going to make it
to that one that's over there, if the layout is as such that it needs to be recognizing some of the site features. So I don't know that someone would feel that way, but to some of the points earlier, I'm not sure that folks that stopped by at a community event and, said that they wanted to have x, y, and z in the facility would still be, you know, feel represented in in whether it was indoor or outdoor. I I appreciate that. Is there an option though or is it would it be a priority of phase one moving forward with toward a final design to do a process of equity focused
co design which I would guess would be considered by our local legislators to have been a promise or a direction we were moving even if regional significance varied of how that was approached because I read it in both presentations in our our framing of that $65,000,000 sports complex. Thank you for the question. I would say we've talked about that a bit internally similar to what the Soldier's Field process was as we worked through that aquatics and park updates there, incorporating something like that where we can get a small group together that represents,
varied, you know, portions of our population and community and be able to provide some of that input when it comes to, you know, things that we talked about universal design earlier, you know, some of those types of things where, hearing from others and their experiences and helping us craft that, I agree would be helpful. Thanks for bringing up the soldier field pool design. I I was actually part of that team and I feel like what was the, the great part of that process is that we did have a clear vision of what we were working towards. We had a budget that we were working within and we had access to consultants
and designers at each phase of the process not to have a wide ranging what are the infinite possibilities that this could be but talking with community and stakeholder engaged parties. I think of adaptive, the Paralympics and participation there needs, but how people in our community who are beyond regional tour and the sports tourism could have a place to be able to see the options presented, have meaningful input that that affects the design, and then hopefully come back to us and to other community members and say, we were engaged.
Here's how we had input and we did meaningfully do this this co design process so that it is economically viable, but also reflects the needs of our community. I I over in, comments tonight, questions I've gotten, other conversations, and I I found that process to be personally very, much a basis to to be able to give that assurance to the community. Any additional questions coming up? Is that that would be the plan then right to develop or should we or does this request for action not yet specify that should we should that be a modification if we wanted that?
Administrator Zellms? Council president, council member Miller, we have, as, mister Bolt mentioned, talked as a team. I I just would wanna kind of clarify that the soldiers field process was a modified co design, and so I think that's what we would be looking at. And one of the things that I think from a staff perspective was really successful about the soldiers field process was that we did, as you described, have the framework. And so we were working within a framework, not sort of an open ended, idea, but what within the framework of of what can work is able to be adjusted to meet certain different,
requirements in a way that meets the framework, whether that's economical operation, economical within the initial funding that is available, and, be so I I think that's doable. Our it would likely be our communication and engagement team, our own teammates that will be doing much of that and connecting in as we did before with the consultants. But I think that that's feasible. I think if there's the understanding that would need to be within a framework. And we have enough time to do that on the current trajectory?
Yes. I think we had about two months on the Soldiers Field Aquatic Center. I think you have time. We're not Okay. I mean, I don't even think it would start right away based on the level of design that we're at. Okay. And I guess my final question is just what are the economic risks, thinking about construction costs? You know, tariffs were proposed and then, front. How is that, you know, range in the pro form a? How how high a utilization level would we need to see in years two, three, four, etcetera, to have an economically positive outcome of this facility? It's a good question. It's been on our mind. Right? That's partly why we came with the recommendation we did is we feel that we're
able to mitigate the risk more likely on starting with the outdoor side versus the indoor side. We think there's more risk there when it comes financially. So, you know, we we have great local sports partners that can help us to with with programming some of those tournaments upfront. We have, during the market study time, last fall and into the winter of twenty four, worked with regional and state organizers of those types of events as well, and they've expressed interest in being at this facility if it were to come to
be, you know, with the DiamondSport, focus of the outdoor site. So there's yeah. There's risk. The future isn't I mean, there is unknowns. Right? But we with our construction managers excuse me. Our construction manager as well, they feel more comfortable proceeding within our budget of $65,000,000 on the outdoor site than some of the unknowns and risks of the indoor site too. So that's probably about as best as I could answer that question. Council member Fredericks. I think he heard from me enough tonight. We're good. Council member Keane? I think I'd like to put a motion on the table.
I'd like to do a three part motion to, number one, authorize finalization and negotiations with Seneca on the property purchase. Number two, direct the city and design teams to continue Phase one of the Rochester Sports And Rec Complex focusing on the outdoor oriented programming. And number three, direct the city team to continue to explore future funding options and partnerships to implement the indoor oriented features in the second phase of the project. Second. Motion made by, council member Keane and seconded by council member Palmer. Mister Kean,
you have the floor. Yeah. I I guess I just wanna add one other thing with the motion is I had some discussions over the last couple of days on this whole, you know, getting to what percent of a project do you need? Do you have that you can start talking to say, like, get to the point that you're having now have the next phase where you have the impact? Or what do you need to talk to a house handle? And those are dramatically different things, the level of details you need. And the amount of expense you take on to get from I hate to use these percents because I can't define them,
but from 10% conceptual, you know, drawings towards schematics that you can hand to it. I mean, that you're probably spending 40% of the project in those spaces. And these are the things I think we need to be careful with. I think we need to get a better definition of insert, like, with clear boundaries to say this is in and this is not in. But but I don't know how you get to the point if someone says, what would it take to add that in and and how do you get to that point? But I would like when I think of the three part motion, I think of the main focus right now is I think you guys have done
the due diligence on the property. Now the work will be preparing the property, but I think we wanna get spend most of our effort getting through part two of the motion to get the outdoor space built and make sure we get this up and operational as we work through whatever is the indoor definitions because I think those are going to take longer and I think those are going to be tied to where does the funding come from. Council member Palmer. Other thoughts, council members? Mayor Norton. Yeah. I'm just going to state one more time. I think the location is not ideal. I wish we were taking more time to do more negotiations to try to get
a place because this isn't a rush. We have twenty years of gating sales tax. We're not in a rush. So I wish we were taking it slower and getting something more central to the community. And I again, what what we're moving forward with, I understand the rationale that you're giving and lots of talking. It's still not what the community wants for the community to be able to do now. Waiting five or ten or fifteen years for a phase two, which is an indoor facility in the state of Minnesota, a
I will say, having said all that, again and I and if you can find a way to do the bubble, I think that's a happy medium. And I hope and I didn't hear it when when you read the one, two, and three. I don't hear it in three like I like I would like to hear it. But I'm just gonna say for the record, please try to find a way to make something in phase one so that the community can have that place that they asked for for the amenities they expect. And, you know, I guess I think this will be a lovely project.
I'm you know, I wanna be really clear about that. I think whatever you do will be lovely. I just I think we're we're going to get ourselves in trouble, both with the community and with our legislature, if we're not hearing what they're saying, which is this needs to be for the community first and that regional competitive second. So that's my final rant. Thank you, mayor Norton. From my standpoint, I I I will be supporting this motion, and I I guess I look at the site and thank you, council member Miller for sharing those mileage numbers because I look at Southeast and having
lived in the Slattery Park neighborhood for fifteen years, that's where I went, shops on Main. And, and from an edge development standpoint, I like this because it will give us balance to our edge development. We are going so far out in Northwest that we're gonna hit Byron, you know, any day now. And so to be able to see some development that moves in another direction and there is, as you mentioned, there is we have the airport down there.
We're closer to I 90. And so from a regional sports attraction, there may be, that, radius of, 600 that, you know, those of us in here in Minnesota may not like it, but Iowans and Wisconsinites that will attract to, a unique, outdoor facility. So, the the the site, I don't I don't see a problem with. Starting with outdoor, I'd also feel that from a strategic standpoint where we are really looking for those big investors,
those funders that come in, those angel investors, they need to know where the site is. They also want to see, you know, what you have there already. And so I think it does give us the flexibility to to seek out those those sponsorships, naming rights, investors. The piece that I wanna really make sure that our team does is put in the rigor and on that piece of it, really look and not just state dollars, but private sector, not just our regional health care providers,
but really look to finding those prospects and then hooking them in and and giving us the opportunity to really bring in more dollars to to build the kind of, of, bricks and mortar facility that we wanna see. So, second point. Third point, fully agree with mayor Norton. We really, from a rec standpoint, really have to, have get understanding into the community about access to to our community. For this site,
I I'm glad to hear that, bus routes and and, trail connections are going to be there, but also across, Rochester that access to those underserved groups. Some of, I during last year's campaign, spoke to our Somali representatives, several times. Top issue. We need things to have our young people, participate in to, healthy activities. So we need to see that throughout this community.
And so it's this site. It's all of our sites. So with that, I I will be supporting this motion. Council member Fredericks. Thank you. I agree with president Schoebring on that. I'm actually a huge advocate for the Southeast location as well. It's an area that could use a a shot in the arm. It's extremely easy to get to. Get off Highway 63. You're you're less than a mile to the entrance to the, facility. It's a great spot. And they have got the nice roundabout to the east of it, where you can come off 52, drop down, hit the roundabout,
and you're right there. Super simple. I'm I'm excited for it because I dwell in the Southeast. I like it down here. So, and it's I'm I'm I'm pro for the act for all the activity. It'll generate down there and it'll be a nice catalyst for that area. County has done a nice job on the park across the street. Really cool. I don't know if you guys have been out there sledding and stuff. If any if you haven't been out there, go check it out. It's pretty awesome. Or is that city? Sorry. City. City. Alright. Anyway hey. So there you go. I have been there, by the way. Anyhow, so good job city on that.
But here's here's what I know about development. When you try to wedge in a development of this size in the middle of a city, you're you're fighting a lot of things. You're gonna have constraints on you, whether it be for for a lot of things. But the first thing you're gonna hear from the neighbors is traffic. We don't like the traffic. We don't like the lighting at night. We don't like the noise. They're gonna have all kinds of things they don't like because they don't like change. Out there, your neighbors are they're sitting right behind you. They're ecstatic you're coming out there. You can't beat that. You're you're there's a battle you don't have to fight. And you know what?
We like exercise. It's only four and a half miles from the core of town is what Nick just said. That's a great bike ride. Piece of cake. So I I'm I'm excited about it. I I I commend you and all the work you guys have done to get get this put together. It's exciting to see it it seems like a lot of, like, negative lights come in the last few days. This is exciting for this community. So I just wanna kinda end on that. Good job. Thank you, council member. Council member Doran. Thank you so much for the hard work that you've put in to this project. I commend your team, for the work that you've put in.
I am also going to be supporting, this motion. That being said, I, am go I have expectations, and I'm going to continue to push for, safe biking, accessibility to the site. I agree that a four and a half mile bike ride is very, very doable as long as you can be safe doing it. Right now, that site is not safe to access safe to bike to. I also have the expectation that we will develop a more robust public transportation programming at the site.
I hear that, from community members. I see that in the data provided in our our report that there is a huge desire for more community programming. Report that there is a huge desire for more community programming, for youth in our community. And I think to not leverage this beautiful site in this beautiful complex to achieve that goal would be a mistake. Finally, I would also commend, the parks and rec department to be the operator of the facility. I agree with council member Keane on this point. I think if we are going to do a mixture of,
regional sports programming as well as community programming, it makes more sense to me that the community is in charge of that programming rather than an outside operator. So that all being said, I will be supporting this motion. Council member Miller? Yeah. Thanks for bringing up the, the the distance is doable. The infrastructure is lacking, because I think that that's those are the two pieces that we have to think about, when we think about community access. My daughter could bike five miles right now. Would I let her bike down Broadway or any of those access points?
Absolutely not. So I I I would just, anchor our discussion too in thinking about the broader implications beyond this the county just in Rocog completed a Willow Creek transportation study that includes this area. We're updating our comprehensive plan and the current comprehensive plan talks about a transit supportive quarter, but along Southeast or South Broadway, but only down to 20 Fifth Street Southeast as a potential secondary park and ride type node. I would think that that's a real opportunity for us to consider moving forward how that intersection and connectivity works, because looking forward,
I think it also is really exciting to see some investment in our Southeast part of town. A lot of people don't have access to the recreational amenities of Northwest, the Douglas Trail, other developments. So I think that this is potentially a really good use of our our opportunity to invest in parts of towns that have largely been underserved. However, like council member Doring, I will be really looking for some guidance that that's how this project is moving forward, incorporating community co design into once it gets to the phase where we have people
talking about the accessibility, difficulty with bus access, other things beyond just the sports and tournament community. I would really be looking for that. And so I've I've been on the fence. I think that I do plan to support this motion at where we stand today moving forward the site knowing that it's coming back to us. We have some other opportunities to, to consider the other systems, right, that intersect as a a community with a sports and recreation complex and where community assets exist because it's a rec complex on the site as proposed. Thank you, council member. Any other council members that wish to be heard on this item?
We have a motion on the floor. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes unanimously. Congratulations. Moving on to, item h three, which is, the former f 19, which is, Minnesota Public Facilities Authority grant acceptance, and this is an item that, was pulled by council member Miller. Council member Miller, go ahead. Yes. And I'd like to just thank our P. U. Staff. I recognize that you've been here for quite a while. I'm sorry to put you at the very end of the meeting. As I look at this item, I I'm very excited that we have a grant opportunity to cover the majority of
costs for replacing lead and galvanized service to community members who either have known services or to investigate and make sure that they are receiving safe water supply, especially with the priority that, a lot of these areas have the highest percentages of, children five and under in our community. The reason I pulled it is just so that we are talking about, reporting and tracking because we know that there's a potential estimate of up to about $500 per property that might not be covered fully by the grant, some carrying costs,
etcetera. And I would just ask that we receive reporting back of rates both of the the actual costs as you get underway with this project. And also, any number of properties as there may be opting out and if if people are citing cost as a reason for opting out of accepting the improvements and just thinking about how we can work together to make sure that everybody in our community regardless of income has access to this this replacement service. So, I I don't know if you have plans. I don't know that we need to modify the act the requested action,
but those are just some of my thoughts in in reviewing this. Stephanie, mister McCullough? Yeah. If I may, Tim McCullough, general manager for Rochester Public Utilities, council president, council members, mayor. I'm happy to report and be the bearer of good news. As recently as, 03:00 this afternoon, we received word from Minnesota PFA, that, the components that we believe weren't going to be covered are. And so we believe at this point, we will be able to minimize the cost hopefully to zero for all customers who
would be received receive benefit of the of the funding from the drinking water revolving fund. So, but to the question, we will be tracking very closely the metrics on participation. Even though, this should have minimal to no cost to customers, participation is still going to be voluntary, and there may be other reasons that customers either not for many reasons, may not be able to, and we'd be happy to report that. We're intending to add that to the action plan updates, which are a routine communication and add the lead service line and galvanized service line
replacement program to those routine communications, and we'll look forward to future updates. It is our recommendation not to modify the resolution at this point. If there is any minor cost, we would still be looking for alternate sources so that we can keep this program affordable or free to those customers that would receive benefit of it. And, just like to highlight again, we focus the program as it is intended to be towards the highest need economically first and also where the presence of children are in the home. And so those are the areas that,
would likely have the least ability to afford a a fee. So we're very pleased to bring that forward, and I apologize that, that wasn't included in the RCA in the first place, but this is brand new information that we've heard in our ongoing communications. I'd like to give a shout out also to our director of water, Todd Blomstrom, to my right here. This program would not be where it's at without him, joining us. He's still within his first ninety days as well and has new employee orientation at the city, I believe, next week. So,
Todd has a lot to do with the success of this program up to the state. So I'd like to recognize him as well here. So thank you. Wonderful. Thank you both and thank you, Todd, for your work to get this, wonderful, resource into our community and get make sure that everybody is safe and especially those youngest among us. With that, I would like to make a motion adopting a resolution authorizing the Public Minnesota Public Facilities Authority Grant, multi year budget amendments for 2025 to 2029 to fund a project of up to 26,700,000.0 and related revenues associated access fee to the property
improvements to customer owned property not covered by the grant. Second. Motion made by, council member Miller and seconded by council member Doreen. Discussion on this item. I don't have anything to add other than just thank you, and I'll I'll defer to council member Keane. Yeah. I I'm really glad to get this is new news to me right now. We spent the last December and January at the RPU board meeting going through this. And this is a serious conflict between what looked like state law and our charter was in conflict. And I'm glad to hear that that and I know Todd had told me that
this has gotta be worked out because this is something that state grand actually said, you can't charge the customers. And as a utility, we didn't have the ability not to do that based on charter direction. So really gratified to see it. And I I wanna commend council member Miller of kind of looking at this and saying, like, what can we do to keep this from being in trouble? So I'm I'm glad you you took that on. So thank you for that. Great. Mayor Norton? Yep. Agreed. And, thank you for bringing this up. And I wanna publicly thank both Tam and Todd for, providing me the information because this was actually a workshop I just gave at a
recent conference. And so now I know way more about this issue than I ever thought I would know. But we're very fortunate compared for two reasons, compared to other cities. And so, other states around the country. A, we have a state that has provided, some grant opportunities for us that is not happening in other states, and the federal government is requiring, states to to do lead and copper abatement, but not being able to fund it. So we're fortunate, Minnesota, and I'm thrilled that they got the word. And, the second thing is we have relatively low, housing stock with issues.
And that was something as I've talked to other states, other cities and other states about the thousands and thousands and thousands of homes that have to be abated. And, ours is relatively small, and a lot of it's unknown. And so we may get in there and find that there's less than we think. But, anyway, just thought wanted to publicly thank the two of them and, and also, Nick for bringing this up so that we could get the great news. Well, with that and, one, this feels like the most successful pulled, agenda item certainly in my tenure. So congratulations to everybody.
And with that, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Passes unanimously. Thanks, Tim and team. Moving on to, I don't believe we have any council initiated actions, and we do not have any ordinance first readings. We have a, second reading. Mister Spindler Craig, go ahead. Thank you, council president. This item is feeling a little bland following that one. However, there is one second reading this evening. K one, an ordinance annexing to the city of Rochester approximately 67.77
acres of land located north and east of the intersection of Eighteenth Avenue North West and 50 Fifth Street Northwest identified by pin numbers zero eight four seven three eight, zero five seven one eight five, zero five eight one eight two, and 084739. Move approval. Second. Move moved by, council member Keane and seconded by council member Palmer. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Passes unanimously. Thank you.
Thank you, mister Spindler Craig. We have no tabled items, and we have one other business, my other business, and this is my attempt to encourage my colleagues to do the same. I just wanted to, let my colleagues know that I will be joining mayor Norton this Thursday, attending my first, Destination Medical Center, corporation board meeting. If this is a public, meeting, it's this Thursday, February 6, '9 '30 AM, Mayo Civic Center. It also is streamed. And just a a kind of a preview of items that are are going to
be on our agenda, we will be doing a five year update to the twenty year DMC development plan. This includes both a look back at the last ten years as well as specific goals for the next five years in alignment with the the main goals of DMC. We'll also, have a an expenditure request to support Second Street public realm enhancement, around the link BRT project. And we will have, also another application for the historic preservation district grant program,
which will come to us at, after that. And this is for building system upgrades to, the old City Hall Building. And then we will also, discuss pedestrian improvements to the Peace Plaza, experience. So, any questions, concerns on that, those issues, talk to me or mayor Norton. And with that, is there any other other business from council members? Seeing none, is there a motion for adjournment? So moved. Moved by council member Palmer, seconded by council member Miller. All in favor, say aye.
Aye. Any opposed, say nay. We are adjourned. Thank you very much.