INFORMATION #3 12-04-2006
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Mayor and City Council
FROM:
Lori Johnson, City Administrator
DATE:
December 4, 2006
SUBJECT:
Confirm Downtown Parking Discussion
Attached is a memo from Community Development Director Scott Clark summarizing what
staff understood to be the Council's direction on downtown parking. Before staff proceeds
with establishing a focus group and beginning work on the other parts of the downtown
parking plan, we want to make sure we correcdy understood your direction.
This is not a Council agenda item; however, if you need to clarify staffs understanding of
your direction, please add this item under Other Business and provide staff with direction so
we may proceed.
If you have any questions on this prior to Monday's meeting, feel free to contact either Scott
Clark or me.
S:\Council\Lori\2006\Downtown Park Direction.doc
MEMORANDUM
TO: Lori Johnson, City Administrator
FROM: Scott Clark, Community Development Director
DATE: November 28, 2006
SUBJECT: Downtown Parking Direction
Based on the direction from the City Council's November 20,2006 meeting regarding
"downtown parking" staff had intended to proceed as follows, unless modifications to the
same are presented back to staff by the Council:
1) Establish Cathy Mehelich, Economic Development Director, as staff lead for a
downtown focus group.
2) Establish a focus group consisting of both existing downtown merchants and
representatives from MetroPlains (staffwill be attempting to get representatives
from each block).
3) Focus group membership would be confirmed by the Council via a consent
Council action item.
4) The focus group would review and comment on two main items. The first,
regulatory aud administrative changes to the current parking regulations and
permitting process. These changes would be presented to the group by Jeff
Beahen, Chief of Police, and it is anticipated that these could be brought back to
the Council in a FebruaryIMarch time period.
5) The second focus would be on the transition of employee parking to the periphery
of downtown. The assumption of the group (based on Council direction) is that
the transition would not have to occur for a minimum of 18 months and that the
dynamic, causing the change, will be the additional employee and customer
parking demand placed on downtown by the new Jackson Place and the Bluff of
Elk River commercial space lease-up. Since this is not an immediate "time-
sensitive event" it was anticipated that solutions for this transition would come
back to the Council in a March! April time period.
6) In addition to employee parking the focus group would look at potential issues
associated with overnight parking for residents and guests associated with the new
developments.
7) Additional information regarding parking ramp costs will be developed, but based
on Council discussion, a ramp would not be considered as an intermediate
S:\Community Development\Scott Clark\2006 CC memos\Parking Memos.doc
solution (2 to 4 years out) but rather a potential solution at the time that
downtown becomes more fully redeveloped. It will be the intention of the
"solutions report" to identify all of the issues associated with the ramp (i.e.
additional areas needed to be purchase, costs, maintenance, capital reserves,
payment methods etc. ) so that if the Council elects to proceed at some time in the
near future a solid base of understanding has been established.
Cc: Cathy Mehelich
Jeff Beahen
Terry Maurer
Heidi Steinmetz
Jeremy Barnhart
S:\Community Development\Scott Clark\2006 CC memos\Parking Memos.doc