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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPROSPECT PARK PUD - FINAL ..... 2/29/1996 - 21-95A - MINUTES/NOTES - CORRESPONDENCE-NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING'(tea 'Notific=,lor —--- -I / ---- ,'' 23. Will the Payless plaza conflict with the drive-thru lane? RESPONSE: No. 24. Your design would not be my first choice. I strongly encourage you to compromise and seriously consider some of our suggestions. We are trying to work cooperatively and proactively with you as this is the purpose of having neighborhood meetings. I do not think you want our opposition at the P & Z hearing, or at an appeal to Council. - RESPONSE: We will look at your suggestions. I think there are things we can do on the elevations. The plazas may be hard to visualize since we did not do a detail and the area is covered by trees on the site plan. 25. Will the stormwater runoff be pre-treated so that it does not pollute the wetlands? RESPONSE: Yes, we have worked with the Stormwater Utility. They prefer that we construct two water quality ponds at the storm outlets so that solids can settle to the bottom and contaminants be filtered out. We looked at many alternatives but the water quality ponds seem to be best management practice. With these ponds, the wetlands should be protected. 26. The buildings look better than last time. 27. Regarding the street trees versus view preservation, maybe an analysis can be conducted to see what the impacts of the street trees would be. RESPONSE: Our guess is that street trees would block the view since they would be planted so close to the street. 11 RESPONSE: Keep in mind that the stucco band will be the background for signage. The signage will be individual letters, no cabinets. Stucco provides the best, background for high quality signs. Regarding parking, retailers do not like remote parking that is not oriented to an entry. 17. Will there be conflicts with the left -in and Hobbit Street? RESPONSE: Our analysis indicates there will be room for 15 cars in the center left turn lane between Hobbit and the proposed left -in. Based on the volume and frequency of trips anticipated for these two curb cuts, this should be ample room to prevent the interlocking left turn problem where cars going in opposite directions compete for space in the center left turn lane., 18. No matter what you say, I do not like the left -in off Shields. The street is just too busy. 19. The south elevation of the multi -tenant retail building needs work. Service doors with security lights will not provide architectural relief. Please consider columns, pilasters, roof breaks, or anything to enhance this area. RESPONSE: We can look into this, especially on the western half. 20. 1 am concerned that our economy.may not always be booming as it is now. I would be concerned about vacant tenant space like Raintree was for so long. Once we get tenants in there, we need to keep them. 21 Are these buildings subject to the Big Box Standards? RESPONSE: No, those are triggered at 25,000 square feet. 22. 1 was in the retail business in Campus West for ten years. As a shopping center, Campus West is poorly designed. It is not supported by the townspeople, only students. This P.U.D. needs to be more neighborhood -friendly to succeed. You need more pedestrian plazas and amenities. You should provide more plaza space on the south and create an exciting place for people to come to. You should tell your tenants that there has to be a compromise and that the entire orientation and parking cannot be to the north. RESPONSE: Keep in mind that our plazas are not small. There are two of them that measure about 50' x 30'. A lot can be done in this amount of space. 5 RESPONSE: We have provided four-sided buildings. There will be the same amount of brick on all four sides so the south side will not suffer in appearance. We have provided landscaping to screen the loading area. 13. How about providing more plaza seating on the south to take advantage of the open space to the south? The P.U.D. does not seem to recognize the value of the green area to the south. You could take advantage of passive solar with all that southern exposure. RESPONSE: We anticipate that the eastern endcap tenant of the multi -tenant building will provide plaza seating on the east and south elevations. Keep in mind that our retail tenants will need service entries on the south. 14. Will the northern entries be covered and protected? RESPONSE: Yes, the entries will be covered but there will not be an arcade across the entire north elevation. 15. The multi -tenant building should be shifted to the north, provide southern entries, take advantage of the views. Colorado Grill in Park Central (Prospect and Lemay) has a nice relationship to the Spring Creek Trail that is oriented away from the street. This P.U.D. turns its back to the amenity. RESPONSE: Again, I understand what you are saying. Our tenants are telling me they must have a strong orientation to the streets in order to have exposure to the arterial drive -by traffic. Without the visual relationship to the street, with a perception of available parking, it is difficult to attract retailers. 16. If this project were to come through the system a year from now it would be rejected. The City is in the process of adopting new design guidelines for commercial development and this project would fail. The amount of parking along Prospect is excessive and offensive. The buildings should be moved up closer to Prospect for a stronger pedestrian orientation that is more neighborhood friendly. Parking should be more distributed. My feeling is that the stucco sign band is a use of cheap material. This should be upgraded. I support the protection of preserving the views to Long's Peak since we need to have close contact with our natural environment to protect our quality of life. Having said this, however, I understand that you have gained Preliminary approval. In fairness, I do not think you should be forced into a re -design of the P.U.D. But my preference is for the new urbanism, not the layout as shown. 4 8. Where is the Payless wall signage in relation to Shields. RESPONSE: The wall signage would be about six feet above Shields. 9. Will the view of Long's Peak be blocked by Payless? RESPONSE: Based on citizen input, we have pulled Payless back from Prospect and located the multi -tenant building as far west as possible to preserve the view of Long's Peak from the intersection. We have intentionally not placed any street trees along Prospect for a distance of about 300 feet as measured from the intersection. This should preserve the view. 10. 1 am concerned that the P.U.D. looks too much like Raintree Shopping Center with the buildings pulled way back from the street and all the parking located between street and building. This is a typical "auto -dominated" layout that would probably score a negative five on the Visual Preference Survey. The P.U.D. contains no "new urbanism" like pulling the buildings up to the street with imaginative store fronts and putting the parking in the rear. It looks like a continuation of the South College Avenue strip. Based on our advice from Peter Calthorpe, this project is too auto -dominated and lacks pedestrian amenities. I am disappointed that as a City, we are all working very hard to discourage this type of development. RESPONSE: We talked quite a bit about new urbanism at the Preliminary and during the previous neighborhood meetings. Our concern is that the neighborhood itself is not a new urbanism area and that customers will still need vehicular access. Our retail tenants tell us that a certain amount of parking, in front of the stores, is critical to success. We have provided an eight foot wide pedestrian path along the entire south property line to facilitate bikes and pedestrian. We have provided two plazas that can be used for pedestrian spaces. The Preliminary P.U.D. was approved based on this basic layout. 11. 1 must also comment that the east elevation of the Payless building looks stark. This elevation needs work. How about an entrance on the east or south elevation? RESPONSE: It will be difficult. The east elevation could probably be enhanced architecturally but an entrance would not work for Payless. The south elevation is the service area. There is no parking on the south since the building was pulled back from intersection. 12. You seem to be disregarding the view of the center as one comes up from the south having been on the Spring Creek Trail. This will be a popular approach for Hill Pond residents as well as other residents to the south. 3 RESPONSE FROM MS. REID: Yes, there is a cost to add a bus. Mr. Spiess has not determined whether the new route can be accommodated within the existing budget or will require additional funding. The Fall routing has not been worked out yet. RESPONSE FROM MR. SHEPARD: Without knowing whether there is an added cost, it may be difficult to assess this impact onto the developer. There is no precedence of assessing a developer to pay for bussing students. 3. Having a large bussed -in population is one of the arguments for converting Irish Elementary from a traditional neighborhood school into the Washington Core Knowledge School. Will adding a seventh bus place Bennett at risk for being considered a location for WCKS? RESPONSE FROM MS. REID: Yes, both Irish and Bennett are being considered but safety is a more important concern. 4. As a neighborhood, we support the neighborhood school concept and would oppose Bennett becoming the WCKS. If this development places our neighborhood school at risk, then we are opposed any mitigation measure that adds bussing and thus places Bennett at risk as a neighborhood school. RESPONSE FROM MS. REID: As principal, I am not opposed to this development. This property will likely develop as a commercial property eventually as an in -fill project. My concern is safety. The decision on where WCKS will be this Fall must be made fairly soon, and probably before this commercial project becomes a reality. 5. The Shields Street elevation for Payless needs work. It looks like a blank wall. More detail is needed. The condition of Preliminary is that this elevation should feature architectural details. RESPONSE: We will ask the architect to add details to this elevation. 6. Will the site have to be raised? RESPONSE: Yes, in the area of the front of the Payless building, the site will have to be raised. The site will still be below street level. Incidentally, the raising will allow us to provide a sidewalk connection from Shields directly to the front entry of Payless. Before, we did not think we could do this. 7. What is the relationship of Payless to Shields in terms of grade? RESPONSE: The building floor elevation will be about five to six feet below Shields. The site is presently about 10 feet below Shields now. 2 NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING MINUTES PROJECT: Prospect Park Final P.U.D. DATE: February 29, 1996 APPLICANT: Mr. Tim Sittema and Mr. Ed Mullaney CONSULTANTS: Linda Ripley, Ripley and Associates Ruth Clear, Traffic Engineer PLANNER: Ted Shepard, Senior Planner The meeting began with a description of the changes made since approval of the Preliminary P.U.D. (June, 1995) and since submittal of the Final P.U.D. (January, 1996). The amount of retail square footage has been reduced from 60,300 to 41,500 square feet. The architecture now features a pitched roof with eight feet of brick on the wall section. A left -in only from northbound Shields is provided. All responses are from the applicant or consultants unless otherwise noted. QUESTIONS, CONCERNS, COMMENTS 1. At Preliminary, there was a concern that the left -in from Shields would create an additional street crossing for kids walking to Bennett School from south of the site. What safety measures have been taken to address this? RESPONSE: Both the City and the consulting team have been in contact with the principal from Bennett, Ms. Sue Reid, regarding this issue. Ms. Reid is available to address this issue. RESPONSE FROM MS. REID: Safety is our primary concern. Based on the amount of traffic at the Prospect/Shields intersection and the development potential of this particular site, we are investigating adding a new bus route for the Bennett attendance area that is south of Prospect Road. This would be our seventh bus and would make our school almost entirely a bussed -in attendance area. The two crossing guards at the intersection would still be provided. Ron Spiess, Poudre School District Transpiration Director, has been informed and agrees to look into adding a route for Fall of 1996, if the project becomes a reality. 2. Is there a cost to add a bus? Can we make the developer pay for this cost based on the impact of the project? 1