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HomeMy WebLinkAbout220 E. OLIVE ST. - ADDITION OF PERMITTED USE - APU110001 - MINUTES/NOTES - CORRESPONDENCE-NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGRequest for Addition of Permitted Use This request is for 220 East Olive Street in Fort Collins and the applicant is Olive Street Properties, LLC. The subject property is a 12,162 square foot building at the Northwest corner of Olive and Mathews that includes office space and warehouse space. The property faces a city parking lot to the south and Library Park to the East. Just to the North is a historical apartment building and just to the West is an alley. Prior to the Great Recession the city approved a number of modifications required to make a condominium project feasible on the property. To date the downturn in the Fort Collins real estate market has precluded that project from moving forward. For more than a year the property owner has been promoting the "highest and best" use of the property, which was thought to be office space. Since much of the existing space in the building is windowless and remains cool even in the summer, two prospective tenants have indicated interest operating a microbrewery or microwinery. One of those prospective tenants is a startup microbrewery that will not be able to locate their business in Fort Collins unless a suitable space can be found. At this time we are requesting that a permitted use for this space be added for operation of a microbrewery, microwinery or microdistillery. The specific uses envisioned include manufacturing operations, administrative operations and a tasting room. The tasting room would limit hours to those commensurate with other microbreweries in Fort Collins, like New Belgium and Odell's. While the space is zoned NCB there is very little "neighborhood" in the area. The owner's understanding is that the apartment buildings and few houses that are in close proximity were in existence when previous uses of this property included: 1) use of the alley warehouse to repair vehicles; 2) use of garage bay doors on Olive Street to repair vehicles; 3) use of the southeast corner as a drive -through to pay utility bills; 4) use as office space for the Northern Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization including operation of the SmartTrips and VanGo programs; 5) use as office space by the City of Fort Collins including where the public was instructed to pay parking tickets prior to the construction of its new offices; and 6) use by a software company that regularly brought in customers for training courses. Put in context, since the property does not have any outside land for storage and all materials relating to the microbrewing business would be stored inside the building, the addition of this permitted use will not change the appearance of the neighborhood and is not expected to drive traffic and parking requirements substantially different than previous uses. Addition of microbrewing as a permitted use would bring further vitality and quality jobs to downtown Fort Collins and is compatible with the city's success in building a microbrewing economic base. Attached is a conceptual drawing for the type of renovation envisioned to support a microbrewery business. Thank you for your consideration, Olive Street Properties, LLC Bradley J. Florin a 220 East Olive Street Addition of Permitted Use Fact Sheet August 24, 2011 Property 220 East Olive Street - at the northwest corner of Olive and Mathews, zoned as N-C-B, Neighborhood Conservation Buffer and currently vacant. Development Proposal This meeting is related to the owner's request for the Addition of Permitted Use of light industrial for the purpose of operating a micro -brewery, micro -winery or micro -distillery. Historical Use of the Property 1. Utility office and drive -through for payment of utility bills 2. Vehicle maintenance with 6 drive-in maintenance bays facing Olive Street 3. Vipont research and development facility for toothpaste manufacturing 4. City of Fort Collins office space including where the public was directed to pay parking tickets 5. Office space for Northern Front Range Metropolitan Planning Office from which they operated the SmartTrips and VanGo programs 6. Software company with offices and a customer training center Why is this request being made? The owner of the property has spent more than a year marketing it as office space and has been unable to find a tenant. Since much of the building does not have windows two prospective tenants have indicated interest in operating a micro -brewery or micro -winery there. One of these is a startup company that will not be able to locate in Fort Collins unless they can find a suitable facility here. Allowing the Addition of Permitted Use would create jobs in Fort Collins and is compatible with the city's existing economic base of micro -breweries. What is the expected impact to the neighborhood? Renovation of the existing building will improve the look of the neighborhood substantially — see preliminary concept drawing available for viewing during the meeting. Most business activity would be during the business day when many local apartment residents are gone. There is some expected parking impact from visitors to the tasting room, which would be operated with hours similar to other micro - breweries in the area like Equinox Brewing whose tasting room is open until 9pm. In order to mitigate this impact to parking in the immediate vicinity, the property owner is committed to eliminating the head -in parking and working with the city to create about 10 new public parking spaces on Olive Street. Contact Information Brad Florin, Olive Street Properties LLC, (970) 744-5000 Ted Shepard, City of Fort Collins Current Planning Department, (970) 221-6750 IG IBORHOOD IN �rNiATION IMEETIi s n;tl�n° o ire i° afthis mccclag? ° � Yes I No yesl N° i SHIP R. a C u ,c ,c � P�Na/,✓G //� J�/� Fto 62! n/ oL1v/— t?X-ki�.'r �eaPG�Lrz.cr 4,n( ow x a:tLin- oy �/.( �l eJ4 /5q()%GS LO) a �3 �' ��s zy ✓ ✓� G1,DCQ«nP j oS I I. I II I I 17. Are there plans to improve the building's fagade? a. Not as fancy as for an office space, but we'll keep many historical elements like the stone walls and copper pipes. The sidewalk will be rebuilt and on -street parking spaces improved. 18. What is the capacity of the tasting room? a. Unsure at this point, probably a maximum around 50 with no real patio space. 19. So if this building is not at full occupancy with one tenant, what will happen with the rest of this space? a. The Matthews and Olive corner could be used as office space or for a second brewery. 20. What is the ensuing timeframe if this is approved? a. Restoring the building would take 3-6 months, followed by 2-3 more months with the City's building permit and approval process, so likely a total of 6-12 months before we would go live. 21. What is the parking plan? a. Citizens are encouraged to contact Randy Hensley in Parking Services to look into a residential permit parking system or to look at changing the operation of the nearby monthly permit lot. Bike racks will be added. 22. What about landscaping? a. The current trees on site are already public trees. Other shrubs and rocks will be redone. 3 parking with previous tenants has not been a problem in the past, with the software company having as many as 20 employees/visitors. 7. After an amendment is made, can the closing time of 9 P.M. slip to 10, 11, or even midnight? a. Minor amendments can be made, but a change in operating hours would likely be a major amendment to this addition which would be protected by city process. 8. What about noise and odors? a. The smell will be similar to what you notice around Equinox or Cooper Smith's. The beer brewing process generally only emits a smell for about one hour and the applicant personally does not find it offensive. If wine was the product then the aroma generally lingers for three days, but only inside the building and not outdoors. Visually, all storage will be inside the building so the property will not have an industrial look — even truck loading will occur indoors. It will be clean and inspected by the health department. 9. What will the tasting room look like? a. It will be a normal restaurant experience with tastings lasting between 30 and 60 minutes. On a Saturday we might expect 30 or 40 people coming mostly foot or bike. There will be no food or kitchen service, just drinks. If the tenant is a winery, there will likely be even less traffic though perhaps a few more vehicles (as opposed to bikes) to pick up cases of wine that were ordered. 10. What's the next step? a. This will likely go before the planning and zoning board in October. 11. How long to get everything started? a. It takes about 5 months to get equipment ordered after the addition is approved. 12. Is 5-7 years a bad timeframe for a potential tenant? a. No, one prospective tenant intends to outgrow the building's space in that timeframe. 13. Will the City provide parking, routing, and other mitigation services? a. The applicant and City will likely work together to create more parking by converting the current spaces to angled spaced. 14. So in the future, as a resident I may or may not be able to park in front of my house? a. That's true; right now the building attracts zero parked vehicles whereas in the future, if this is approved, that will certainly increase. 15. Where will the main access be? a. For employees it will be the alley, for the public it will be on Olive Street. 16. What are the plans for potential tenants? a. Perhaps to only use a half or third of the space. Deliveries and loading would be quiet and indoors via the alley. 2 ./ Neighborhood Meeting Summary Project: 220 E. Olive Street — Addition of a Permitted Use Date: August 24, 2011 Applicant: Olive Street Properties, LLC City Planner: Ted Shepard, Chief Planner, City of Fort Collins The meeting began with a description of the development review process followed by a presentation and project overview by the applicant. The applicant is making a request for Addition of Permitted Use for operation of a microbrewery, microwinery, or microdistillery. The 12,162 square foot building is ideal for this purpose because of its lack of windows and year-round cool interior. Former proposals for condominiums and office space are not feasible in the current economic climate. Renovation of this building may very well improve aesthetic appearance in the neighborhood and most of the business activity would be during day -time hours (tasting room). There is some expected parking impact from tasting room patrons, but the impact will not be unlike anything the neighborhood has previously encountered when the property was used for vehicle repair, government office space, and as a location for a software company. The property owner is committed to working with the city to create 10 new public parking spaces on Olive Street to mitigate the impact. Questions, Concerns, Comments 1. Will the alley be upgraded? a. That's a question for the DDA, we don't know. We can follow up after contacting Matt Robenalt. 2. Will both beer and wine be served? a. That depends on the space requirements of a future tenant and whether or not multiple tenants could share the space. 3. Is there any mixed use conflict with office and industrial space? a. No. In fact, we welcome mixed use. 4. Will you go through this application process even without a signed tenant? a. Yes we will. 5. Will this be approved as light industrial or just micro -uses? a. No widgets will be produced here, the addition will only be specifically for micro -uses, and it will stay an N-C-B zone as this is not a rezoning request. 6. Has research been conducted on things like traffic impact? a. The burden is on the applicant to provide necessary information to the planning and zoning board. Conditions may be added to this request by the board to address these concerns. The applicant may improve head -end public parking, which would be an asset to the neighborhood. Employee