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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-10-20 DTPC packet DOWNTOWN PARKING COMMISSION AGENDA Thursday October 20, 2016 8:30 AM Conference Room 213, City Hall 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 3. APPROVAL OF SEPTEMBER 15, 2016 MINUTES 4. NEW BUSINESS 4.01 Main Street Tattoo - parking mitigation 4.02 Parking lot sign covers 4.03 No parking at corner of 2nd Street and Mulberry Street 5. SPECIAL EVENTS 5.01 Hockey Day Minnesota – Shuttle service 6. ADJOURNMENT DOWNTOWN PARKING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES September 15, 2016 REGULAR MEETING Chairwoman Pelletier called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. Present: Chairwoman Pelletier, Commissioners Glynn, Hopfe, Johnson, Lettner, Council Representative Junker Absent: Commissioner Anderson Staff: Community Development Director Turnblad, Parking Enforcement Officer Pasket APPROVAL OF MINUTES Approval of July 21, 2016 meeting minutes There were no changes to the minutes of the July 21, 2016 meeting, other than correction of one typo. NEW BUSINESS Parking lot sign covers Community Development Director Turnblad reviewed a proposal to purchase long-lasting custom sign covers to cover the pay parking signs during the off season. The cost of the 17 sign covers would be $1,635. Staff recommends approval. Commissioner Glynn presented a different, less expensive option for the covers. Mr. Turnblad will follow up to find out how long each type is expected to last and investigate cost of a logo or “Free Parking” wording. Marx Fusion Bistro expansion - parking mitigation Mr. Turnblad explained that Mark Hanson, Marx Bistro, is pursuing an amendment to the Special Use Permit for his property at 241 South Main Street to expand the restaurant into the second story, adding 948 square feet of restaurant and bar space. Since the property has no on-site parking, Mr. Hanson is requesting the Downtown Parking Commission to approve the use of City parking facilities for the parking needs of the expansion. City zoning code requires seven parking spaces for the expansion. Since two apartments there will be replaced with the restaurant space, the current parking for those apartments may be credited against the seven spaces, making the net increased parking requirement five spaces. Staff recommends approving the request to use public parking to mitigate the increased parking Downtown Parking Commission September 15, 2016 Page 2 of 3 need. Mr. Turnblad informed the Commission that with this request, essentially 10% of the public parking spaces would be used with for mitigation, meaning the City is almost at capacity for parking mitigation. He cautioned the Commission about the City allowing more business expansion without adding more parking spaces. He noted there are very preliminary discussions about the need for another ramp, possibly in Lot 1. Motion by Commissioner Johnson, seconded by Commissioner Glynn, to approve the request to use public parking to mitigate the increased parking need for the expansion of Marx Fusion Bistro, with two conditions recommended by staff. All in favor, 6-0. SPECIAL EVENTS Harvest Fest Community Development Director Turnblad explained that Summer Tuesdays, Inc. has applied for an event permit to host the 2016 Harvest Fest October 8-9. Organizers are asking to use Lots 4 and 5 as was done last year. Staff recommends that the Commission make a recommendation to the Council on the proposed parking fee of $162 for the spaces in Lots 4 and 5 for two days. Motion by Chairwoman Pelletier, seconded by Commissioner Hopfe, to recommend approval of a parking fee of $162 for the use of Lots 4 and 5 for two days for Harvest Fest. All in favor, 6-0. Hockey Day Minnesota Mr. Turnblad stated that The Minnesota Wild, FOX Sports North and Minnesota Hockey are working on a contract with the City for the 11th annual Hockey Day Minnesota outdoor games. The rink to be constructed on Mulberry Point, together with several municipal parking lots, will serve as the event venue. Municipal Lots 8b, 9 and 10 are requested for VIP parking on January 20-21 only. With set-up and takedown, the lots would be used for a total of five days. Staff recommends that the Commission make a recommendation to the Council on the proposed parking fee of $1,260 for the spaces in Lots 8b, 9 and 10 for five days. Councilmember Junker said that he learned at a meeting last night that Hockey Day Minnesota is projecting 6,000 people attending the four games January 21. He said organizers talked extensively about using shuttles from school parking lots. The Ice Castles event projects another 6,000 people on January 21, so there could be 10-14,000 visitors downtown throughout the day on that Saturday. Commissioner Johnson pointed out from the application materials, it appears that Hockey Day Minnesota wants space in Lot 11 reserved also. Commissioner Hopfe asked how this will impact downtown resident overnight parking. Mr. Turnblad replied that Lot 10 allows overnight parking but residents who have passes don’t usually park in Lot 10 - they park further south. Downtown Parking Commission September 15, 2016 Page 3 of 3 Commissioner Glynn suggested it would be good to see the details on the shuttle - how many stops, how many buses, and so on. Community Development Director Turnblad suggested tabling the request so Hockey Day Minnesota can come in and explain the shuttle system. Motion by Commissioner Glynn, seconded by Commissioner Johnson, to table the request for the use of Lots 8b, 9, 10 and part of 11 for Hockey Day Minnesota, for more details on the shuttles. All in favor, 6-0. OTHER BUSINESS Councilmember Junker asked to place an item on the next agenda to consider possible removal of a parking space at the corner of northbound Second at Mulberry Street for better sight lines. ADJOURNMENT Chairwoman Pelletier adjourned the meeting at 9:20 a.m. Respectfully Submitted, Julie Kink, Recording Secretary DOWNTOWN PARKING COMMISSION DATE: October 6, 2016 CASE NO.: PC 2016-37 APPLICANT: Joshua Strand REQUEST: Approval of parking mitigation plan LOCATION: 124 North Main Street REPORT AUTHOR: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director BACKGROUND Joshua Strand is proposing to relocate Good Times Tattoo from Oak Park Heights to 124 N Main Street. The business name would be changed to Main Street Tattoo. The four-chair studio would be located in the entirety of this 1,596 square foot storefront unit. SPECIFIC REQUEST Since the property has no on-site parking, Mr. Strand is requesting the Downtown Parking Commission to approve the use of City parking facilities for the parking needs of the business. ANALYSIS The tattoo shop is responsible for mitigating the increased parking demand generated by the new business. Previously the space housed a retail clothing store, which was required to have eight parking spaces (at a ratio of one space for every 200 square feet). Main Street Tattoo will be responsible only for any required spaces in addition to these eight. Beauty parlors, the most closely related business for which a parking requirement is established in the Zoning Code, are required to have three spaces for every chair. Main Street Tattoo is proposing four chairs. Therefore, a total of twelve parking spaces would be required. The increased parking demand is four parking spaces. The City Zoning Code makes allowances in the Downtown Parking District for “alternate” methods of meeting a property’s parking requirements. Essentially the options are to lease nearby private spaces, or if sufficient space is available, to rely on the public parking system. If the Parking Commission approves use of the public parking system, then a fee is charged per space to offset the City costs for providing those spaces. We refer to this as “mitigation parking”. Currently, the fee for mitigation parking is $10 per month per space. Main Street Tattoo October 6, 2016 Page 2 There are 1,842 public parking spaces in the downtown parking district. 1,260 of these spaces are located within city parking lots, the rest are on-street spaces. Currently during peak periods up to 178 public parking spaces are being used to mitigate the increase in business parking needs since 19991. With the 5 space deficit proposed by Marx for its expansion recently, and this 5 space increase, the total maximum impact would be to 187. That would be 10.2% of the public parking spaces downtown. ALTERNATIVES A. Approve the request to use public parking to cover the required parking for Good Times Tattoo, with the following conditions: 1. The parking mitigation fee will be invoiced quarterly by the City. 2. The fee is to be paid upon receipt of City invoice. Failure to pay fees within 30 days of invoice will be certified for collection with real estate taxes. The applicant waives any and all procedural and substantive objections to the parking mitigation fee in-lieu of on-site parking requirements, including but not limited to a claim that the City lacks authority to impose and collect the fees. The applicant agrees to reimburse the City for all costs incurred by the City in defense of enforcement of this provision. B. Determine that the public parking system has reached capacity and deny the request to use public parking to mitigate for the lack of on-site parking. RECOMMENDATION Staff does not believe the public parking system has quite reached maximum capacity, and therefore recommends Alternative A. bt 1 Many businesses have less space on-site than their customers and employees need. But, many existed prior to 1999 when the current “alternative provisions” policy became standard. So, there are quite a few “grandfathered” businesses that are not obligated to pay for off-site parking. TO: Downtown Parking Commission FROM: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director DATE: October 7, 2016 RE: Sign Covers BACKGROUND Since parking is free during the off season, each of the pay lot signs gets covered or removed. Removal is always very low on the priority list for Public Works, because they are winterizing public facilities in the parks and preparing equipment for the snow removal season. Consequently, in most years the signs must be bagged. Not far into each off season the black plastic bags are in pretty tough shape. This is especially true for the signs that are mounted on light poles, since a bag cannot simply be pulled over the sign. Instead, it has to be taped around the light pole. Therefore, Dennis Pasket has looked into sign covers. Two quotes have been received for the 17 sign covers. Each would have the City logo. One quote is from Hoigaard’s Custom Canvas & Awnings here in the Twin Cities. The other from Centerline Group out of Florida. Company Total cost Avg cost each Useful years Hoigaards $2,102.50 $123.68 7 Centerline $1,242.70 $73.10 unknown Staff assumes that much of the cost differential is related to the quality of the material used in the covers. Hoigaards uses a better quality material that will undoubtedly last longer than Centerline Group’s. However, Centerline did not provide information on how long their covers are expected to last. So, it is not possible to compare cost per year. REQUEST Staff requests that the Parking Commission consider whether to continue using the current plastic bag option, or whether we should switch to sign covers. If so, which vendor should we use? bt   TO: Downtown Parking Commission FROM: Bill Turnblad, Community Development Director DATE: October 7, 2016 RE: No parking request BACKGROUND The Public Works Department is requesting that the two parking spaces at the southeasterly corner of Second and Mulberry Streets be designated as “no parking”. It is a route frequently used by City vehicles and westbound drivers find it difficult to see and safely turn onto Second Street. COMMENTS There is high demand for the on-street parking spaces on Second Street. Not only do the area businesses and customers need the spaces, but the residents at Rivertown Commons chronically have more vehicles than they can accommodate in their private parking lot. On the one hand, that fact that the spaces at the corner are almost always used, virtually guarantees difficult visibility. On the other hand, removing the two spaces to improve visibility and safety will put that much more pressure on the limited supply of on-street parking in the area. REQUEST Consider the request, balance the need for parking against the need for motorist visibility, and decide whether to prohibit parking as requested. bt