The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutCouncil Information Memorandum 04-27-2023CITY OF PLYMOUTH COUNCIL INFO MEMO April 27, 2023 EVENTS / MEETINGS Official City Meeting Calendars .................................................................... Page 2 Tentative List of Agenda Items ..................................................................... Page 5 REPORTS & OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST The Real Victims of the Oncoming Office Space Glut Might be Suburbs Like Eagan, MinnPost ........................................................ Page 6 Lauren Alaina, Andy Grammer Headlining Live at Hilde, Sun Sailor ........................ Page 10 Plymouth READS Hosts Matt Goldman, Sun Sailor ............................................. Page 12 Plymouth Residents Invited to Walk with the Mayor, Join Step to It Challenge, Sun Sailor ......................................................... Page 13 SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 May 2023 3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR 763-509-5080plymouthmn.gov SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT 5:00 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Plymouth Destination Marketing Organization discussion and former Four Seasons Mall site discussion Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUCIL MEETING Council Chambers 5:00 PM CLOSED COUNCIL MEETING City Manager Annual Performance Evaluation City Hall 7:00 PM REGULAR COUCIL MEETING Council Chambers 6:00 PM PARK & REC ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers MEMORIAL DAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED 7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room 4:00 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Prudential site tour and visioning/ council engagement session Prudential site and Medicine Lake Room Page 2 SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 June 2023 3400Plymouth Blvd. Plymouth, MN 55447 763-509-5080plymouthmn.gov SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT CHANGES ARE NOTED IN RED 5:00 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Budget Goals and Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 6:00 PM PARK & REC ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING Council Chambers 5:00 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Board and Commission discussion and Beekeeping regulations Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room Page 3 SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 July 2023 3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR 763-509-5080plymouthmn.gov SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT 5:00 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Environmental Stewardship Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers INDEPENDENCE DAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED 7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 30 31 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers Page 4 Tentative Schedule for City Council Agenda Items May 8, Special 4:00 p.m., Prudential site and Medicine Lake Room •Prudential site tour and visioning/council engagement session May 9, Special 5:00 p.m., Closed Session •City Manager Annual Performance Evaluation May 9, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers •Approve Submission of Application for "Elevate Hennepin" Program •Approve amendment to site plan and conditional use permit for MACO Properties, LLC to allow expansion at Parks' Place Memory Care, 18040 Medina Road (2023010) •Appoint vacant seat on the Housing and Redevelopment Authority •Short-term Rental Licensing Ordinance discussion May 23, Special 5:00 p.m., Medicine Lake Room •Plymouth Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) discussion •Former Four Seasons Mall site discussion May 23, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers •Public improvement and assessment hearing and award of contract for the Nathan Lane Area Pavement Rehabilitation Project (ST249005) •Public hearing on approval of resolution on vacation of right-of-way within French Regional Park June 13, Special 5:00 p.m., Medicine Lake Room •Board and Commission discussion •Beekeeping regulations June 27, Special 5:00 p.m., Medicine Lake Room •2024/2025 Budget goals •Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) June 27, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers •Present Annual Financial Overview (City Manager Dave Callister) •2022 audit report •Approve final closeout for 2021 Street Reconstruction Project (ST219001) •Approve final closeout for 2022 Vicksburg Lane Improvements (ST229005) •Approve final closeout for Hidden Lake and Beacon Heights 2nd Street Reconstruction Project (ST229001) •Approve final closeout for Ridgemount Avenue Rehabilitation Project (ST210002) July 25, Special 5:00 p.m., Medicine Lake Room •Environmental Stewardship August 8, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers Page 5 The real victims of the oncoming office space glut might be suburbs like Eagan Because commercial property is taxed at a higher rate than residential, for a city like Eagan, the loss of two large corporate headquarters is a hit to its bottom line. By: Bill Lindeke | Columnist April 21, 2023 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota have announced the sale of most of its Eagan headquarters, a 25-acre site three miles to the west down Yankee Doodle Road. MinnPost photo by Bill Lindeke City leaders are coming to terms with the radical transformations of the COVID pandemic. One gaping question: how much COVID-fueled work-from-home has transformed office jobs, and what that means for the built environment. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this issue. Office buildings with millions of square feet, expensive freeways and onramps, entire transit systems, and hundreds of square miles of Minnesota parking lots depend on how this plays out. Page 6 Outside of corporate boardrooms, nobody knows what’s going to happen. Everyone has a theory about the future of offices, but the answers you receive turn into a political Rorschach test. Downtown Minneapolis is ether doomed or thriving, for example, as is the Twin Cities nascent light-rail system or state’s “MnPASS” lanes. In the meantime, large employers slowly make decisions, and the world of commercial real estate evolves before our eyes. Meanwhile in Eagan One surprising victim might be the Twin Cities suburbs. Take the 64,000-person suburb of Eagan, Minnesota where, earlier this year, two announcements upended the commercial landscape. Two of the city’s largest employers terminated leases at massive office parks, both of which served as local corporate headquarters. We are living in the gold age of empty parking lots, including these asphalt expanses at Thomson Reuters near Highway 149 in Eagan. MinnPost photo by Bill Lindeke In January, Thomson Reuters, a legal publishing company employing around 5,000 people, announced the abandonment of most of its Eagan campus. Because of hybrid work, it’s selling 65% of the 40-acre office space, reducing in-person capacity while they look for a new permanent home somewhere else in the metro. Three months later, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota announced the sale of most of its Eagan headquarters, a 25-acre site three miles to the west down Yankee Doodle Road. Its Page 7 spokesperson issued nearly identical pablum — “by shrinking our real estate footprint, we believe the company can generate a more collaborative, productive and enjoyable environment for those times when on-site work takes place” — pointing to a shift that is sweeping through the suburbs. Because commercial property is taxed at a higher rate than residential, for a city like Eagan, with a $42 million budget, the loss of two large corporate headquarters is a hit to its bottom line. In 2022, the two office parks provided about $3 million in tax dollars to the city, county and school board. (The city of Eagan’s cut of the tax revenue sits at around a third of that total.) Whatever happens to these two sites, they’ll likely be assessed at much lower values moving forward, likely swaying the rest of the suburban commercial real estate market. This puts pressure on Eagan’s single-family residential property to make up the difference, shifting the low-tax balance that draws people to live second-ring suburbs in the first place. For their part, Eagan city leaders say these kinds of economic changes are nothing new, and the city is well-positioned to survive. “We continue to seek economic balance, be resilient, invest in infrastructure, create amazing amenities for all, and be flexible to market and technology needs,” wrote City Administer Dianne Miller, in an email. She cited the changing loss of previous corporate headquarters in the city, including Lockheed Martin and Northwest Airlines, both of which disappeared due to mergers or outsourcing. “By employing flexibility and patience we were able to maintain our robust and diverse local economy through adaptable redevelopment at Central Park Commons, Viking Lakes, Cedar Grove, and large private investment into remodels and expansions of existing businesses,” Miller said. Reduce, reuse, remodel The economy is always changing, but with COVID, the transformation is larger and faster than usual. Cities with concentrations of office space will have to adapt. For many places, that means residential conversion, a hot topic in city planning departments. The problem is that reusing office buildings for housing is no easy task. A lot depends on both the kind of building and the famous real estate truism about “location.” This is where big differences emerge among office buildings. As reported recently in the New York Times, some older offices are much easier to convert to residential uses than mid-century Page 8 spaces with more “open” floor plans. In other words, for a suburban “landscraper,” the window-to-space ratio is worse than a vertically-oriented downtown office tower. The contrast between locational advantages is even greater. In general, walkable areas with amenities are more attractive, and spread-out suburban parks along freeways have fewer of these connections. In general, this means that older downtown office buildings fare better, while large mid-century offices make for harder conversion projects. Short-sighted investments in South Minneapolis As I was working on this article, Wells Fargo, one of the metro’s largest employers, announced yet another office closure and consolidation. It is going to sell offices in South Minneapolis (just north of Lake Street) and St. Louis Park, concentrating workers in buildings in Downtown Minneapolis and Shoreview. It’s a sign of what insiders refer to as a “flight to quality,” businesses abandoning Class B and C office space. Finance and Commerce magazine called the consolidation a “big win for downtown Minneapolis,” but in Minneapolis’ case, it’s a mixed blessing. It comes at the expense of the city’s large South Minneapolis office complex, which employed over 3,000 people before COVID. The loss of the jobs are ironic as the state DOT spent millions to add a freeway onramp to the site over a decade ago. Then in 2018, despite community opposition, Wells Fargo built a six- story parking ramp adjacent to its office building, despite multiple transit investments within a half-mile. In retrospect, with a soon-to-be vacant office building, both investments look terrible. The good news is that, compared to its suburban brethren, reusing the Wells Fargo office seems likely. It’s in a hot spot next to the booming Midtown Greenway, in a part of the city where housing demand has been high. To my eye, it seems ripe for the kind of office-to-residential conversion that Mayor Jacob Frey has called a priority. Meanwhile, in Eagan, the future of the sprawling office park seems a bit more gray. “Just as in the past, we are continuing to work with (Thomson Reuters),” Miller, the city administrator, said. “Provid(ing) the appropriate resources for them to find their next home, hopefully, here in Eagan.” Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke Page 9 Lauren Alaina, Andy Grammer headlining Live at Hilde By: Kaitlin McCoskey April 25, 2023 A huge crowd gathers for the 2022 Live at the Hilde. Sun Photo by Kaitlin McCoskey The Plymouth event is July 28-29 The buzz for Plymouth’s annual Live at the Hilde, which is set to return July 28-29, is getting louder thanks to the announcement of this year’s performers. This year, country singer Lauren Alaina will kick off the weekend concerts with guest Monique Smaz on Friday, July 28. The following day, pop star Andy Grammer will perform with a special guest still to be announced. Page 10 Patricia McLean, the CEO of Sue McLean & Associates, who is helping put on the event, shared that this will be the ninth year the all-female company has partnered with the city of Plymouth to put on the Live at the Hilde concert series. “Every year we strive to deliver a lineup that has a little something for everyone,” McLean shared. “As a long-time independent concert promoter in the Minneapolis market, SMA has worked to build the stunning Hilde Performance Center outdoor amphitheater as an outdoor concert venue for national headlining acts. It is a great place to experience outdoor live music for the artists and fans.” McLean said the booking process for big names such as Grammer, Alaina, last year’s Gary Clark Jr. and Kelsea Ballerini, and many others, is not a quick turnaround and takes almost a year of careful planning. Much the same, the city of Plymouth needs time to organize its end of the event. Typically, Live at the Hilde features food trucks and drink vendors in addition to the concert, and requires help from the Plymouth Public Safety Department for security. Ticket sales began April 14, and are currently open to the public, beginning at $40. On the days of the shows, doors will open at 5 p.m. with the entertainment starting at 6:30 p.m. For more information about Live at the Hilde and this year’s events, visit suemclean.com/hilde or plymouthmn.gov. Follow the Sun Sailor on Facebook at facebook.com/mnsunsailor. Page 11 Plymouth READS hosts Matt Goldman By: Kaitlin McCoskey April 25, 2023 Plymouth READS hosts Matt Goldman Goldman addresses the crowd gathered at the Plymouth Community Center and answers audience questions. Sun Photo by Kaitlin McCoskey Each year, Plymouth READS offers residents a chance to take part in a city-wide book club; anyone interested in participating reads a chosen book and has the opportunity to engage in events and book discussions afterward. This year’s novel was “Carolina Moonset” by Matt Goldman, a former stand-up comic, and Emmy award-winning writer of shows such as “Seinfeld”. Now a New York Times Bestselling author and Edina resident, Goldman paid Plymouth a visit at 7 p.m. April 20 at the Plymouth Community Center to discuss his mystery novel, answer audience questions, and sign books. Page 12 Plymouth residents invited to Walk with the Mayor, join Step to It Challenge April 26, 2023 To kick off the city’s participation in the annual Step to It Challenge, Plymouth Mayor Jeff Wosje will host a Walk with the Mayor event 6:30-7:30 p.m. on May 1 at the Plymouth Community Center, 14800 34th Ave N. Participants may chat with the mayor while enjoying a leisurely walk on the trails by the PCC. Snacks and water will be provided, while supplies last. The walk is free and there is no need to register. Hennepin County’s annual Step to It Challenge, a physical activity competition set for May 1-28, includes 26 participating communities. The most active communities and individuals are recognized and awarded with prizes. Bragging rights and trophies will go to the top three communities in the following categories: most active community; most active residents; and most actively engaged community. Virtually every action counts – walking, biking, running, cleaning, gardening or playing with the children. Registered participants can track their daily activity using a fitness tracker/watch, pedometer or conversion chart on the Step to It website, steptoit.org. Page 13