Old Webster Business District Advisory Commission

Old Webster Special Business District Advisory Commission MEETING MINUTES APPROVED MEETING DATE: Tuesday, March 22, 2016, 2016 LOCATION: City Hall CALLED TO ORDER: 8:04 AM MEETING ADJOURNED: 9:10 AM NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 NAME PRESENT ABSENT Ron Clipp, Chair X Amanda Payne, Vice Chair X Chris Hite X Joe Rath X Keli Richards X Stacie Swederska. X Morry Cole X Mark Hinkle X Tim Delanty X Gerry Welch, Council Liaison X Mara Perry, City Liaison X Also in attendance: Fran Sudekum – Administrative Support APPROVAL OF MINUTES Motion to approve amended February minutes was made by Joe Rath, seconded by Mark Hinkle, unanimously approved. OLD BUSINESS  District Information Kiosk – A discussion was held regarding a new information kiosk for the District, several ideas and needs were outlined: o A map of the District needs to be included showing streets, parking, the location of City Hall and the Sculpture Garden, as well as businesses. o More than one kiosk could be located in the District. o The information on the kiosk would need to be updated easily, perhaps quarterly or bi- annually. o Keep the information simple; a directory similar to those seen inside shopping malls. o A base map is already available from the City. o Next Step: Stacie Swederska will take some pictures of existing information kiosks and bring examples to the next meeting.  Employee Parking Lot Signage – The lease from the First Congregational Church for the employee parking lot on Gore shows 73 parking spaces allocated to the City with a priority first- right parking given to the church on Sundays and 8 spaces separated and reserved for use by the Church. The current sign says, “employee parking, no overnight parking.” Tim Delanty made a motion to add a second sign with the following verbiage, “Old Webster Parking, Employees Only 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM,” Stacie Swederska seconded the motion, the motion was unanimously approved. Mara Perry will work with the Public Works Department to get the signs done and installed.  Unified Trash Contract – The Commission would like to see if the District could have one trash hauler for the entire district instead of each business contracting trash haulers individually. A unified trash contract would stop multiple trash trucks from many different haulers always in the District on various days as well as potentially getting a much better rate as a group than businesses could get on their own. The business district in the City of Maplewood has done this; Mara Perry spoke with them to see how they accomplished this and passed the information on to the Sustainability Commission. The Old Webster Commission would like to invite the Sustainability Commission to the next meeting.  Sidewalk Sub-Committee – Paul Verheyen (Director of Public Works) asked the sub-committee to put together ideas on what the Commission wants to do with the sidewalks. Paul is asking for a comprehensive design; this will be a large long-term project. There are issues of continuity throughout the entire District as well as future maintenance. Perhaps a landscape/hardscape designer needs to be hired for such a large project. Amanda Payne offered to engage her firm (Farnsworth Group) to work on the design; they would need to know what kind of budget to work with. Amanda will reach out to Bob Polk (Farnsworth Principal) and Mr. Verheyen. The sub- committee will pull together some pictures of possibilities to show to the Commission and bring them to the next meeting.  Business/Landlord Survey Sub-Committee: At the March Commission meeting, Commission Member Keli Richards put forth an idea for a new sub-committee to reach out to businesses and landlords to survey the pros and cons of doing business in Webster Groves in order to identify and quantify issues so they can be addressed and resolved. Tim Delanty suggested tabling this discussion until next month’s meeting as Keli Richards was not at the March Commission meeting. COUNCIL UPDATE  The City is celebrating its 120 year anniversary with birthday cake at City Hall on April 1st at 3:30 PM.  The spring/summer edition of the “explore Webster Groves” mailer produced by the BDC PR Sub- Committee has been sent out; headlining the mailer is “thanks for shopping local” and why it’s important. Copies were available at the meeting.  The Sculpture Park has won a merit award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in a major competition with more than 30 nominations for the award; SWT Design nominated the park.  The BDC is discussing using a “shop local” window cling in the vacant business spaces around the city. The shop local logo secured and paid for by Embroider the Occasion and used on the over-the-street shop local banners would also be used for the window clings.  There are several state bills that could impact the City; one limits fines on nuisance code violations to a one-time fine of $200 (Eric Schmidt of Glendale sponsored this bill); the sales tax redistribution issue is still out there with some recent changes to the proposed bills. CITY UPDATE  The last couple of months have seen an influx of 16 or 17 requests for new business licenses; approvals are in process.  Jimmy John’s is opening in Yorkshire Plaza.  Delve MIY is opening in the former Red Lead location in Old Webster.  The rooftop lighting project is on hold waiting on warmer weather. NEW BUSINESS  The Finance Department would like input from the Commission on the District reserve. Currently, the reserve is in a $47,000 CD with PNC Bank with a low interest rate and the renewal period is coming up. There are restrictions on how the City handles the reserve, but they would like to know if the Commission would like them to look at options to possibly get a higher interest rate, and if so, do they only look at banks in Old Webster or Webster overall? Stacie Swederska made a motion to let the Finance Department find the best rate while keeping the business in Webster Groves, Joe Rath seconded the motion, the motion was unanimously approved.  There is a parking issue on Gore where employees are parking in front of retail store fronts taking up customer parking. They are aware of when the traffic officer is off duty and use that knowledge to avoid getting a ticket. The traffic officer holds a part-time position. The Commission would like to see the officer’s hours increased or start using a shifting schedule to potentially help address this issue. APRIL AGENDA ITEMS  Pictures of Information Kiosks  Pictures of Sidewalk Projects  Unified Trash Contract; Invite Sustainability Commission  Business/Landlord Survey Sub-Committee ADJOURNED Meeting adjourned at 9:10 AM. NEXT MEETING The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 8:00 AM – City Hall. Ron Clipp will not be there so the Vice Chair, Amanda Payne will chair the meeting.