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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-10-30 DTPC MINCOPIES TO: All commission members. TNi •1N7NPLAtl OF MINN/107N PARKING COMMISSION MEETING OCTOBER 30, 2008 MEETING MINUTES MEMBERS PRESENT: Mike Rice, David Korte, Chief John Gannaway, CSO Dennis Pasket, Bill Turnblad, Rob Gag, and new member Curt Newcomb DISCUSSION DOWNTOWN PARKING IDEAS: Two parking items were proposes a month ago: one was resident parking permits and free parking in the pay lots. We already have permit parking and we currently do have free parking (as it's the off season). If we did anything further, it would dramatically affect how the commission and how parking operates. If we let everyone park for free it would dramatically affect how parking operations go downtown. The question came up of how much money the parking permits make. An estimate was $10,000 to $12,000 a year. Most of the business owners are aware of parking permits and most of them use them. There is order in the system we use now, if we went to free parking the city would loose money and there would be chaos downtown. We implemented a system that's more lenient and wrote a third less citations this year and the amount of parking complaints dropped dramatically. Last year Chief Gannaway received about forty parking complaints and this year he received maybe five. FIXING UP LOWELL PARK: Bill advised that over the years, we have received federal grants to improve Lowell Park. Because of the federal grants, the DNR comes and does inspections. This year the complaint was that we do not have handicap access to the bathroom. They have asked us to stripe for no parking one stall in front of the bathroom. Bill would like this spot striped no parking arld this space will also be signed no parking. Action: Denny to have this spot striped and signed for no parking. INTERIM PARKING PLAN: Bill doesn't think we will be able to lease spaces in either the Stillwater Mills on Main parking area or the Chestnut lot. Bill has asked if the city could lease spaces there while we're short on parking spaces. The price to rent these spots was too high. In the case of Mills on Main, they asked for $40.00 a space a month and then they came back with a price of $50.00 a month. Bill offered them $10.00 a month and they both declined the offer. The question is, is it worth it to bump up the price a little bit and was advised that maybe $15.00 could be done. The problem is that we can't bury the cost in the ramp project as there isn't enough money available. We are not going to be able to rent the spaces. There will be on- street parking only and we'll be faced with a year of constant complaints about parking. In actuality we'll only have to deal with this parking issue during the busy season, which is only about five months out of the twelve, maybe address this issue then. The Lowell Inn will be loosing the most parking spots. Rivertown Commons is concerned about where they will be parking. A suggestion made was use ten spots at 2 and Olive for Rivertown Commons and give Lowell Inn 20 spots all together at 2 and Olive as one option. Another option is leasing for $10.00 a space from the parking lot that Trinity owns as it's empty now as the school's not there, which may not be the best choice with going up and down the hill. Bill will see if he can get six spots at the Chestnut building for $15.00. A suggestions was also made to just sign a section of 2 and Olive for the Lowell Inn. The building start date for the ramp depends on the contractor used, maybe in January or if the contractor doesn't do winter construction, not until spring which would be issue as far as finding parking during our busy season. PARKING RAMP: We went with a construction manager who will be an owner's rep exclusively instead of using our architect. Because of that we lost a month. CPMI will do our owner's rep inspections. They want to do a review of the complete plan set before it goes out to bid so with that we lost another month. At this point it looks like bid packages will go out November 10 and we will put a deadline for receiving bids on December 9 which means the council could possibly be looking at a written contract either on December 16 or the first week in January. We want to give some flexibility to the contractor to keep our price down. Depending on the contractor, it will be ten to twelve months from January 1 We're still thinking about the operations plan; what we charge for example. A couple of meetings ago, we had Carl Walker in here with their Operations Expert saying that he would come back with a proposal. He did that. The cost is probably going to be really expensive and the suggestion is that in order to drive business to the ramp, we would have to completely reorganize our fee structure downtown; suggesting that we even charge for on- street parking again. Instead of using them, we're going to ask for bids for proposals, so instead of paying $50,000, we should be able to get something a lot less expensive for a proposal to do the study. There isn't a huge hurry at this point so we decided that we would wait to see what the real costs are going to be with the project. We'll know that when we start getting bids back and then we will re -look at this "sometime probably in the spring. The vender for the downtown cameras called Chief Gannaway to see where we were at. It would be nice to have one vender do all the cameras. We're just waiting until we get the bids back to see what calf wait and what needs to be cut out. There was some discussion about the parking machines that are in the pay lots as Denny needs to either get knew machines or get the old ones refurbished. There are two different venders that work with Carl Walker and they'll give us pricing for both new systems (one from each vender) and we'll know that too in December. By January we'll know which direction we'll be going in. Let's talk about getting new machines instead of spending money to refurbish the old ones so that all the machines come from the same place at a later meeting. The system in the ramp will be totally automated and also will have a person working in it. Bill handed out an article regarding pricing structure for members to read. VERN STEPHAN (SP) PROPOSAL: He has requested to use the north end of the Water Street Lot for staging to add a third floor to his property. The staging may damage the lot so either he needs to redo the lot or use the gravel lot. He needs to get a variance in order to add onto his building first. Per city ordinance, he needs to match the surrounding buildings, which are two stories. The Water Street Lot is not available for this project as it's not up to the city to provide a staging area. LEVEE PROJECT: Bill doesn't know anything more regarding the project. Where we're at right now is no government job is cheep and prices have escalated on construction materials and it's so far over budget that he doesn't know how we'll get the thing done because we don't have the money to do it. We're trying to find things to take out, just like the ramp, and reducing prices on things by doing things ourselves; for example the sewer has to be aligned because it comes underneath the levee and if it breaks it would run into the river. The corps cost to align that was close to a million dollars, we think we can do it for $300,000. There are a number of things in the project exactly like that so we're trying to figure out what we can do ourselves. Bill thinks it will happen, but we're still haggling over costs right now. Possible start date is end of 2009. We need to get this project done as the money won't be around forever, either we do it or we don't. STILLWATER MARATHON: The Sunday before Memorial Day there is a plan for a marathon which would affect the Veteran's Memorial substantially as the route has changed. The route was an issue so they changed it to start at the courthouse. The crowds will be huge. Dave Eckberg (sp) advised that there may be 2500 runners plus their family and friends. We could expect Lumberjack Day size crowds for one day. This is a nightmare for traffic control. The last of the runners would be coming in around the seven hour mark unless you cut it off at six hours and have a sag wagon. This would affect the area churches' parking and clean-up would also be an issue. Lowell Park will be jam packed with venders. The finish line will be by the gazebo. Chief Gannaway is meeting with some people regarding the marathon tomorrow. There will be quite a few parking issues. The route was going to start in Franconia and take Highway 95 straight down but it was a terrible route, too much of an elevation change for the runners. Mr. Eckberg is talking with someone from the Boston Marathon and hired a race consultant. Downtown parking will be dramatically affected; not just two or so hours like Lumberjack Days, but the entire day. More discussion is needed regarding parking issues. .CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT: The capital improvement plan is being worked on, projecting out to 2013. A lot of this hinges on the ramp for a lot of our parking needs. We're getting a new motorcycle from St. Croix Harley Davidson. Were leasing it for $1.00 a year. The owner of St. Croix Harley Davidson advised that he has a scooter which is completely electric and can go about 75 miles to a charge that he would also lease to us for $1.00 a year for our parking enforcement people. The scooter would be good for events; like the Polaris is. The question came up of looking 4t improvements to the 2 and Mulberry lot. Denny suggested making this a pay lot, which could be a 100 -car pay lot. This lot could be tremendous revenue. AGENDA: Parking ramp Levee project Interim parking Stillwater Marathon Capital Improvement