Old Orchard Business District Advisory Commission

Old Orchard Special Business District Advisory Commission MEETING MINUTES APPROVED MEETING DATE: Tuesday, May 18, 2017 LOCATION: City Hall CALLED TO ORDER: 8:10 AM MEETING ADJOURNED: 8:50 AM NEXT MEETING: Thursday, June 13, 2017 NAME PRESENT ABSENT Joe Fichter, Chair X Angel Venegoni X Claire Winkler X Mary Jane Armstrong X Steve Scheipeter X Holland Saltsman X Robert Weber X John Barr X Steve Zielinski X Frank Janoski, Council Liaison X Mara Perry, City Liaison X Also in attendance: John Gears – Property Owner, Einstein’s Old Orchard Location Fran Sudekum – Administrative Support APPROVAL OF MINUTES Motion to approve the April minutes as was made by Angel Venegoni, seconded by Mary Jane Armstrong, motion was unanimously approved. VISITOR COMMENTS John Gears owns the building currently housing Einstein Bros. Bagel restaurant. Einstein’s has been a valued tenant since 1995. Mr. Gears received a phone call from Einstein’s District Manager upset with the lack of available customer parking at the Old Orchard location. There are several dedicated parking spots for Einstein’s. Additional spots are in adjacent public parking, but these spots are always filled with day-long students from Nerinx Hall and Webster University construction workers. Einstein customers are “pattern customers” so when they can’t find a spot to park, they go elsewhere. This changes their pattern from the Old Orchard Einstein to some other place and establishes a new pattern that no longer includes the Old Orchard location of Einstein’s. Because of this issue, Einstein’s sales at its Old Orchard location have dropped 7% this year while the five other Einstein locations in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area have increased. Mr. Gears is very concerned, that if the parking issues are not addressed prior to renegotiating Einstein’s lease, they will go elsewhere. PARKING UPDATE • Discussion continued on the status of possible parking solutions for the District: • Priority – Bethesda Strip: o The strip of parking behind the businesses on the north side of Big Bend is currently unrestricted parking. It should be available for the comings and goings of short-term customer parking; however, since they are unrestricted, students and construction workers are taking up all the spaces for day-long parking; thereby negatively impacting the businesses with a lack of customer parking. This strip of parking was originally to be taken over by the City from Bethesda when the development went in. Mara Perry is attempting to work  with the Bethesda’s VP of Properties on this issue. Once the City has control, the parking will be changed to a limit of three hours. Since it is a parking lot, the Traffic Advisory Commission would not be involved; it goes before City Council. Businesses and neighbors would need to be contacted to let them know of the change. o The Bethesda “strip” is a priority. School will be out for the summer soon so parking will be eased for a short period of time. Changing the Bethesda strip to restricted parking needs to take place before school starts in the fall. o Parking Restriction Enforcement: ▪ Inform John Gabriel, President of Nerinx Hall, when the change in parking restrictions takes place. ▪ Employ a part-time traffic officer to monitor and enforce the new restrictions. ▪ Take advantage of Mr. Gabriel’s offer to help pay for a part-time traffic officer. o Bethesda is receiving complaints on lack of parking availability as well; their lot next to the large public parking lot on North Old Orchard Avenue are both always full all-day long parkers. • Webster University/Nerinx Hall Parking Garage: o Conditional occupancy of the new Webster University parking garage is now in force and the construction workers should be parking there now. If Commission members see construction workers parking in other areas of the District, please let Mara know. o Nerinx Hall has 110 spaces in the new garage dedicated to them; however, Commission members are concerned if there is a fee for students to use the new garage, they will continue to use non-restricted free parking spaces in the District. If the Bethesda strip is no longer unrestricted, the concern is unrestricted spaces such as along Frisco, could be the next victim. • Employee & Blue Permit Parking: o Potential additional blue permit parking spaces could be next to Commerce Bank. o Blue permit parking works well for the full-time employees but proves to be cost prohibitive for part-time employees. Perhaps the addition of blue stickers could be added to the permit parking model. o The process to obtain blue permits spaces was put in place many years ago and may not be filling the needs of the current environment. Commission members could propose a change to the process. • 8045 Big Bend Private Parking Lot – Could the City approach the property owner of the former Commerce Bank location on the north side of Big Bend to lease some spots in its parking lot off North Old Orchard to use for District employee parking? • When the parking lot between the DeSoto building and the Quonset Hut is resurfaced, a new striping configuration will be used which will add a few additional parking spaces. STREETSCAPE PHASE II UPDATE Received the federal grant for the streetscape project. The project would occur in fiscal year 2020. The project covers the north side of Big Bend from Murdoch to Dale Avenue and includes new sidewalks, curbs and lighting; all will be ADA compliant. The City’s matching portion will come from capital improvement sales tax. ROOFTOP LIGHTING UPDATE Letters to building owners informing them of the District’s 50/50 rooftop lighting program and whether they’d like to participate will be sent out. NEW BUSINESS Several traffic/road issues impacting the District were brought up by Commission members: • St. Louis County tore up a section of Big Bend at Oakwood some time ago, but no additional work has been completed since. One lane a traffic is closed as a result and is causing major issues during rush-hour traffic. • There are drainage issues on Frisco, possibly MSD related. • MoDOT is working on bridges over I-44 and working their way west. Knowing how negatively the businesses in Old Orchard were impacted when Murdoch was closed to replace the bridge over the Frisco railroad tracks; Commission members are concerned about another potential closure of Murdoch for repairs to the adjacent I- 44 bridge would like to know if and when this might occur. CITY UPDATE • Site plan for Orchard Alley along with two other items is set for review and approval. • Council approved short-term rentals, AirBnB type zoning; includes notification requirements. • Residential zoning amendments are before City Council. • St. Louis County is working on Big Bend from Berry to Gray changing the road to a three-lane configuration and adding fixed turn lanes at Rock Hill. The Crossroads Business District is also working with St. Louis County to change the configuration of Big Bend thru its District. • Rock Hill at Kirkham will close while work takes place to redo the small bridge. • A new planner has been hired; still without a full-time inspector, currently using a temporary part-time inspector. NEXT MEETING • Thursday June 13, 2017 at 8:00 AM – City Hall. ADJOURNED Meeting adjourned at 8:50 AM