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Home My WebLink AboutCouncil Information Memorandum 01-11-2018CITY OF PLYMOUTH COUNCIL INFO MEMO January 11, 2018 EVENTS / MEETINGS Planning Commission Agenda for January 17th ................................................................................. Page 2 Official City Meeting Calendars ......................................................................................................... Page 3 Tentative List of Agenda Items ........................................................................................................... Page 6 CORRESPONDENCE Fire & Ice Winter Festival set for February 3rd .................................................................................. Page 7 City Seeks Applications for Charter Commission .............................................................................. Page 9 REPORTS & OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST ‘Corporate Lodging’ Pitched for Twin Cities Market, Finance & Commerce .................................. Page 10 Medtronic Announces Restructuring to Trim Costs by Billions, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal .......................................................................................... Page 13 Shingle Creek's Cautionary Tale for Minnesota's Water, MPR News ............................................... Page 15 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 31 January 2018 3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR Phone: 763-509-5000 Fax: 763-509-5060 7:00 PM PARK & REC ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT CHANGES ARE NOTED IN RED 5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Goals/Legislative Priorities Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers NEW YEAR’S DAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BIRTHDAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED CANCELLED 7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING Medicine Lake Room 5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Highway 169 Mobility Study Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers Page 3 SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT 1 2 3 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM Fire & Ice Festival Parkers Lake Park 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT February 2018 3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR Phone: 763-509-5000 Fax: 763-509-5060 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM PARK & REC ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING Medicine Lake Room 5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Plymouth Creek Center improvements Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers 5:30-7:00 PM Board & Commission Social City Hall Lobby 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers PRESIDENTS DAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers Page 4 SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT 1 2 3 4 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Healthy Living Fair Plymouth Creek Center 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 March 2018 3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR Phone: 763-509-5000 Fax: 763-509-5060 7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers 7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers Page 5 Tentative Schedule for City Council Agenda Items January 23, Special, 5:30 p.m. Medicine Lake Room •Highway 169 Mobility Study January 23, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers •Approve renewal of liquor licenses for 2018 •Public hearing on the On-Sale Intoxicating Liquor and Sunday Liquor License applications of Sapporo Plymouth Inc. d/b/a Sapporo, 4345 Nathan Lane North, Suite O February 13, Special, 5:30 p.m. Medicine Lake Room •Plymouth Creek Center improvements February 13, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers February 27, Board and Commission Social, 5:30 p.m. Medicine Lake Room February 27, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers •Recognize board and commission members March 13, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers March 27, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers April 10, Special, 5:30 p.m. Medicine Lake Room •Hotel licensing April 10, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers April 24, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers Page 6 City of Plymouth News Release For Immediate Release Jan. 8, 2018 Contact: Alyssa Fram Recreation Supervisor City of Plymouth 763-509-5225 afram@plymouthmn.gov Plymouth Fire & Ice winter festival set for Feb. 3 Plymouth, Minn. – Plymouth’s annual winter festival, the 29th annual Fire & Ice is set for 3-7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3 at Parkers Lake Park, off of County Road 6 and Niagara Lane. This free family-friendly event combines recycling bin races, a youth ice fishing contest, hayrides, pony and sled-dog rides, miniature golf on the ice, snow bowling, box hockey, recreational skating, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing – weather permitting. If the cold begins to sink in, attendees can warm up at a bonfire with s’mores and hot chocolate, while supplies last, sponsored by Step by Step Montessori. Food trucks will also be on site. An interactive DJ will take the stage that evening, followed by other entertainment. The finale of the event – fireworks sponsored by the Plymouth Civic League – will begin around 6:30 p.m. Cardboard Sled Contest A new highlight this year, Fire & Ice will feature a children’s cardboard sled contest, set for 4 p.m. on the Showmobile Stage. Children are encouraged to create and decorate cardboard sleds and enter them in the contest. Participants are asked to check-in at 3:45 p.m. First- and second-place winners from multiple age categories will be selected to win prizes. Categories include: •Preschool, ages 5 and younger •Youth, ages 6-8 •Youth, ages 9-12 •Teens, ages 13-18 Shuttle Service Free shuttles to and from the event will run from 3:30-7:30 p.m. at Oakwood Playfield, 1700 County Road 101. -More - Page 7 Medallion Hunt The eighth-annual medallion hunt began Jan. 4 with a clue on plymouthmn.gov and the city’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Additional clues will be published Thursdays, Jan. 11, 18 and 25, or until someone finds the medallion. There is no need to register or pay to participate. A $250 prize will be awarded to the first sleuth who finds the medallion. Only Plymouth residents are eligible. For more information on the hunt, visit the city website. More Information Fire & Ice is free, aside from food trucks, and open to the public. A detailed schedule of events will be posted at plymouthmn.gov. For weather concerns, call the weather line at 763-509-5205 or check the city website. Cutline: Embrace winter at Fire & Ice Saturday, Feb. 3 on the frozen Parkers Lake. The annual event features recycling bin races, snow bowling and games, ice skating, a bonfire, fireworks and more. -30 - Page 8 City of Plymouth News Release For Immediate Release Jan. 9, 2018 Contact: Sandy Engdahl City Clerk City of Plymouth 763-509-5080 sengdahl@plymouthmn.gov City of Plymouth seeks applications for Charter Commission Plymouth, Minn. – The City of Plymouth is seeking applicants for the Plymouth Charter Commission. One seat is available for appointment. Residents with an interest in local government, including its structure and operations, are encouraged to submit a letter with resume or background materials by 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 16. The chief judge of the Fourth Judicial District will make appointments. Letters of interest and/or resumes should be sent to: Honorable Ivy Bernhardson, Chief Judge Fourth Judicial District Court Hennepin County Government Center Minneapolis, MN 55487-0422 The Charter Commission is an independent body that works on issues related to the Plymouth City Charter. The Charter defines city government structure and operations. Charter commissioners serve four-year terms. For more information about the commission or the process, contact City Clerk Sandy Engdahl at sengdahl@plymouthmn.gov or 763-509-5080. -30 - Page 9 The site of a proposed WaterWalk “corporate lodging” hotel in Plymouth is adjacent to potential clients, including Smiths Medical and Polaris, which have their corporate campuses on either side of the WaterWalk property. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz) ‘Corporate lodging’ pitched for Twin Cities market By: Matt M. Johnson January 8, 2018 7:00 am A developer planning a 153-unit extended-stay “corporate lodging” hotel project in Plymouth says the project will be the first in the Twin Cities aimed at executives traveling and relocating to the area. The $25 million, two-building WaterWalk is part of a Wichita, Kansas-based franchise that is building or has opened similar projects in five other states. The Twin Cities location would be built in an office park at the northeast corner of Nathan Lane and 59th Avenue in Plymouth, according to city planning documents. The developer is Stillwater-based Zion Holdings LLC. WaterWalk isn’t quite like any other hotel the city has previously considered, said Steve Juetten, Plymouth’s community development director. Plymouth approved an extended-stay hotel last year, a Hilton Home2 Suites under construction at 3000 Harbor Lane N., according to the Finance & Commerce Hotel Development and Sales Tracker. But WaterWalk shares characteristics with both hotels and apartments. Seventy-five units will come fully furnished for corporate visitors or relocating workers, who are able to charge a little extra to their expense accounts, said Steve LeVahn, a managing partner at Zion. The other 78 units will come partly furnished and will rent for less. “The only thing that’s missing is the couch, the rug, the bed and clothes,” LeVahn said of the partially furnished units. Page 10 Plymouth has seen an uptick in hotel development activity during the past year. In addition to WaterWalk and the Home2Suites, two more hotels are proposed as part of a $47 million redevelopment of the Four Seasons shopping mall at 4108 Lancaster Lane N. The WaterWalk property will have a concierge and housekeeping staff, LeVahn said. WaterWalk units in Plymouth will offer one to three bedrooms and full kitchens. The average length of stay at a WaterWalk is 77 nights, LeVahn said in an interview. That compares to three nights at a Residence Inn by Marriott, he said. Residence Inn in is one of several extended-stay hotel brands created by WaterWalk CEO Jack DeBoer, according to WaterWalk’s website. The brand’s primary appeal is among corporate travelers who might be on a weeks- or months-long consulting gig, who are training at a company headquarters, or who need housing while relocating from another city, LeVahn said. The price can also be lower, as it drops with longer stays. Extended-stay hotels have a fixed nightly rate, he said. The first WaterWalk in Wichita has averaged a 95 percent occupancy rate in three years; LeVahn expects to do at least as well in the Twin Cities, which are home to many more Fortune 500 companies. The Plymouth Planning Commission recommended on Dec. 20 to amend the city’s zoning ordinance to allow for WaterWalk under a “corporate lodging” definition. The current ordinance allows for hotels to be built in areas zoned for offices, but requires all hotel rooms to be fully furnished, Juetten said. Still, the city staff recommended denying Zion’s request, saying in a city report that the project does not comply with the ordinance and because WaterWalk would generate “extra activity at all hours of the day when currently the area is generally only active during the daytime hours.” The Plymouth City Council is scheduled Jan. 9 to consider the commission’s recommendation and WaterWalk site plan, Juetten said. Corporate lodging is something companies have done in the past for their own employees by purchasing apartment buildings and repurposing units for executives or transferring workers, said Steve Sherf, president of the Excelsior based Hospitality Consulting Group. Applying that model to hotel-style lodging is something new in the market, he said. “It’s an interesting concept and I think there’s a need for it,” Sherf said. If the WaterWalk proposal is approved, Zion plans to break ground in June, LeVahn said. The complex would open the following summer. Two WaterWalks are open Wichita and Denver, according to the company’s website. Six others are under development. Zion has the Plymouth site under a purchase agreement, LeVahn said. Zion’s other managing partner, Robert Kirchoff, is related to WaterWalk’s DeBoer, LeVahn said. Zion chose Plymouth as a WaterWalk location because the city is home to a number of large corporations Page 11 and offers lodgers a variety of things to do, he said. WaterWalk will be built across the street from the Plymouth corporate offices of Polaris and Smiths Medical’s corporate campus. Rental rates for the fully furnished “gold” level units at WaterWalk will be comparable to a Residence Inn, LeVahn said. The partially furnished “silver” units will charge rates similar to that of market rate apartments in the Plymouth and Maple Grove area, he said. Plymouth presently has seven operating hotels, Finance & Commerce reported earlier last year. The Four Seasons hotels being developed by Rock Hill Management LLC of Maple Grove don’t have brands yet, Juetten said. “The developer is still working on financing with his banks and closing with current landowner,” he said in an interview. Hotel development contributed to an increase in commercial construction in Plymouth in 2017. The city issued commercial permits valued at $56 million last year, Juetten said. Commercial permits totaled $42.2 million in 2016. Hennepin County’s hotel occupancy rate was 71.1 percent for the first 11 months of 2017, according to Tennessee-based STR, STR, which tracks the hotel market. No occupancy rate for the Plymouth market is available due to the city’s small sample size, said STR public relations manager Nick Minerd. Page 12 HEALTH CARE Medtronic announces restructuring to trim costs by billions By Katharine Grayson-Senior Reporter, Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal Jan 9, 2018, 11:09am Medtronic announced a restructuring plan on Monday. Ariana Lindquist | Bloomberg Medical-device giant Medtronic announced a multibillion-dollar restructuring program Monday that will impact an undisclosed number of employees. The company discussed its plan at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Monday and unveiled some details in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Medtronic expects the plan to result in more than $3 billion in annual gross savings by the end of its 2022 fiscal year. The restructuring will affect an undisclosed number of employees, but Medtronic's total employee count will hold steady, the company said in an SEC filing. Medtronic has about 9,000 employees in Minnesota and is among the state's largest employers. "The company expects that its overall employee base will remain relatively unchanged, as new jobs are created in new capability areas and resources are deployed to support the company’s growing market needs," Medtronic said in a regulatory filing. Page 13 Medtronic expects to record charges of between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion over a five- year period as a result of the restructuring, which it named "Enterprise Excellence Program." Between 40 and 50 percent of those charges will be tied to employee-related costs, including severance expenses. Medtronic cut an undisclosed number of jobs at its operations in Memphis over the summer, and said in August it would lay off 185 workers in Illinois after closing a distribution center. A company spokesman told MassDevice that Medtronic has more than 4,000 open positions. Medtronic unveiled some of the program's goals — such as improving productivity and integrating manufacturing systems — but few details. "The program is designed to drive operating margin improvement as well as fund investment in strategic growth initiatives," the company said in the regulatory filing. Dublin-based Medtronic's (NYSE: MDT) operational headquarters in Fridley. Page 14 Environment Shingle Creek's cautionary tale for Minnesota's water Kirsti Marohn · Plymouth, Minn. · Jan 10, 2018 A front-end loader sits in front of piles of rock salt, left, and salt mixed with magnesium chloride, right, to be spread on roads at the city of Plymouth maintenance facility last month. Evan Frost | MPR News Fifty Minnesota lakes and streams are now on the state's impaired waters list because of too much chloride, mainly from road salt. Excess chloride has widespread implications — everything from affecting aquatic life reproduction to corroding our infrastructure to health problems for humans. As scientists test more Minnesota lakes and streams, they expect to find more with salty problems. Page 15 Shingle Creek was the first body of water added to the impaired list for too high a chloride concentration. But even 20 years of efforts to curb salt use around the creek haven't made much of a dent in the amount of chloride in the watershed, illustrating the long-lasting damage salt can leave behind. If you've ever driven Interstate 94 in the Twin Cities, you've probably driven over Shingle Creek. It starts in Brooklyn Park and winds southeast to Minneapolis, where it joins the Mississippi River. It drains almost 45 square miles of dense urban area crisscrossed with roads. Lots of roads. Shingle Creek seen in Palmer Lake Park, Brooklyn Center, Minn. Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons 2016 For the past 50 years or so, we've been using a lot of salt on those roads to melt ice and snow. "We've kind of brought this on ourselves a little bit because we have the capability to have very drivable roads in winter," said Ed Matthiesen, an engineer for the Shingle Creek watershed. "The downside is because we can get salt very cheaply and it's one of the things that keeps the roads clear, we tend to apply a lot of it." When chloride from road salt put Shingle Creek on the impaired waters list some 20 years ago, the state required a 71 percent reduction in chloride. Cities in the watershed agreed to do their part. Page 16 Road salt mixed with magnesium chloride lines a street in Plymouth. Evan Frost | MPR News Snowplow driver Steve Forness has been clearing the streets of Plymouth for 10 years, and his job has changed a lot in that time. Now, screens inside the plow's cab give him detailed information about the outside conditions, and what to put on roads to make them safer — whether it's straight salt brine, or a solution with magnesium chloride. But perhaps the biggest change is in Forness himself. Modern traning has made him and other plow drivers more aware of the harmful effects salt can have on the environment. "There are times you have to cheat a little bit just because of the conditions and the weather," he said. "But for the most part it's reduced it and everybody's aware of what they're doing more so than before." Since 2009, Plymouth has cut its salt use by more than half. But the amount of salt in the watershed hasn't gone down much at all. "It's going to take a long time before we're actually going to start to see the level of chloride come down in our water bodies," said Brooke Asleson with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Page 17 She said chloride seeps into the ground — and into shallow groundwater. Depending on the soil, that salt can hang around for a long time. "So there could be chloride from five years ago, 10 years ago that's we're still seeing kind of making its way to our water bodies through kind of subsurface flow," Asleson said. Two plow trucks take to the streets in Plymouth. Evan Frost | MPR News Even if we quit using road salt today, it would take decades for that chloride to be flushed out of the system. And because it takes so long for water bodies to recover, scientists say the best solution is starting now to change old habits — like getting snowplow operators to use less salt. But Forness said getting drivers to change their expectations of dry roads is a tougher battle. "I think there are some that are aware. For the most part no, they just want the roads cleared," he said. "And it is a safety concern because people just don't slow down." This is the third in an occasional series of articles on road salt's effects on the environment as part of The Water Main, our new initiative that aims to bring people together, move conversations forward and create meaningful connections that help sustain clean, abundant water for all. Kirsti Marohn • Reporter in MPR News' Collegeville, Minn. kmarohn@mpr.org • @kirstimarohn Page 18