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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Meeting - Council Workshop - Minutes - 03/07/2000 COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES MARCH 7, 2000 COMMITTE MEMBERS PRESENT: President Leona Orr, Sandy Amodt, Tom Brotherton, Tim Clark, Connie Epperly, Judy Woods, Rico Yingling STAFF PRESENT: Dena Laurent, Brent McFall, Kevin O'Neill, Don Wickstrom, Joe Mitchell, Linda Phillips, Lori Flem, Jacki Skaught, Fred Satterstrom, John Hodgson,Jim Harris, Chris Miller, Marty Mulholland, John Hodgson, Tim LaPorte, May Miller, Sacha DesJardine, Chris Coughman, Dan Meeker, Dea Drake, Roger Lubovich, Jackie Bicknell PUBLIC PRESENT: Kurt Jacobsen, Kathryn Schwarz, Val Batey, Pat Curran, Carol Vass, Linda Johnson The workshop began at 5:03 PM. Develoyine a City Brand Jacki Skaught, Economic Development Manager—As you all know, Kent is a growing and prosperous city. It becomes more and more important that we develop our own identity and that we manage that identity to our benefit. To do that we decided that we needed to go through a process that included community involvement, both business people and community residents, in the process of developing our own brand. So we brought together a group of people: Carol Vass, Kent's Arts Commission; Patricia Loveall, Kidder Mathews Segner; Andy Wangstad, Sir Speedy Printing; Kathy • Madison, Best Western at Golf Course; Cindy Reishu, Continental Mills; Denis Law, Puget Sound Publishing/Kent Reporter; Dena Laurent,Govemment Affairs Manager; Gary Gill, City Engineer; Dea Drake, Multimedia Manager, Heath Fugate, Multimedia; Lori Flemm,Parks Planning/Development Superintendent; Linda Phillips, Planner; Jacki Skaught, Economic Development Manager. This group worked through a process to arrive at what you will be seeing and hearing about this evening. To present that to you,Denis Law is going to walk you through part of it and then Kurt Jacobsen from JayRay Consultants, who was sort of our shepherd and led us through, and Carol Vass will cover the content of our report. Denis Law—What I'd like to comment on is that I thought it was a very fruitful exercise. We got together and had the opportunity to discuss a lot of the things that businesses do on a routine basis— that is do a self-analysis of what's good about your company, how can you improve it,what do people think of it, how can you change that perception, and that sort of thing. So through that process we had the opportunity to sit down and just discuss what Kent means to each of us and when you hear the name Kent what comes to mind? We talked in great length about the fact that there are a lot of perceptions, some of them brought on by the former"Almost Live", some from the realities of life. A lot of them aren't based on any kind of fact. I think part of the goal was to try to identify what the attributes are for Kent, what Kent can offer and does offer on a regular basis, how that can be marketed to the public at large and to the people who live and work here, as well. Through that we had a lot of discussions about the types of things that came to mind. I enjoyed the process because I • was coming from the outside. Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 2 When I started my company in Renton, my initial plan was to do exactly what we have done and that • is to produce a community newspaper in Kent, then in Auburn, after I got going in Renton. Things were moving along,but I had no contacts really in Kent and my perception was there wasn't a sense of community that existed here. I didn't know anything about the school district. My vision of downtown was Central because you have to drive on Central to get to the racetrack, or whatever the case may be, and so I really didn't know anything about Kent. I knew there were lots of apartments. I assumed that there was lots of crime. I knew there was horrendous traffic problems. So, if somebody would ask me what I thought of Kent,those would have been the first things that would have come to mind when I'd talk about it. When it was time for us to expand our business, I truly considered going to Auburn first to start a newspaper there because, for some reason, and I don't have any concrete data to explain why I felt this way, I thought there was more of a sense of community in Auburn. In my business, the ability to have a cohesive community and a real sense of community is very important. So, through the due diligence of deciding where I was going to expand, I had the opportunity to meet people in Kent and I got the chance to drive around and see there are parks. When I went to the downtown area, I was jealous. In Renton we really have nothing to look at and downtown Kent had come a long ways since the last time I was down here. When I had the chance to meet Brent(McFall) and Mayor White and some of the council members and other department heads in the city, I realized it was a tremendous city. This is really a well run, well-greased organization. The school district was tremendous. I got involved with the superintendent and other people and was very impressed with what was going on. I, too, was really surprised that Kent School District was the 4th largest in the state. I was able to determine there clearly was a strong sense of community here. There were a lot of attributes. There were a lot of things that Renton wanted to achieve that Kent had already completed. Renton is going through a marketing image campaign to try and sell the things that they have to offer. But I think that what was missing, and what fueled my perception, was the fact that I didn't have any facts to change the attitude that I had. I think this process offered the opportunity to sit down and collectively put on the board all of the gold stars that Kent has to offer. To try to come up with a way to improve on the image and develop some way to communicate with people who live and work here and to educate people outside of the community on what Kent has to offer. I think, in a nutshell, that they have collectively come up with something that looks very, very good. I feel very strongly that it's very important for people who live and work in a community to feel proud of that community. Oftentimes, even if you live and work in it, you go down this same path to work every day and you don't realize all of the things that you have right at your fingertips. You don't realize, unless you're utilizing those resources on a regular basis, what amenities that are available. I think it's very important for people to feel really good and feel proud about the services that their tax dollars are going to. That they have a city that is user friendly that cares about the services that they are providing to the people. I think more than ever now that's very important. People need to understand that the city isn't just primed to collect taxes and quietly spend it wherever they want to spend it. They really are conscientiously behind the scene trying to provide the best possible service and people don't see that. They see their tax bill. From the region at large, I think it's important from an economic development standpoint, that everybody is trying to scramble to get quality businesses that provide quality jobs and provide a stronger tax base so that the people who reside in the community don't have to pay the whole tab. • There are three areas from a marketing point of view that we concentrated on. That was, trying to establish a position- What's Kent's position? - In other words, Renton's position is that"They are ahead of the curve". What does that mean? It could mean almost anything,but they feel that they Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 3 are progressive. That they are user friendly to developers. That it's a great place to live and work and so they felt that the notion of Renton"Ahead of the Curve"encapsulated what it is they are trying to do. By using that brand, it would fit in with all the different things that they are doing to market themselves and to try to attract new businesses and employers to the region. After a lot of deliberation and discussion about the multitude of things that we believe are the pluses of Kent, Connecting for Success was a tag line that we thought was all inclusive for what happens here in Kent. It involves the international trade that goes on here, the collaboration between government, the community, school district, and the business community. We thought that if you're coming up with a tag line, that you could explain even on a department letterhead, that we're Connecting for Success so it applies in almost any kind of application you want to use. Promises. There are a lot of promises that city government and other institutions are making on a regular basis and it was important to come up with something that was not only believable but something you were going to follow through with. Maybe this is a little bit safe and ambiguous but the line, "Kent will help you succeed"again fits in with a lot of things that are going on. Personality. The notion with personality is you want to develop something that people can visualize, adopt and believe in, and we came up with the idea or maybe the summation that "Kent is embracing, vital, and energized". We broke down all the positive elements that probably ran six or eight large sheets of data, into those three categories Councilmember Tom Brotherton—I have the concern that the phrases, so far, imply potential and not achievement. Not that it's not already there. And brands are important. Every one knows what Coca-Cola does. They produce big products but no one would ever buy a police car from them. The brand becomes you and it associates with you, and as you say here, you're going to be stuck with that brand for a long, long time. Do we always want to be regarded as having potential? Denis Law—That's true. I don't think that you're going to want to run a logo that says Kent will help you to succeed, although there will be some applications in which that probably applies and it will have a lot more meaning in that particular use. I think it depends on the applications of certain phrases and brands that are ultimately important, but right now there's nothing. I think that the three important elements are that it is believable, truthful, honest, and you could back it up with something if somebody were to challenge it, like you just did. Jacki Skaught—Our brand, Connecting for Success, infers continual progress. We know that we connect with others for success but the world doesn't think of us that way. You could use the words We're a Helpful City, We're a Partnering City. I think the group, as a whole, felt that by using the phrase, Connecting for Success, we not only referred to potential, that we will always be doing it, we've been doing it,we're doing it today, but that we will continue to do it and I hope that by potential, that's progress. We're not ever going to just stop and say, we're there—this is what we are and just stop. This is meant to be moving and going forward, not to be finite. It may change because another phrase comes to mind that more accurately depicts where we're at in another point in time, but the image of Kent as a city that helps people to succeed,both with business and personally,has a very long life span and one that we would, hopefully,be reinforcing for a long time to come. Consultant Kurt Jacobson—We've never done work with the city,but we've done this branding process with all sorts of companies before and some non profits like United Way and Regence Blue Shield on the commercial side. We look at a brand, kind of what you stand for, and when you add all this up, it is something that you want to really start sinking in, in one or two years,because it takes Council Workshop Minutes,3nloo 4 time to build up. When you have really good economic development prospects, people that you want downtown and so forth, in about a year or so this is starting to become very real— that you're connecting them to make them successful here and you're connecting people within the community to be successful, whether its raising families, enjoying recreation, or whatever. One of the things that I really wanted to mention is that we have the luxury of being outsiders. We have an office in Seattle and one in Tacoma, and it was a real eye opener coming to Kent. I've got to say that all of the elements that are here, about connecting for success and the personality, are very true. I was startled about the community image group in the city's desire to collaborate on things. I hear all the time that this is going on. Wasn't there a young child that got a program going for the homeless? The fire department was in, and it was on television, and these are true reflections of how Kent connects people for success. How you do it with regional planning and so forth and the fact that the school district was the only school district sponsor of a major technology future classroom deal. There is Kent,right up there along with big corporations. So, this is all really very true. There is real strengths in brands. One of the reasons we'll talk brand, and I know the concept of marketing in cities seems a little weird, is that brands really help people, and so if we have a good economic development prospect, it's a real shortcut to know what you stand for. You don't have to explain for two hours what's good about Kent, if you do it right. Then, send enough messages to the news media, use themes and the logos and the marketing materials and it adds up to connecting people for success. When you walk in and say we've got some great opportunities in downtown Kent, they get it right away. How are you going to help make that work,because you say you're going to help connect us to the right people to make this work? One of the things I want to say is that this is probably one of the truer brand opportunities we've had to work on. • Government Affairs Manager Dena Laurent—The way that we've been talking about this is as an economic development theme. We have talked for a long time in the cities about how we don't do a very good job of telling our story. So the theme and the messages work, not only for what we're trying to do in economic development but also for what we're trying to do as municipal government in connecting with our community. Carol Vass, Arts Commission—It was a very good process to go through. There were a variety of business people. I'm probably the only retired person on this image group. Literally everybody who lived and worked and were business people were strong proponents of the business aspects of Kent but also the family and schools. All these fed into this phrase we came up with, Connections. There really are very, very strong connections. One of the things that Kurt recommended that we think about was the image of our communications as a city. The city communicates all over the place with all of the publications and everything and it's all kind of spotty. The Arts Commission has its logo, and the parks department has theirs, and then there's the very traditional Kent Invicta log. Kent has changed and it's going to continue to change. We went through a whole kind of professional graphic arts design process of coming up with this logo and its quite wonderful. There's some tweaking to still do to it with colors and letters but it's a real dynamic change. It reflects the change within our little city. It reflects the connectivity of the city. Some people can even kind of honor the horse because that seems to be a horses tail. There are people that value that tradition. It could be a road, house,business, mountain, and river. You can just go endlessly into these subtle little distinctions. But this is quite a wonderful design and it reflects in an abstract way, Connecting for Success. I think • you would be wise to adopt it and use it in all of your communications. It's a very fine design and it's a very strong dynamic design. If you took this little piece right here and put it on that board with Nalley, Diet Coke, and apple computer, if you put the old Kent logo Council Workshop Minutes,3nloo 5 there and you put this one over there you would see this one. May not know what it is,but you would see it. It would not be a blob like that City of Puyallup or that City of Tacoma. It would stand out. Dena Laurent—We want to come up with a common pallet, so just today we were talking about the values of green and blue. We started thinking that it looks an awful lot like Federal Way. We're still working with these colors to find colors that will work with some things that we already have in place, but that we can use in a standardized way throughout the city. We're sure open to your feedback on colors. Multi Media Manager Dea Drake—It can change over time as well. The image is strong enough, even if we change the color tile or modernize it, it can change. What is really nice about this logo is that it is so strong. This logo is extremely strong in black. It's vibrant. And an important part of the graphics process was to make sure that this logo could be used in a single color by itself and it would still hold up. Some of our earlier ones were wonderful in color but when you got them into this black they didn't do well. Dena Laurent—There are two really important points. One, if we really want to capitalize on the power of this branding, then the branding has to connect with a visual. If you hear words that don't match pictures, you just look at the pictures. So if we look at the old logo and the new themes I wonder if we lose the opportunity to really capitalize on new themes. Second, the logo development was done in partnership with our consulting firm designers and with our own designers, so there was a lot of talent brought to the table but we didn't just let the designers go nuts. We got down to 8 logos and we tested them with more than 30 people inside and outside the city, including people who • don't even know Kent on the map, to see how true both these messages were and to see how true the logo was and how people reacted. One of the challenges we have in the way people react to the current logo is,what is that? Is that a horse? And we heard this in the communication survey several years ago. Is it a horse? Is it a unicorn? And further, its use inside the city varies significantly. You've seen it in lots of different colors. Sometimes the horse is this way and sometimes the horse is that way. So going to a new image gives us an opportunity to standardize that look. My piece of this story was to tell you that if this is something that you feel good about, our work has really just begun. The fun part is now over and everything is implementation. You can make up nifty stuff but really our work will now begin with the city organization. How do we infuse those messages into everything that we do, everything that we write, and how do we use this logo to unify these ten subsidiary businesses that we run called the local government? 7acki Skaught—The only decision we've made for sure about implementation is that it will be phased in. We're not going to go through everybody's office and throw out everything with the old logo and spend money. Recognizing that there isn't money to throw away,people will use up their letterhead and then the reprint will be with the new look. We'll just phase it in. The Gateways Project that is going on will incorporate it in other things. It will be a gradual process. Councilmember Tim Clark—My concern is, as we make the switch from the old to the new, the strong basic colors are more identifiable from a distance. One of my concerns is the multiple colors, • such as the one on the right,because the report says that the city vehicles are the easiest way to get the advertising out in front of people. The different color tones do make it harder to recognize unless Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 6 it is stationary where you can actually focus on it. There is a distinct advantage in going to the far . left in shades of blue, as such. Dena Laurent—Point well taken. I think that's exactly the implementation issue I was speaking to. We have to decide what parts of the palette work really well for specific applications,knowing that as we meet with different departments, they will also have specific needs and we will need to work with them to achieve that. Council President Leona Orr—The only thing I would make a comment on is that I am with Judy. Although I didn't dislike the horse, I like this very much. I'm not an artist or any professional of any kind or anything else, but looking at Connecting for Success is truly how we have worked in Kent, how we have done business in Kent and how I hope we will always do business in Kent. I think we have that reputation. It has been there and will continue to be there. When I see three different colors, the red dot sort of disconnects it for me. For me, that sort says the solid color one is kind of flowing. I could see it if the red dot were changed to a greenish tone or a bluish tone depending on which one of those I'm looking at, or even it were a little different, darker or lighter, at least it's kind of all in the same range. The red to me sort of blows it up. This is the first time I've seen it. Dena Laurent—Tell us what you think in a couple of days,too. The red, for many of us,meant Kent is a destination. We are on the map. Carol Vass—And we saw it as sort of a point where things come together. Dena Laurent—It does draw attention to the lettering. Councilmember Sandy Amodt—Did you try black with a red dot? Black is very striking. When I walked in the room that was the first one that came out. I don't know what black represents to everyone, but to me it represents powerful, determined, and strong. Nothing negative. To me it's stability. The two tones are very nice, but as Leona said it kind of disconnects you as you look at it. You have the two different colors. Did you try dark blue with the red dot? Dena Laurent—I think we've tried everything. We're not done with the color palette and I know many of our designers are here to hear your ideas. Councilmember Judy Woods—When do we see it again? Jacki Skaught—We started out to give each of you your business cards tonight. Dena Laurent—In terms of implementation, as we finalize the color palette and you all have a positive reaction to this, I think immediately,beginning late in April, we can begin to us this on our city newsletter masthead that appears in the Kent Reporter, on our television station and our website, and then we will start to work on getting the applications right for all of the other uses. Sandy Amodt—Have you reviewed the cost of changing over the vehicles? Dena Lauent—We haven't gone there yet. That is part of the implementation and part of the importance of saying to you there isn't extra money and we will be doing this very thoughtfully. We buy a lot of cars a year so with some phasing on the new cars,we think we can get there in a relatively short period of time without a lot of cost. Brent McFall—I think the only thing we need from you is, if you collectively were of a mind to say no, then its back to the drawing board. But if you like what you see, and you want us to go ahead and put things in final form, I think we can take that from tonight and move ahead. . Leona Orr—Is there anyone that doesn't want them to continue on and bring us back a more finished product? Rico Yingling— I like the red dot. To me it does say connection, that's connecting these two things. But the other thing is I want to know what you're going to do with this with the promise Council Workshop Minutes, 3/7/00 7 and this tag line. Jacki Skaught - We screened the phrase Connected for Success on the bottom of the • letterhead. That's one way. Rico Yingling—I don't mean that. I want to know how you're going to ensure that Kent will help you succeed. What you're going to do with that promise and not where you are going to publish it. If we're going to have a promise that Kent's going to help us succeed, then we need to do that. Director of Operations Brent McFall—To begin with, that's the kind of thing that gets incorporated into the mission statement that Dena is heading up a task force to work on and to bring back to you. That's the kind of thing that gets incorporated into our values/philosophy that we talk about with our staff—in our training—and it becomes not only a tag line publicly, but it becomes a tag line internally. We'll train against that. We'll evaluate against that and really incorporate that into our business philosophy and values. And that's how you have to make it work, otherwise its just a line out there. It doesn't mean anything. Councilmember Rico Yingling—And it's a very powerful one. I mean, Kent will help you succeed. Let's work with Kent. Jacki Skaught—That's the reaction we're looking for. From my perspective, I want them to want to work with us and connect with us and connect here. Kurt Jacobson—The reason it's so powerful partly is that talks to one person. If that one person wants something from Kent or needs some help, it's really one on one. Cities never talk one on one. This is so personal. If I came in and I saw the theme and I wanted to do something here with an arts organization or get something started, that means Kent's talking to me and is going to help me do it some way or another. They are going to care and help make it happen. Tom Brotherton—The people who came here,represented us and talked about the unity, is this a • consensus of what all the customers really felt, they came together on this and said this is the right way, or were there minority opinions? Carol Vass—That's exactly what happened. Jacki Skaught— It was an amazing process. Carol Vass—Everybody knew each other, except maybe the city employees. But,the outside people, that's exactly what happened. It was a consensus over several meetings of really thoughtful work. Denis Law— Including interviews with a bunch of people in our part of Kent that might move here or bring businesses here. Downtown Projects Update Jacki Skaught—Kind of a spin-off or an extension of what we've just talked about—developing a brand and a set of key messages in a new image—is part of presenting a positive image of Kent, and developing a vital and active city center is another. Attractive well-developed facilities downtown facilitates economic development and at the same time builds that sense of a connected community that we've just talked about. Tim LaPorte is going to talk about downtown street sidewalk improvement, Lori Flemm will talk about the Gateways Project, and Val Batey from Sound Transit will talk about the Commuter Rail Station Area Study, John Hodgson will talk about the Performing Arts Center. Design Engineer Manager Tim LaPorte—These are maps of the planned downtown sidewalk improvements for this year. I might note that this year's project is rather extensive. It includes all of 41h Avenue from Harrison down to Willis Street. Essentially,what drives the Downtown Sidewalk Replacement Project is liability. We have a lot of trip and fall accidents on the cracked sidewalks. In addition to improving the image of cracked sidewalks and curb and gutters, we will also be overlaying the street which tends to clean things up,pull it all together and make it operate a lot smoother. There are also some drainage problems that will be addressed, especially right out in front of City Hall here on 4`h Avenue. In addition to 4`h Avenue, you'll notice where the Kent Market is, Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 8 we will be upgrading Railroad Avenue significantly, also Meeker Street, and Central Avenue on the • west side between Meeker and Smith. These projects, I used to think five years ago when we started the first one, they would be simple. I've since changed my mind completely. Compared to our corridor project they are also very difficult. But we've worked very hard at building consensus with the Downtown Partnership and bringing everything all together. Tom Brotherton—Are there still plans to go ahead with the all cross intersection down Smith and 4`h? Tim LaPorte—Smith and 4`h, we did look at the traffic for that project and essentially we can't make any improvements in that operation the way it is right now. This project is overlaying 4`h to Smith but we're not changing the pit operation. Brent McFall—I think, Tom, that is another project and whether or not it even is feasible really needs a lot more work. Parks Planning and Development Superintendent Lori Flemm—If you look at the map Tim just gave you, all the gateways are indicated by a square with a"G"in it. There is one gateway that's located off this map and that's at the corner of 4`h and James. The Gateway Improvements include intersection and crosswalk improvements with pedestrian scale lighting at key intersections in the downtown area. The gateway intersections are 4`h and James and 4`h and Willis. All the others on 4`h and Central are the key intersections that we've identified. Pedestrian scale lighting at those intersections. Rico Yingling—What does that mean? Lori Flemm—Light, instead of having those "cobra heads"up on top of the pole,we're going to have lights that are lower on the pole,possibly eight to ten feet above the elevation of the sidewalk. It will provide more light for pedestrians. Give you a feeling of safety. If you walk in the sidewalks now at nighttime you'll go through a lot of light, dark, light, dark, and this will add more light eventually. iRight now we're just doing the intersections. Judy Woods—But the idea is to do all the lighting, over time? Lori Flemm—What we're hoping to do is select a light pole or standard and signs, so that as we add, and as Tim does more sidewalk replacement projects, everything will be the same. The portals are at I-167 overpasses. Directional signs identify how people get to the Regional Justice Center, City Hall, Police Station, and Library. Because our gateway center overlapped with Tim's sidewalk replacement, we're working together and we're going to put the project out as one bid. We hope to get it out to bid with construction starting right after Cornucopia and ending by Halloween. What we're looking at doing, in the crosswalk pattern, is keeping the same concrete scoring pattern and running the concrete through the street. So for the pedestrians, it'll appear as though they're still on the sidewalk as they cross the street. Now where we have mastic on the crosswalk, it will be concrete. In the center of the square formed at the intersections, where Tim's overlaying with two inches of asphalt resurfacing,we're going to use a product called glassfalt. It's recycled glass, where you use about 20% of glass instead of the aggregate, and the effect that you have is that it sparkles. So the center of the intersection, if it's sunny out or nighttime, it picks up a sparkle from the light and it's real attractive. It makes use of recycled materials, which we're hoping to promote, and it bears traffic well. We're looking at that product to kind of spruce up the downtown area and call more attention to the intersections. We haven't selected a light fixture yet but we're looking at the logo and trying to work those into the gateways and the light fixtures. We want our own unique identity. Val Batey, Project Manager for Sound Transit Commuter Rail Station—This is the site plan of Phase . I, which is under construction today, and the site plan of Phase II that we hope will be under construction at the end of the year. We've completed the demolition of the Burdick Feed Mill and Burdick Retail outlet, and are filling in the holes so they don't become rainwater collectors. We hope Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 9 to be under construction very soon. That's our basic station, so that we can begin service to the Kent . Station along with other stations in the valley. Our startup date is scheduled for September 18`h, 2000 with three round trips a day for our initial startup, and ramping up over the next year and a half to nine round trips a day. This phase provides us with about 300 parking spaces for the initial startup phase. When we go into Phase II we will be building the parking garage, as you know, and that will have at least 680 parking stalls in it, possibly more. We will be actually surplusing one of our parking lots at the northeast corner of Smith and Railroad. Then,the parking lot that is going to be at the northwest corner of Smith and Railroad will be designed to be a plaza, which will provide the connection between the station area and the city's parks and the downtown core. So that's going to be a really important design process in the Phase II design. The parking garage we plan to do through a design build process. We plan to go out for bids this summer to get that built quickly and cost effectively. Some of the other things that will be part of the Phase II, will be building 2"d Avenue from Smith Street up to the extension of Temperance and also completing Temperance Street between I"and 2nd Avenues. So,we will have a whole system of streets around the parking garage there. Part of the Phase II design will also include a pedestrian bridge, which will connect the parking garage to both the commuter rail platforms with elevators and stairs. It will make it possible for people to cross from one platform to another without crossing the tracks, as well as to access the platforms from the garage easily. I wanted to congratulate the City of Kent in their successful bid for grant funding for that pedestrian bridge. It was money that Sound Transit could not compete for in this grant process. The City of Kent put together a grant application and was successful in getting the money that I think will take care of the design and construction of that piece of the station. That's a nice demonstration of the partnership between Sound Transit and the City of Kent. Dena Laurent—There's that Connecting for Success. Brent McFall - Val is being very kind. Sound Transit did the legwork and we put our name on it. Tom Brotherton—One of the things that we talked about in the long distance task,was perhaps some retail space in the parking garage. One of the attractive ideas that was bandied about was the possibility of putting some day care connecting with the train station. I know the city has to clear a federal grant and a lot of kudos for having that sort of facility associated with their train station. Any plans for the future that might indicate something like that, or do you know any possibilities that we could help pursue in that area? Val Batey- One of the things that, through the technical advisory committee that's been assisting us through the design process for the station and for the garage, was we came to a point where we decided that for cost effectiveness we were not going to achieve what we needed by including the retail space in the actual garage structure. Because of the property that Sound Transit has acquired for the garage location, we have an opportunity to leave a path for future development for commercial space or for something like a day care facility. So we have the potential there. We have done some real preliminary market analysis looking at what would be the demand for that type of use there. It hasn't looked really great,but we feel like we have the flexibility there. We have the potential there that, if that demand was to become a reality, we could accommodate it there. We have quite a bit of space set aside that could be developed for commercial and it happens to be located on the west side of the garage, which we think is a great location for future commercial development. It could be supported also by the performing arts center across the street, so we think there are some dynamic possibilities there. Brent McFall - One of the things that Val has touched on that has been a beneficial result of this process as we originally looked at having some retail spaces, they were on Smith Street facing Smith Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 10 and one of the things we finally came around to, and I think Linda Johnson is adamant in pointing this out, is that they were going to stand-alone and would not be successful. I think that as design has progressed,just leaving the space, the path for that, on 2nd Avenue facing the performing arts center, adjacent to what might be future redevelopment, the Borden property is a much more potentially profitable site. Parks Director John Hodgson—I'd like to update you on a couple of things that are happening with the civic and performing arts center. As you are aware, they are going through their private funding campaign right now. The steering committee has been selected. They're making a number of calls and it's kind of the quiet time. They're approaching the major contributors and you're not going to hear a lot for a while, but that is happening and they're having some successes. The board pledging was just outstanding and we're very encouraged by that. A few of the people on the performing arts center board and the city are meeting with the Sound Transit Technical Committee as it relates to the garage to figure out where exactly are we going to place this thing on the property across the street of 2nd—one of the challenges we're facing as we get ready for schematic (and we're probably a month or two away from getting into schematic) where we really finally design the building. What you see here is a general idea of what it would look like. The picture on the front page is as if you were standing at the library looking across the street. The second page shows you a little bit more of where it would sit and the lay out. What will probably happen is that we'll move a little bit further north because, more than likely, there'll be a turn pocket on Smith. As a result of that, we have to push that a little further north and also, to get on the property that we own, we need to do that. The challenge that we have is where's the front door? Is the front door on 4th? Is it on 2nd facing the garage? Or is it facing Borden? And that's going to be a real challenge for the architects to figure out. Today Smith is the perfect front door. It could be that if Borden develops the way we think it might develop, that's the front door. Also the fact that Smith is such a heavily used corridor, we want to make sure that when you're on Smith, when you look at that facility, you see activity. You see people walking through the lobby and it says, get out of the car. Go in there and see what's happening. Probably in the next six to eight weeks we'll enter into schematic design with the architect,paid for by pledges made by the citizens. Senior Planner Linda Phillips(passed out handouts)—Includes a brief summary of the process. The second page talks about the market analysis. The project is proceeding pretty much as we planned. We received the funding. The Planning Department asked for some money to do some proactive planning. Since we are going to have a commuter rail station, since there were some actions in the Downtown Strategic Action Plan that we could work through and work out in detail by doing some transit oriented development analysis. That started with an update of the market analysis and I think you are familiar with the earlier ones and this is based on the earlier one. It does verify that all of the assumptions made in the earlier ones are accurate. There's growth, population over what the projections were previously, that economy is generally doing well and the uses that were projected by that are still valid. The next sheet that you have in your packet is some work that was done by Michael Hubner in the Planning Department GIS that identifies vacant and redevelopable sites and gives you a good analysis on the 2n page of just how much property there is. It appears to be possibly available for redevelopment. There could be even more,depending on the market, if a developer is willing to buy property. • Rico Yingling—What does "vacant in a commercial zone"mean? Linda Phillips—That's the amount of vacant space in a commercial zone. If you're finding something that you don't agree with, we'll Council Workshop Minutes, 3/7/00 11 work on it. Rico Yingling—It looks like the Borden property there has red and pink in it. So red • means redevelopable and pink means vacant. Linda Phillips—It was the criteria we based it on, and what it means is that there is some development there, and then the vacant—there is nothing over$1000 located in that area. Even with windshield surveys and walking around downtown to verify what we got in GIS,we can still have something that doesn't quite jibe. Probably you will recognize the uses that are shown. These are sites just within a 1,500 foot radius of the station. We also did work on sites further up, to give a really complete picture of downtown. The site that the L &M Architects (who've worked with other developers and who've done similar kinds of things in downtown situations),was working with and found most attractive and intriguing, was east of the railroad that now has some very small houses there. They're mostly converted to small businesses. The municipal parking lot is shown here with the convention center and a hotel and of course the Borden site. They did show some others down here,but didn't draw potential uses on those yet. The real bones of this is the street system. We feel that no matter what happens with uses, if a developer comes forward and is interested in developing, he'll work with various retailers. They may say they want their building to be in a different place. Kent would say they would want them to stay in almost the same place because we worked with Public Works Department. They sat down with Don Wickstrom there and talked about just what happens with traffic circulation. It's very heavy on James,making it so this street would angle,which also makes a very attractive pedestrian streetscape to 4`". A nice strong connection here to the rail station. Some work done down here on how the whole thing would relate to Smith and make a very strong connection through 2°d down into the existing commercial area. All along we've had such a concern about what's going to happen to connect those spaces. Development on the municipal parking lot would help that as well and start to connect it and make it one downtown. Housing is in this corner and along with the market analysis and with what we're seeing in the region, the wisdom of the development scenario is that residential is a very important element to get downtown. It gives the basis to get those retail uses and the other uses that we want and keep them strong. It's both housing and building an attractive, convenient venue that will make more uses come in,more retailers come in, and the businesses work together. What we have left to do is, Mariah Associates, a transportation/engineering firm is looking at the details of traffic circulation and will be coordinating with the public works department to fine tune and make a recommendation that you will receive in a report, maybe in June. Then Ataleyea PS, which is the landscaping architect, will make some complete recommendations for streetscape and we're really looking forward to that because that is an exciting part of the project. Sandy Amodt—After all is said and done, is there a forecast as to how much money this will actually bring to the city and to businesses? This is nice,but what's it going to do for everybody? Brent McFall—Let me give you an example of some preliminary estimates that are based upon similar types of developments that have occurred in recent years, in both the Puget Sound region and the northwest. Just to take the Borden property as one example. We do have a truly unique opportunity that no other city has and that is that we have a 17 acre site immediately adjacent to our existing downtown, under one ownership, that is ready to redevelop. Now, there's a lot of things that go into • making that happen but in a simple statement, that is ready to happen. We now, as the City of Kent, receive less than $50,000 a year in tax revenue from the Borden property and it is property tax only. We don't get anything else. A mixed use, residential, office,retail, entertainment use on that same 17 acres, with the kinds of square footage we're talking about would probably generate to the City of Council Workshop Minutes,3/7/00 12 Kent alone over$400,000 a year in property and sales taxes. Doesn't take very long. Bear in mind that means that those businesses located there are doing that kind of business to generate that kind of tax revenue to the city. That's the kind of energy that it begins to create in downtown. It's very good for the City of Kent in terms of things it does for us in an area where, by and large, the infrastructure already exists. The other thing it does is it creates energy and a synergy,not only in this area,but also in the existing downtown area. So we would anticipate that it wouldn't necessarily be all the same retail mix that you currently see in downtown, but over time you would see stimulation and an upgrade of that as well. Sandy Amodt—What you're saying, without actually saying it, is that the sales tax and generations of other types of monies would pay the property back. My concern is taking the citizens tax dollars to purchase property. I'm assuming this is going to be a co-partnership with these businesses. The city owns the property. Brent McFall—One of the things that we have learned from the experience of others, consistently applied, is that in some way the city has to be a partner in this. I know, for example, that Mr. Yingling and Mr. Clark attended a session of the Highline Community College where a number of developers talked about these kinds of projects. That doesn't mean that we have to be a long-term property owner. We might have to assemble the property and prepare it for redevelopment,but it's fairly easy to factor in where's the payback and what is payback? And if it makes sense, you do it. If it doesn't make sense, you don't. We think that in the work we've done so far, and there's still a lot of work to do, that we're going to be able to bring you something that makes sense to you and that makes you say yes. Not only does it work from the standpoint of what we want, to create downtown,but it works from an economic standpoint and, frankly, if we can't bring you something that works from an economic standpoint, I wouldn't expect you to do it. Sandy Amodt—My main focus would be a payback. Sort of like the Saturday Market. It's paying back. Brent McFall—This has the potential to do a whole lot more than that. The Market right now, I think, has tremendous potential and is going to certainly generate some revenue to the city, but its greatest potential, I think, is just in the activity level that it creates. This has the potential to create a downtown environment that the Market will benefit from, the existing downtown will benefit from, and generate a whole lot of revenue. Tom Brotherton—The places where I've seen this development done very well is when there's construction that supports each other and doesn't clash. I was wondering about the necessity for starting on working on architectural standards for downtown more than we have now. Is it too soon to do that? It seems like some of the decisions here are not that far away? Brent McFall—I think you're right. Linda Phillips—That should have been another issue to update, that we do have a set of design guidelines in much more detail than we've had in the past. We were just waiting for some transit oriented guidelines to add to this, and then those will come for your approval. That will probably be only a couple of months. Brent McFall—Another part of that is, depending upon what role the city ultimately plays in helping make it happen, we may have the ability to say to potential developers here's our conceptual plan. Give us a proposal that we can approve, a development substantially similar to what we buy, and so we may have the ability to exercise a bit more control over that than you would just in the typical private development scenario. Rico Yingling—Any progress in the legal government help for • downtown redevelopment? Brent McFall—Yes. Rico Yingling—Is that going to happen, do you think? Brent McFall—I feel pretty comfortable that it will happen. We have, as you know better than any in dealing specifically with the Borden property, that we're dealing with corporate officials who are very interested in doing something that works for them. It has to work for them and they are Council Workshop Minutes, 3/7/00 13 sort of relying upon us to show them how. So there's an education process as well as a legal process. But if I were just betting on it,I'd say there's a good 60-65%chance that it will happen. My gut tells me it's more like 89%. Rico Yingling—My question was really about a state law to do downtown redevelopment. Brent McFall—Taxing, financing isn't going to happen. But one thing that has happened that's good news is that the ten year tax abatement for housing law has passed and that could become an element in making this kind of project work. Rico Yingling—How much of the project could be part of transit development? Are you thinking the whole thing could be part of a transit? Brent McFall—I think what we're looking at is that it is all linked together. It's transit oriented, the kinds of things that Linda has shown you,that this scene in particular is sort of a linkage. Here is the station; here is how it opens right up to the station and the bus traffic that will come into the station as well. But we also can't lose sight of the fact that we're still an automobile oriented society and we're going to have to provide for that as well. One of the neat things about this is if you're trying to get into an 18 hour downtown, or ultimately 24 hour downtown, the kind of parking that our partner, Sound Transit, and we are developing is an early morning to early evening use. That frees it up,then, for some more parking intensive kinds of uses like a performing arts center or a cinema that really benefits from that relationship. Leona Orr—I think we should bring this back for a future workshop and have a more detailed discussion. I know there's a lot of material in here that none of us has seen. I'm sure once we see it, we will have questions and I feel bad that we're rushing through this tonight. So, I think we'll plan on rescheduling this issue for a fixture workshop. Brent McFall—As we progress, specifically working with Borden, we'll need to advise you of some things on that as well. Some of that may be executive session material and some workshop. The workshop adjourned at 6:18 PM. L PLEASE SIGN IN COMMITTEE: azl 12 z z �r5'�-r� DATE: -� Name Address Phone Number Lila 0o* FI-e vo m (A14 of ern, 2 - 5 � A ma`s h-0w4 \ A -65 )a�,0 011A C& 1�4nr N�°, 14it C kT`I OiF PLEASE SIGN IN COMMITTEE: DATE: C) Name Address Phone Number oc-�n LV1t3dylC � 5­7- -�4-L7 at , kw c,k+ � cam. f"�Piw 5 7� 2 66L'l �c �t/