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04/18/1995 - City Council Special \ t AGENDA SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING Tuesday April 18, 1995 5:00 p.m. Eagan Municipal Center Building I. ROLL CALL & ADOPTION OF AGENDA II. POLICE DEPARTMENT BUILDING TOUR III. RECISION OF ISTEA GRANT - NICOLS ROAD TRAILS N. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT UPDATE V. OTHER BUSINESS VI. ADJOURNMENT MEMO IL city of eagan TO: HONORABLE MAYOR & CITY COUNCILMEMBERS FROM: CITY ADMINISTRATOR HEDGES DATE: APRIL 14, 1995 SUBJECT: SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING/TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1995 A Special City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 18, 1995, at 5:00 p.m. for the purpose of: 1) touring the new police facility, 2) discussing potential recision of the ISTEA grant for the Nicols Road trail improvements and 3) a community development update. POLICE FACILITY TOUR Police, Administration and Finance will begin their move to the new police facility on April 18. While a number of punch list items remain to be finished, this will be a good opportunity for the City Council to see the building as it nears completion. As with the previous moves of personnel, it will take several days for operations to return entirely to normal. Even so, staff intends to provide all the public services throughout the transition period. All telephone numbers of City personnel will remain the same as in the past. The mailing address for the entire facility remains 3830 Pilot Knob Road. Signage and barricades will be located at the current entrances directing residents to the new police entrance beginning Wednesday morning, April 19. Public meetings will be moving to Blackhawk Middle School beginning with the Planning Commission meeting of April 25 and continuing through completion of the remodeling project next fall. It is anticipated that the tour will take no more than thirty minutes, leaving an hour for discussion of the other two business items. ISTEA GRANT RECISION The City has been awarded an ISTEA grant for the connection of trails between Nicols and Silver Bell Roads and the Cedar Avenue bridge. This system would provide trail access between the City of Eagan and the Minnesota River Valley Trail System and the Bloomington Trail System. While the project is still appropriate for consideration, staff has discovered that costs associated with administration of the ISTEA grant is excessive and that the money could better be spent on actual improvements than grant administration in this case. For additional information on this item, please refer to the Parks & Recreation Department memorandum on pages 3 through 9 . If the Council concurs with the recommendations of staff regarding this matter, then authorization to rescind the grant is included on this evening's Consent Agenda. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT UPDATE Enclosed on pages s through is a memorandum from the Community Development Department discussing current development issues within the City. Community Development Director Reichert will be present to expand upon items outlined in the memo. The current economy and development climate leads staff to anticipate another busy year for subdivision and development activity. A number of fairly substantial project's applications are being processed by the City's advisory commissions and will be brought forward to the City Council in the coming months. This update is provided for discussion purposes. OTHER BUSINESS Staff is aware of no other business to come before the City Council at this time. ADJOURNMENT The workshop session will adjourn no later than 6:25 p.m. /S/ Thomas L. Hedges City Administrator 14,4•64::;* MEMO _ city of eagan DATE: APRIL 12, 1995 TO: TOM HEDGES, CITY ADMINISTRATOR FROM: KEN VRAA, DIRECTOR OF PARKS & RECREATION RICH PELLETIER, PARKS OPERATIONS SUPERVISOR SUBJECT: MINNESOTA VALLEY TRAIL: ISTEA GRANT ACTION To rescind the City's participation in the ISTEA Grant for trails development; Minnesota Valley Trail. HISTORY The City of Eagan applied for an ISTEA Trails Grant in 1992 and was formally awarded approval in 1994, for trails construction in 1996. The last several months, staff has been trying to facilitate the construction of this trail to meet an earlier time frame to coincide with the work effort being done by the Metropolitan Council's Waste Water Commission Project on a portion of Nicols Road. In addition, the City is currently anticipating the upgrading of Nicols Road, north of Silver Bell Road to the railroad tracks. At the time of the original Grant request, the project estimate was $400,000. Of this amount, $205,000 was for trail construction, $85,000 for shelter/informational depot, $40,000 for landscaping, $15,000 for signage , and $55,000 for design, engineering, and contingency. The City's share was to be approximately$80,000; $50,000 of hard dollar match and $30,000 of inkind services. Under the Intermodels Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991, 80% of the construction cost are eligible for funding . Unfortunately, design and engineering costs are not Grant eligible and the City would be responsible for 100% of these costs. It should also be noted that Federal design standards for construction, which are considerately more stringent than the typical trails design, must be met. These higher standards have significantly raised costs associated with design, engineering and project inspection. In addition to these costs, the City must bid the project thru State MnDOT offices. It is estimated that the design, engineering field work and administration will be $110,000. When coupled with the $80,000 match for construction, total cash outlay for the City is now estimated at approximately $190,000. 3 STAFF RE-EVALUATION After receiving this higher dollar estimate from the City's consulting engineer, staff re- evaluated the objections of the project, searching for cost saving alternatives. Considering the original objectives for the trail construction, primary consideration was given to the end users of the proposed trail. It was felt that the majority of the people who would use this particular trail would be the serious cyclist, either for transportation (crossing the Minnesota River) or recreational (connecting with the Minnesota River Valley Trail System in Fort Snelling State Park). It is doubtful that many pedestrians would walk this trail for transportation because of its length, and those who would desire to hike the Fort Snelling trails, would most likely drive to the state park parking lot adjacent to the Cedar Avenue Bridge to begin their walk at this location. Important to know is that as part of the Metro Council's Waste Water Commission (MCWC) project, the repairs of Nicols Road will provide for 5 foot paved shoulders, which should be adequate for hiking/biking. The City was able to negotiate this as part of the reconstruction project for Nicols Road, but is not be able to take credit for it as part of the ISTEA Grant. A separate bike trail through this section of Nicols Road does not seem warranted because of the low volume of vehicular traffic and because of the significant environmental impacts on the adjacent Fen. In pursuit of additional cost reductions, staff requested the engineering consultant to develop an estimate for the trails project, which would shift the focus from off road trails to providing bike lanes/bike trails. These would be striped, signed and paved shoulders of sufficient width to be allowed to be designated for bicycle use. The estimate for design engineering and construction of this type of trailway is $60,000. The Council should be aware that this is not an apples & apples cost estimate comparison. The lower cost estimate of $60,000 is for a lessor design standard trail than originally anticipated with the ISTEA Grant application. This lower cost design is strictly a functional trail without amenities, such as the interpretative shelter, rest area and landscaping excluded in the revised design. The most significant cost savings are realized by the reduction in design and engineering costs. Estimates vary from the $10,000 for the functional trail vs $110,000 for the ISTEA proposal. Reviewing the two alternatives and the costs involved, it was felt that the additional expense for the ISTEA design was not justified and the City should consider pursuing the construction of the Minnesota River Valley Trail on its own without using ISTEA funding. REVIEW Staff will be present at the Council Workshop on April 18, to review any trail issues, left unanswered to enable the City Council to make a determination on the ISTEA Grant. cslhunvalley.kv MEMO — city of eagan TO: TOM HEDGES, CITY ADMINISTRATOR FROM: PEGGY A REICHERT, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DATE: APRIL 13, 1995 SUBJECT: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT UPDATE ON APRIL 18, 1995 At the City Council workshop session on April 18, 1995, I would like to briefly cover the following items: 1. Opus Development Application - Opus did submit an application this week and we have begun our staff review. I have scheduled a meeting for Tuesday meeting with Ken Vraa and Tom Colbert to give it further review. There are a number of issues presented by this application and I would like some City Council direction on how to negotiate with Opus. 2. Wescott Apartments - I met with various property owners and the managers of Wescott Apartments last week. Two HRA staff members were also in attendance. The purpose of the meeting was for HRA staff and me to get a sense of what the various owners were thinking about doing with their property. The meeting was very interesting in that the property owners seem to believe that the City should step up to the plate and provide low interest loans so that they can secure their investment. These property owners, and their representatives, were extremely aggressive at the meeting and I was quite taken aback. I would like to update the Council on this meeting and tell them where we are going from here to explore the various problems out there and what potentially could be done to resolve some of the issues from the City's perspective. 3. Cedarvale Special Service District - We held a meeting of the property owners in Cedarvale this past Monday morning. Only four property owners attended. They were not particularly ready to proceed with constructing an 80' high sign fronting Cedar Avenue, but they are interested in some ground signs that could serve to direct people in to the site from Highway 13. City staff will be doing some additional review of signage options and we are meeting with Cedarvale again in a few weeks. 4. Remick Trucking Terminal - This item was continued from the last City Council meeting We have been contacted by Joe Christensen and he has informed us that Mark Remick is terminating his purchase option with the sellers so that he can get his $10,000 earnest money back and they will be formally withdrawing the application. 5. Definition of Setbacks - I would like some Council direction on how we should handle some commercial building setback issues. The City Code requires a 20' landscaped area between street right-of-way and parking lot in all our Commercial districts. While this works in most cases, we continue to have the situation that we had with Red Robin restaurant in which the applicant negotiates an easement instead of a right-of-way dedication with Dakota County and thereby skirts the requirement for this landscaped setback area. We now have this coming up with a little IndyLube project proposed to the north of the Phillips 66 station on Pilot Knob Road adjacent to I-35E. I have discussed how we might resolve this issue with the City Attorney's Office and the best thing would be for us to redefine the definition of setbacks in the Zoning Ordinance. If it is the City Council's intent that we provide this 20' landscaped area in our Commercial districts, we should then measure setbacks from right-of-way of public streets or any roadway-related easements. I am working on a draft of this ordinance amendment for consideration at the Planning Commission meeting on April 25th. I would like City Council direction on this issue and whether to proceed in this code amendment. 6. Sale/Lease of Old Unisys Building on 1-494 - I would like to update the City Council on the status of the old Unisys building. There are a number of potential buyers and/or lessees and this all signals a very positive direction for the continued development of Class A office space over the coming years. 7. Southeast Industrial Area - The Economic Development Commission will be discussing this matter at its meeting on Thursday, April 20. The Planning Commission will then be discussing it on April 25th. I know that the City Council has been receiving many phone calls and comments on this. I would just like an opportunity to hear if there is any additional information that Council is going to be wanting and if they have any other direction for me on how we should be proceeding with this matter which has become quite a small political football. 8. Carriage Hills Golf Course - I have been told that this area is now for sale. This may be something the City Council may want to discuss because I am sure they will be selling it for residential development purposes.4:,C,A.e..1-Ci) 9 Directo�ommunit Development Y P PAR/js 6