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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPUBLIC HEARING - PH 2016-09-12 - APPEAL - DENIAL - PANERA CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, September 12, 2016 ______________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the City Hall Auditorium on Monday, September 12, 2016. MEMBERS PRESENT: Kathleen McIntyre, President Brandon M. Kritzman, Vice President Brian Meakin Jim Jolly Maureen Miller Brosnan Scott Bahr Cathy White MEMBERS ABSENT: None OTHERS PRESENT: Donald Knapp, City Attorney Mark Taormina, City Planner Patricia C. Burklow, Public Hearing Recorder This is a public hearing relative to an appeal of the denial of Planning Commission Petition 2016-04-02-07 submitted by Laurel Park Retail Properties, LLC requesting waiver use approval to construct and operate a free standing full service restaurant with drive-up window facilities (Panera Bread) within the parking lot of the Laurel Park Place Shopping Center located on the north side of Six Mile Road Between Newburgh and the I-275--I-96 expressway with an address of 37700 Six Mile Road in the southeast ¼ of Section 7. This petition was denied by the City Planning Commission at the regular meeting of June 28, 2016. This has been duly filed in the Office of the City Clerk and is now open for public examination and inspection. The clerk has mailed notices to those persons owning land in the proposed revised Special Assessment District and all other requirements of the Livonia Code of Ordinances have been fulfilled. The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with President Kathleen McIntyre presiding. The Public Hearing is now open for comments. Please state clearly your name and address before making your comments. 2 McIntyre: We will call this public hearing to order and we have one public hearing this evening. And this is an appeal of the denial--I’m sorry I thought you were trying to get my attention. This is a denial of Planning Commission Petition 2016-04-02-07 submitted by Laurel Park Retail Properties, LLC requesting waiver use approval to construct and operate a free standing full service restaurant with drive up window facilities (Panera Bread) within the parking lot of the Laurel Park Place Shopping Center located on the north side of Six Mile Road Between Newburgh and the I-275--I-96 expressway with an address of 37700 Six Mile Road in the southeast ¼ of Section 7. This petition was denied by the City Planning Commission at the regular meeting of June 28, 2016. And before I turn this over to Mr. Taormina our Planning Director and Economic Development Director I just wanted to let the petitioner’s know that the regular meeting for tonight’s item will be on Monday, October 3, 2016 and so that you and or your representatives will need to be present that day. Mr. Taormina. Taormina: Thank you Madam President. As indicated this is an appeal of the denial for the site plan waiver use petition that was reviewed by the Planning th Commission at their regular meeting and public hearing on June 28. And it’s a request to construct and operate a free standing full service restaurant with drive-up window facilities. And this would be located within a portion of the parking lot of the Laurel Park Place Shopping Center which is on the north side of Six Mile just east of I-275. The area where the restaurant is shown on the plans impacts an area about one--a little over an acre in size and it includes 260 feet of frontage along Six Mile Road as well as 250 feet along the--along Laurel Park Drive. So generally speaking this is at the northeast corner of Six Mile--Six Mile and Laurel Park Drive. This area is presently used for off street parking in connection with the operation of the mall. This overhead identifies the area where the restaurant is proposed. You can see where it is situated in relationship to both Six Mile as well as Laurel Park Drive and the mall property to the north. The proposed restaurant would be one story in height about 4,500 square feet of gross area. Seating plan shows a total of 100 interior--110 interior seats plus 17 outdoor patio seats for a combined total of 127 seats. No additional curb cuts to either Six Mile or Laurel Park Drive are proposed as part of this development. Access would be provided via connections with the Mall’s existing drive aisles which is identified in this plan. The outdoor patio is shown on the west side of the building facing Laurel Park Drive. And that patio measures about 40 feet by 15 feet. The setback of the building from Six Mile is about 130 feet and 82 feet from Laurel Park Drive. The ordinance requires a minimum of 60 feet so the building placement is in full compliance with our ordinance standards. The pickup window for the drive-up facility would be located along the east side of the building. The traffic lane serving the drive-up would commence on the west side of the building and then wrap around the south side and then again to the east side to where the pick-up window is located. The 3 drive-up traffic lane would have the capacity to stack about eight to nine vehicles as is depicted on this site plan. Several of the spaces including the venue signage as well as the ordering kiosk are located on the south side of the building which faces Six Mile Road. Drive-up establishments are required to have a by-pass lane. This plan shows an opening to the traffic aisle just before the ordering station on the south side. So if you look carefully at this plan--in fact I’ll zoom in on that area--you’ll see that opening--that curb opening that would allow vehicles to escape from the drive-thru lane prior to reaching the ordering station. In terms of parking, the ordinance does require one space for every two interior seats plus one for every three exterior patio seats. This is what we typically require for full-service restaurants. The proposed restaurant here would require 83 additional parking spaces. The site plan for the area shows 99 parking spaces where there are currently 162 spaces. So this does result in 63 fewer spaces. So what we had to do was analyze the entire parking arrangement for the mall. According to the records there’s a grand total of--or a grand total of 3,574 parking spaces are required for the mall. Adding the restaurant would increase this about 3,657. There’s a variance that was granted in 1986 allowing for approximately 119 fewer parking spaces. Relying on the information provided by the applicant, a parking analysis of the entire mall, it was determined that the Laurel Park Place currently has a total of about 3,497 parking spaces which is slightly more than the count from 1986. But when you include the net reduction and the additional spaces required this increases the overall deficiency by 104 spaces. So a variance is required in order to meet the requirements of the--of the zoning ordinance for overall parking. The trash enclosure in this case is shown in the southeast corner of the site. I’ll zoom in on that area and you can see where it is labeled trash enclosure. It is a little bit unique in that it is located at about as close to the Six Mile Road right-of way as you can get on the site. I’ll just point out though that there is a berm that runs along the Six Mile Road as well as landscaping. The plan-- at least the landscape plan as presented does not indicate any of that landscape material being removed. So it is the position of the architect and landscape architect that that dumpster area will be fully screened. Additional landscaping is also shown in there. Now I’ll go to that plan in a minute but it does provide for some additional landscaping to help screen the trash enclosure. These are the building elevations, this is something the Planning Commission took a very close look at during its review of this petition, there were a few changes made throughout that design process and review process. This is mislabeled by the way, and I--you should have information that corrects it but for purposes of presentation what you’re looking at is identified as the south elevation when in fact that is the north elevation of the building or the side of the building that would actually be facing Laurel Park Mall. You’ll see that predominantly includes a brick along the lower portion of the building. There are awnings which is referred to I believe as an alligator green coloring. This was a change that 4 was provided during the review as well as the color of the efface which really occupies the upper half of the building. This is identified as the east elevation, it’s actually the west elevation of the building. This would be the east elevation although it’s identified as west, this is where the pick-up window is located. So this would on the right hand side of the building. And then the side of the building again identified incorrectly here as the north elevation is actually the south elevation facing Six Mile Road you’ll see that that would be where all the back portions of the restaurant would be located, the kitchen and other service functions and for that reason those are not real windows shown there those are actually faux windows with the color efface it should--somewhat mimicking a window. In terms of signage this plan does exceed what the ordinance allows. Ordinance would permit one wall sign not to exceed 73 square feet in area and as I scroll through each one of these elevations you probably noticed that each side of the building contains a wall sign. Each of those wall signs measures roughly 25 square feet in area. There is additional smaller signage about seven square feet identifying the drive-thru. So when you add all those up its 126 square feet. And in addition to the wall signs there is a monument sign that is identified on the site plan along Six Mile Road-- again I’ll zoom in on that area--there’s an existing monument sign which is closer to the corner and then if you look on the right hand side in this drawing which would be the southeast corner of the identified site they’re showing a proposed monument sign. And with that, Madam President I will answer any questions you might have at this time. McIntyre: Thank you. Council, are there any questions for Mr. Taormina? Taormina: This is the landscape plan by the way. McIntyre: Yes, Mrs. Brosnan. Brosnan: Madam Chair, through the Chair to Mr. Taormina. So Mr. Taormina is the parking evaluation updated since the Planning Commission meeting? Taormina: No additional information was provided relative to parking that I’m aware of. Brosnan: Okay. So they were looking at the exact same numbers that we are looking at tonight? Taormina: I believe that is true, yes. Brosnan: Okay, thank you. McIntyre: Anybody else? Vice-President Kritzman. 5 Kritzman: Thank you, Madam Chair. Mark, on that same note can your repeat the figures that you shared as far as the previous count and I think in 1996 there was a deficiency approved for 119? Taormina: That is correct. So what we were able to discover going back through the records is that the total number of required spaces in 1986 was 3,574 when you add the restaurant this increases that requirement to about 3,657. When you factor in the net reduction of about 63 parking spaces as well as the previous variance that was granted and we come up with an overall deficiency of 223. So when you back out of that--take that 119 out, the--there’s an additional 104 spaces that are needed for a variance. I’ll point out that the applicant has submitted additional parking information-- supplemental information that was reviewed by the Planning Commission and I’m sure part of this evening’s presentation will be an evaluation of that parking data and the standards they believe should be utilized in this case. McIntyre: And I should also point out that the Council did receive some new data. The first was a communication from Christopher Boloven and the second was a communication from Schostak Familyf Restaurants. Council, any questions for Mr. Taormina before we go to the petitioner? Will the petitioner like to come forward to provide any additional information that you think is important for the Council and the audience seated? And thank you for using--I should have pointed out but you went over there-- that is the podium you need to use this evening since it is hooked up to the recording system. Thank you. Hyman: Madam President and members of Council, it’s been several years since I’ve been before you. It’s nice to be back again. It’s nice to see some of your faces again. And it’s nice to get to know the rest of you. Before I go rd any further I did want to make a plea to Council, October the 3 which we assumed is going to be the next--your action date happens to be the eve of Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year and several of us are concerned about that. And we would ask if you could set the meeting--the meeting rd item--the action item for the next Council meeting after October 3. McIntyre: We can do that. Hyman: Thank you very much. th McIntyre: And that’s--the next meeting would be Monday, October 17. Hyman: Thank you very much. Okay, I had a pen when I started this evening. I would like to introduce our team. Some of them will be part of this presentation and all of us will be available to answer any questions you may have. With me are Brian Barnard who is the development manager 6 in essence for this site from Panera and he will make a brief presentation. He was going to do the graphics but Mark has already done it. So his presentation will be extremely brief. And we of course will answer any questions about the graphics that you have. We also have JohnDell’Isola who is the site engineer. And John I think will be able to give you a good deal of information about how we arrived at the plan we have, parking, and etcetera. Back up for him is our parking consultant, Mike Labadie of Fleis and VanderBrink Engineering and--did I get that right Mike--who is also available to answer any questions as well as supply any further information. We also have Skip Alexander who is the CBL Project Manager for this site. And we have our brand new mall manager, Dan Irvin. Is it Dan--Dave? Irvin: Dan. Hyman: Dan Irvin is the brand new manager so you will be getting to know him I hope as he gets his feet wet at the mall. He’s been here before I mean in this area before and is coming back in his new capacity. I’m going to start with in fact Brian Barnard since he has done the graphics--since Mark has done the graphics already Brian is simply going to be talking about the Panera experience with respect to parking and its impact on the Mall here on Laurel Place. McIntyre: Thank you. Over there please, thank you. Barnard: Thanks Norm. Thank you members of Council as well. As Norm mentioned my name is Brian Barnard I am with Panera Bread and I’ve been in the development department for about 12 years. Which is a little shy of how long we’ve been at the Newburgh Plaza. I think that lease was entered into in 1998 which is actually seven years before our very first drive-thru location opened in 2005. Since that location opened we actually committed to opening new locations as drive-thrus as often as possible, retrofitting existing location as we are doing on Schoolcraft right now or finding new locations where drive-thrus aren’t an option as they are on Newburgh where we are kind of tucked into a corner. The drive-thru addition is a really important part of our business going forward. It isn’t a large portion of our sales but it is a large portion of our convenience factor for our customers. Most cafes see an average of 25 to 30 percent of the sale go through the drive-thru windows when they have that. Obviously when it’s an average there are some that lower and some that are higher. The highest locations I think come close to touching 50 percent but those are locations such as Minot, North Dakota, where in the dead of winter nobody wants to get out their car and so they go through those windows. This location knowing what our sales are its easier to forecast what a sale lift would be from a drive-thru location and here we would expect about 30 to 34 percent of our business to go through that window. So it would be 7 an actual reduction on the need for parking as we would see going from roughly 4400 square foot space right now to 4,500 free standing building where the bulk of that increase is actually going to be dedicated to the drive-thru component itself and the equipment that goes in the back of the house to handle that because our drive-thru production system actually runs on its own. It’s kind of a linear line so that production in the café isn’t impacted by the drive-thru itself. And as Norm mentioned this area right here is kind of outlining the entire site. The building doesn’t take up that entire line. I think John might have a chart that actually shows where the building sits. So you can kind see there’s still extra rows of parking around there so we are not impacting that entire field that was highlighted in yellow earlier. The current café right now I believe has around 38 employees with 33 of those being staff and five being management. This new location with the drive-thru would employ at least an additional fifteen personnel and possibly more based on the sales projection--well actually it’s not projection because sales actually come through with a mix of staffing and general management. So I guess Mark already showed the elevation where we did try to dress it up from our initial presentation to add a little more bricks, more color and especially presenting Six Mile where we did put those faux windows, with the awnings and goose neck lights above that to give more of a frontage presentation to Six Mile while the front of the building actually faces the inner road where traffic will actually be able to access the site. With that I guess I’ll open it up if you have any questions. McIntyre: Council, questions for Mr. Barnard? Yes, Mr. Bahr. Bahr: You talked about what percentage of your business you intend to be drive- thru, do you have an idea what percentage increase in sales over your current location you’re going to see with this or-- Barnard: So-- Bahr: --do you anticipate it being mostly constant, just some will go through the drive-thru? Barnard: There is a lift in sales when you do these drive-thrus either retrofit or relocations. And 30 percent going to the window actually cannibalizes about half of that from people who would have gone inside. So it is about a ten to fifteen percent increase in sales from one location to the next when you do add a drive-thru. McIntyre: Thank you, Mr. Meakin. 8 Meakin: Sir, I don’t think we have a building in the City of Livonia that has signs on all four sides of the building. So would you like to start the negotiations? What can you live with? Barnard: If tonight is the night to do that absolutely. You know we love our signage. We don’t necessarily agree with the interpretation of the code that we are only allowed one sign here when you do face two actual roads at Six Mile and Laurel Park. And right now the monument would actually require a variance as well and with the monument that decreases the amount of building signage we would need. You know I think the corner element I think on the southeast corner of the building where you’ve got Panera Bread on one side and actually drive thru on the other, it’s actually a corner presentation to traffic heading west bound on Six Mile Road. That would be a very important sign for us to have as well as the signage over our entrance which is where we really like to see our primary sign. So I think east and west is where we would I guess start the negotiations to go that route. Meakin: Because you’re not that far over the square footage wise so you could probably have a little bigger sign on each of those sides, so that’s okay. Now on the monument sign is that on the other side of the berm? Barnard: It is. Similar--similar to the existing monument for the Marriott where it sits out so it is kind of out in front of traffic so they aren’t blocked by the landscape that already exists there. Meakin: Okay, now how does that work Mark towards our ordinances? Wouldn’t they have to have more on their property whether than on the mall property? Taormina: It’s all mall property. Yeah, you know, the ordinance does allow for multiple--for second ground mounted signs on a single development site. The mall already has that so this would be adding an additional ground sign to the frontage so any form of signage is going to require a variance both in the number as well as the area. Typically freestanding restaurants--this is on its own site would be allowed--entitled a monument sign six feet in height no more than 30 square feet in area. You don’t have the details on the monuments at this point. Meakin: Could you also address the timeline of what we are looking at because even if we approve this you still have to go for a variance on the signs and variance on the deficiencies of parking spots from the Z.B.A., now does that come before we give final approval or after we give final approval? Taormina: After typically. 9 Meakin: So even if we approve it all the Z.B.A. could cancel the whole thing out? Taormina: Actually the Z.B.A. has the final--yes. Meakin: Then they would go to Circuit Court to appeal that? Okay, I have no further questions at this time. McIntyre: Mr. Jolly. Jolly: Can you address the current economic health of the current location and what beyond a drive-thru you would really be going after here in terms of increased sales presence? Barnard: Dollar wise I don’t know if I can disclose that but the current café is about 15 percent below the market average for our cafes in Detroit. So it is really confined in that location that it doesn’t really have an opportunity to grow. And the drive-thru is really the best initiative for growth in this market for this specific trade area itself it really is. Again, we’re going through the drive-thru retrofit already at one of other Livonia locations but we really are trying to capture that deficiency that exists for this one against the overall market in Detroit. Jolly: Thank you. McIntyre: Mr. Meakin. Meakin: Thank you, Madam Chair. Sir, can you discuss your peak efficient--peak times for the Panera as opposed to the mall traffic? Barnard: I guess I’ll have to let the mall manager speak to the mall’s peak hours. Ours are considered seven to eight in the morning, twelve to one in the afternoon and five to six just after work. So really before work, at lunch time and immediately after. Meakin: If we could have Mr. Irvin come up I’d like to ask him a few questions. Irvin: Good evening. McIntyre: Good evening. Meakin: Your name and address please. Irvin: Dan Irvin, my address is 21323 Cass Street in Farmington Hills, 48335. Meakin: Thank you, Dan, welcome back to Livonia. 10 Irvin: Thank you. Meakin: We greatly appreciate having you back working in the City. Irvin: Thank you. Meakin: How does that impact the mall traffic patterns? Irvin: The mall opens up at 8:00 a.m. for walkers, the store and retail shops open up at 10:00 and close at 9:00. Our peak hours we really start to get busy at the end of the week, Wednesday through Friday, Saturday being our busiest day. Meakin: You were previously at the mall so you probably have some recollection of what it was like during the holiday season. How do you think that will impact having that Panera Bread out there? Irvin: I think having Panera out there is just a--it’s a win for the center. It’s another destination spot for retailers and draws more people to the mall. I really don’t look at this anything less than a positive. Meakin: Thank you. Irvin: You’re welcome. Brosnan: Madam Chair. McIntyre: Mrs. Brosnan. Brosnan: Is there anything that they can address about what landscaping is going to be added to what we currently have and I’m most concerned about what we are going to see from the south side of the property. Barnard: I will let John handle that, he’s the Civil Engineer and when he gets up here he can address that question. Dell’Isola: I can do that now. Good evening, John Dell’Isola, with PEA. What I’d like to do is actually handout some photographs that will be helpful. Number two is going to address the question regarding the view from the south. McIntyre: We can just pass those down. Dell’Isola: When the mall was first developed I believe there was a substantial amount of screening required on the north, on the south, so there is a substantial berm. In picture number two which comes from Google street view is going to show you what it looks like from quite an elevated position 11 because I think it might be ten to twelve feet in the air on top of their van. But from either an SUV or a standard vehicle, you’re not going to have much of an opportunity to see from Six Mile. We are supplementing to the right of that picture and that would just be because we are addressing the dumpster which is going to have an enclosure which on its own we think may be sufficient. But we are going to supplement it with plantings just to soften the brick side that you see there. Brosnan: The discussion that I was hoping you would engage in is what is going to be the planted potentially closer to the building on that south side to make it look less utilitarian. Right now I know you tried to address that with some ornamental fixes you know, fake windows, awnings and goose neck lighting and things like that but you know nonetheless there is still a very utilitarian door that exists there. You know there is the dumpster, there are going to be utilities that come in and out of the building that will be exposed on that side and often times we rely on landscaping to help us to camouflage some of that. Dell’Isola: Sure. Yeah and with regard to that you’ll see on the southern part of drive-thru lane that typically is a raised concrete island that may have some plantings on it, we’ve gone a little heavier there. And as you get closer to the building on that south elevation we’ve added quite a bit as well which is often times reserved just for the patio area which is on the west side in this case. Brosnan: You know I think somebody mentioned before the four-sided building is a particularly challenging thing for any developer and we’re especially conscientious of that in Livonia as we do develop--try to develop more of these out-lots because we recognize in our community that a great deal of space has been consumed by parking and to the degree we can get more traffic or more interest in some of these larger retail properties by building out lots. We’ve been inclined to do that. So Mr. Taormina, I’m going to ask you. Do we have any really good examples of how landscaping has been used to help us diminish some of that utility that we see on the outside of these four-sided building? Taormina: Well off the top of-- Brosnan: I’m not just quite certain that this addresses it yet. Taormina: I would say we’d have to take a careful look at the selection of plant materials here. I think you know if you look at from a planned point of view there’s a lot of material shown here. Some of the things like the lilacs if allowed to grow if they’re irrigated--properly irrigated and maintained should do an ample job of diffusing that stark look that I think you’re concerned about being exposed along that south side of the building. But 12 we’ll take a closer look at the plant material selection and see whether or not we think it accomplishes that concern. Brosnan: Thank you, I appreciate that. Thanks. McIntyre: Vice-President Kritzman. Kritzman: Thank you, Madam Chair. Now a couple of issues that have come up as this project has been discussed by this body and others and presentations that have been put out there. One obviously centers on parking and I think there’s not a single person who sits up here that has not been to that mall countless times. I think we on any given day recognize that that parking area is not utilized in most portions of the year. It probably only gets busy between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s a long way off in the corner of the existing parking lot. You would have to come into the food court side which is unless you’re coming into the food court area that’s not the predominant entrance for people who are shopping. Additionally, it is in the farthest reaches of that. So the parking issue for me is less of a concern. Not to say it’s not important to others that are here and certainly others in the community. There are opinions on the viability of the parking at that location and opinions go both ways on that. I think it’s long been a successful mall with the deficiency that is there. And I don’t know that this is such a grossly different deficiency when you start talking parking areas in the thousands. I don’t know that it makes that big of a difference in my impression. So that is less of a concern for me. A couple of things from my vantage point I look at like the location of the dumpster. I think that can be overcome. We’ve got a berm there that we can work with maybe it’s additional grading in that area that can help alleviate the view. Typically, we would not allow a dumpster along a major thoroughfare like that so I think it is incumbent on the developer and designers to come up with more extraordinary measures to screen that. And I certainly wouldn’t be looking at approving something that is made out of concrete block as we have talked about that time and again. Maybe that works back behind the parking structure or something to that effect but not on Six Mile. And to that effect some of the discussion points Councilwoman Brosnan brought up, there’s a lot of landscaping and a lot of planting material noted on the document as Mr. Taormina said but a lot of these things are 24 inches and spread material, 24 inches high. And I think a lot of these are probably planting sizes, it might help to have some understanding since we are not necessarily landscape experts to have some understanding of what that would grow into and what it would look like. But to me the base question here and Councilwoman Brosnan hit on a point and said what can we do with the landscaping to hide the stark nature of this building and to me what we are talking about is masking the stark, plain nature of the building that hasn’t been built yet trying to hide that with landscaping. I think the key issue here is to change the design of the building in my 13 opinion. When I first saw I said the same thing, I said that is a boring building. And it is not something that I would be inclined to bend the rules for particularly to the capacity that we are looking at bending the rules for. I’m a firm believer that we need greater density in a lot of our--in a lot of our commercial districts so like I said the parking issue isn’t a problem for me. The location of the building isn’t a problem for me. The design of the building is a problem to me and some of that is materials, some of that is design, some of that is a just level of the investment in that location and what it could be down the road if Panera ever leaves. What is the next version of the drive-thru, what is the next economic driver for Panera and what if they have to go somewhere else? What would this thing turn into and how much flexibility would it have? How attractive would it be to another tenant? Not that anyone is looking to try and look past Panera certainly by any means we would love to have you there for the next 50 years, but in our position we need to look at all of the points in front of us. Fortunately, all that said, and I’m certain I droned on too long, the design of the building is something that we have multiple more stabs at throughout the course of this process. And I think that is something that can be addressed down the road by some of those additional steps. That’s all at this time. Meakin: Can I follow up on a couple of things, please? McIntyre: Yes, certainly, Mr. Meakin. Meakin: Well what is down the road is the next step to doing this approval or denial so, what are your wishes for that? Kritzman: You know, so it is my understanding that we are looking at the waiver use approval at this point not necessarily the site plan. So, I was under the impression that this was strictly related to the waiver use approval as opposed to the waiver use and the site plan approval. It doesn’t necessarily change my opinion I still think the building needs a lot of work, I’m open to the project proceeding and moving forward and looking forward to it being successful but I think there are some additional items to look at in my opinion. McIntyre: Anything further? Brosnan: Madam Chair. McIntyre: Yes, Mrs. Brosnan. Brosnan: We’ve not heard from all of the presenters have we, Mr. Hyman? I think there was a parking presentation that was going to be part of this as well. Can we make sure we hear from all of your presenters? 14 Hyman: They’re all here. Brosnan: Okay. Hyman: John Dell’Isola would be— Dell’Isola: I can go into that. Hyman: Can go into that in his turn and that will be very soon. Brosnan: Okay. Hyman: I want to make some comments and then lead on to John. Brosnan: Okay. Hyman: And then Mike Labadie is here to answer questions. They overlap, they’ve both have gotten involved in parking issues. Brosnan: Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure we had all your information. McIntyre: Yes, thank you. Just--I do have--before we move on--I’m so sorry--thank you--you can stay up there Mr. Hyman. I do have a question for Mr. Barnard about Panera--just a comment. I always get concerned when I hear that a certain location is lagging the market and the fix is going to be something like a drive-thru. And that’s certainly beyond the scope of our waiver approval and our site plan approval, but it does play into the thinking about when you’re granting a variance. And in my observation and experience the Panera that is currently at Newburgh Plaza does not operate very well. And I concerned right that we are going to put a drive- thru through and expect very different results. And I understand the driver of the business--driver of the drive-thru, but if some of what I observe to be service issues at that Panera--I’m there quite a bit, aren’t rectified then I think we’re not going to see the uptake and this variance question of the drive-thru is then perhaps for naught. Barnard: Okay. I would say in those locations from fifteen plus years ago when we were in these long rectangular narrow sites, the back of house production system isn’t very efficient. You know being able to design the production system in these rectangular buildings that we put as a free standing actually allows us greater efficiency in the back of house and actually does allow for more operational efficiency and correction for the customers. And more than just the drive-thru assisting this location it is the site itself. You know being tucked in the corner there versus being out on Six Mile 15 Road a little closer to the interstate at an intersection with the mall and all the buildings around it and office space. McIntyre: Thank you. Barnard: You’re welcome. McIntyre: And then I think now we would like to proceed, unless anybody has any additional questions before Mr. Hyman-- Hyman: Well I assume even being delighted with Mr. Kritzman’s lack of concern about parking I assume that some of you still I guess have some feelings about that. And I would like to very quickly help address the issue in a way that might give you some comfort. I know if we get approved we will still have to go to the ZBA, I understand that. But I think some of you would be interested in hearing some of these things. First, start with this, there’s not a retailer in the world who doesn’t want sufficient parking because people can’t get to the store the retailer will go out of business. Therefore, there’s not a landlord who wants insufficient parking and landlords are generally responsive to the requests and needs of the tenants. I should also point out several other factors. Number one of course the parking demand for the Panera to some extent be--parking space demand be reduced by the fact that there’s going to be a substantial drive-thru here and the numbers we have in our parking study do not include a drive-thru reduction. So that softens the impact additionally. In addition to that and Mike confirm this, we’ve got a parking ratio in Livonia that I must tell you it’s off the wall. I’ve been doing this since some of you know for decades. Mike has been doing it--he’s younger than I am--but maybe a couple of decades. There’s not a municipality in southeast Michigan that I know of or that he knows of that has a requirement of 6.33 spaces for 1000. For many years the Institute of Traffic Engineers and the International Council of Shopping Centers recommended as a standard five units for 1000--five spaces for 1000 square feet of gross leasable area. That recommendation was based on experience over the years with several hundred shopping center--regional centers around the United States in different localities experiences over varying seasons. Recently they reduced that requirement to 4.5 spaces for 1000. If this--if Livonia had the industry wide standard of five per 1000 or perhaps 4.5 now, we would be way over parked at the mall. We would far exceed the parking requirements of five per 1000. I think that reality should at least bear in your minds. In addition to that, and I’ve spoken with Mark about this and Mark has confirmed what my experience has been, when we are talking about determining the number of parking spaces for gross leasable area there’s an almost universal planners default. They assume that 80 percent of a retailer’s space is useable that the rest is devoted to bathrooms, to storage, because a lot of the clothing 16 etcetera are stored in the back. And so arbitrarily and I don’t argue with this--arbitrarily planners have come up with an 80 percent default rate. That’s what Mark applied here as I understand it. Nobody knows what happened in 1986 when the 3574 was arrived at. We’ve all tried to figure it out. It was pretty arbitrary. And--but I can tell you that the 6.33 spaces per 1000 is just--as I said earlier--off the wall. In any event, if you then apply the 80 percent default rate the fact is that most planners-- don’t know how Mark would feel about this--will actually take into account the actual usage at a given shopping center. So that if your actual gross leasable area is less than 80 percent that lower amount will in fact reduce it--reduce the parking space requirement. Here the two major tenants have between them about--I worked it out to 900 space reduction. I’ve got the numbers here. Given the number--the area of useable floor area in the Carson’s and the Von Maur, approximate but pretty close we come up with a 3000 square foot reduction per major tenant which means 6000-- I’m--I take it back--3000 combined. Which means using your calculations we come out with about 900 spaces less than the 3574 if in fact that default rate were recognized to be unrealistic in the context and the actual rate were used. If you take into account all of that and then finally as Brian Barnard has told you, there’s a real--and as Dan Irvin has told you-- there’s a real lack of conflict between the peak hours of the Panera and the peak hours of the mall. If you take all of these factors into account I think that ought to help persuade you that parking is not the issue that some people thought it is. With that I’m going to now flow right into John Dell’Isola and have him take it from there. McIntyre: Thank you. Dell’Isola: Well Norm cut my presentation in half there, thank you. What I would like to discuss relative to the parking is beginning with the first variance that was granted back in ’86. You know there was several points noted in the grant of the variance and one of them was that the petitioner’s demonstrated to the Board’s satisfaction that due to the fast diversification and mix of the complex the parking deficiency is minimal at a 119 spaces and that there will be sufficient parking at all times. We believe that too and we presented at the Planning Commission level that we are over parked on this site. And the question was rightfully asked at the beginning if you read the points for the denial have they submitted anything else concerning the parking and the answer was no. Because what we had submitted was that we are operating at an over parked situation in the mall and we’ve added a--going back to the photographs that I’ve provided-- we’ve added one because we’ve fortunately found in photo number six a street view within the mall which was taken during a time when both the Bar Louis and Max and Erma’s was operating. And what you see is the corner--the very southwest corner of the property virtually vacant. If you pan to the left it is relatively full in front of the storefronts. And due to our 17 location in there we don’t really front on the mall we are in the very corner. And it appears to be an employee parking situation. As far as use of that area throughout the year, we’ve also have a unique situation on photo number four which is going to show the entire project area fenced off and full of containers--storage containers for the trades that were doing renovation within the mall from May through October of 2015. The mall still functioned and that corner was rightfully picked for that staging area. As far as the site selection I think we’ve covered a good bit of that and you can see from the other photos in here the opportunities you have from the southbound traffic on Laurel Park versus any visibility from Six Mile. You know we are--we have supplemented the landscaping there. We’ve added the three ever--substantial evergreen plantings by the trash enclosure along with the lower level arborvitae type screen that’s there. But as you travel closer to the intersection you’re not likely to see it. Norm had mentioned the parking requirements and how they’ve changed over the years and there was a shared parking study done by Urban Land Institute and ICSC that took a look at malls across the country and they even looked at the different mixed types that were there. And based on what we have on this site, we’re falling within a four to four and a half space per gross leasable area ratio and that’s a 1000 foot. And when we look at what we have on the overall site which he has on the screen here we are finding that we are at a 6.97 ratio and we even played around with the numbers a little bit and said let’s take out the western most lots, let’s you know--which is what you wouldn’t do in shared parking situation, it’s all available to the site, but even if we did that we would far exceed it in a range of 5.97. So we’re exceeding what we believe is required. We believe the initial variance that was granted supports that. And however, the parking was arrived at whether it was the individual uses, it doesn’t appear and it might be arguable too that there was really a shared parking standard back when the site was developed. So it likely is over parked from the individual use approach to establishing the parking. McIntyre: Questions, Mr. Jolly. Jolly: All these numbers are great and I appreciate you educating us, but the bottom line is there is a month a year when you can’t find a parking spot. Address that for us. From Thanksgiving to Christmas you drive around and you can’t find a spot. Address that, because that’s the issue. You go there now it’s not an issue, eleven months out of the year it’s not an issue. Dell’Isola: Right and we didn’t-- Jolly: So all these numbers with all due respect--all these numbers in my opinion mean nothing. What do you do the month a year it is an issue? Address that. 18 Dell’Isola: We can address that in detail and the traffic engineer is here as well. We don’t design the sites for the worst case scenario but what we did discuss at the Planning Commission level was that there’s parking available it just so happens that when they cited when I come off of Six Mile and there’s no parking available and then they leave, that was the argument. I don’t see anything I leave. Well the complex is a large one and during those peak times you may not be able to park in what may be your normal spot or near the retail or use that you want to be at. We’ve got four levels of deck that are available and why some are more remote then say right in front of the mall itself they are a part of the site and available. Jolly: Probably some of my colleagues up here have been going to this mall since the week it opened, I’ve been driving up there since I was 16 years old, when I say there’s no parking at Christmas there’s no parking at Christmas. So I guess to me that’s the issue. I agree with Mr. Kritzman in terms of I’m not overly concerned with parking but there are times in the year when it is an issue. I feel like we’re walking around that issue and if you can just drill down to that for me anyways, that’s the only parking issue I see. Dell’Isola: Well Mike, I can invite you up here to talk about the peaks and how things are designed. Hyman: And while he’s--Mike is walking his way up, you know the ITE is traffic engineers and ICSC take this into account. The fact is that they do not in th determining parking needs they intentionally exclude the 20--Mike I’m invading your territory I think--the 20 busiest hours of the year because it th would be grossly inefficient to design a parking lot based on the 20 heaviest usage years. That’s not good design, that’s not good parking. The ITE and ICSC recognize that, no traffic study designs for an oversupply for the 11 plus months of the year when you really don’t need all those extra spaces. There’s no question that there may be hours during the Christmas when in fact it will be difficult or maybe even impossible for a given hour--given two hours to find a space. That’s not the way the parking engineers measure needs or requirements. That’s not the way parking studies are developed. And I’ve got to tell you this is ad total. I had dinner tonight at Bar Louis. Do you know that I parked in the closest space at the aisle nearest to Bar Louis--closest space at the header if you want to call it of the row. That’s space was open for me for dinner tonight. Jolly: I have something to follow. McIntyre: Yes, Mr. Jolly. Jolly: Congratulations on that. 19 Hyman: Thank you. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Jolly: Maybe you can address this though, it’s my understanding that the economic life blood of retail is the holiday season and specifically from passing Laurel Park Mall on a daily basis living almost right across the street from it, it seems like it might be the life blood of this mall as well. So if you have people who are driving around the mall for two hours like you say in your example not finding a parking spot, that’s not an issue? Hyman: None of the tenants are concerned. The anchors have expressed no opposition to this. I don’t know either Dan or Skip Alexander who I haven’t introduced who is the manager of the development here, and whose basically in charge of the success of this mall, they’re not concerned. Their tenants are not concerned. Jolly: Okay. McIntyre: Good evening. Labadie: Hi, my name is Mike Labadie I work with Fleis and VandenBrink. My office is in Farmington Hills. I’ll try to put a different spin on it for Mr. Jolly than the other two have. Maybe it would be--I don’t think anyone has given you the--nothing that is not true, but maybe it would be helpful to say if we were given this site and we were asked how many parking spaces ULI--Urban Land Institute or ITE would recommend for that and that when they--that would be to build it, to design it, they wouldn’t say to design it for the Christmas rush. Nobody does that. So I could tell you what they would recommend for us to use as a design. There might be--and that’s a might, be occasion in some cases in a mall like this where the day before Christmas or maybe the first Saturday after Thanksgiving or sometimes it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving that is the peak day, it kind of depends on the site. I’ve done occupant--parking occupancy studies in malls all over the State, all over the Detroit Metro region where sometimes in the Christmas season every weekend the parking occupancy is 103 or 105 percent. So I--you know--but you don’t design for that. And but I would like to do is the material that we gave you that we turned in before about rd parking, there is a memo it’s dated June 23, so if we would just look--let me see if this works on that--yeah it does--so we’re just looking at this section right here where the mall--where the Panera’s going to go, we have--the demand for this area would be like 283 spaces. Have you already seen this and is this redundant? Brosnan: No, go ahead. Labadie: This memo, is that part of your materials? 20 McIntyre: It is part of your materials. Labadie: Oh, well-- Brosnan: You can go over it again. McIntyre: Please go ahead. Brosnan: Yes. Labadie: Okay, so the demand would be 287 with the Panera there. It has--if you reduce it because of the parking for the Panera--that the Panera would take up which we Mark reduced it by 63--well I reduced it by 64, you end up with a total supply in that area of 457 spaces. But you have a demand of 287. So you have surplus of 37 percent for what it would be recommended for design. Does that make sense or did I confuse the issue more? Okay, so you have a surplus even after you--even after you put the Panera there of 37 percent and a 10 to 20 percent surplus on any-- on almost any parking lot is more than enough. So, I don’t want to make it any more difficult than that--then it is. ULI is Urban Land Institute and they have a--I don’t know if you understand when we went over this either but what they--what Norm was saying they did surveys of hundreds of malls and shopping centers and all kinds of things all over the country, created this large report that was updated once or twice, but you can--I can tell you what time of day a certain demand is going to be on a certain site and be pretty darn close. Whatever year it is--whatever month, whatever day, whatever time of day it is. So I think there’s not going to be a parking problem here, there shouldn’t be a parking problem there now. And whether or not, I’m not saying that there may not be an occasion when there is an extra heaving demand because I have seen it, but it has been the one or two days of the year that you would not design for. Do you have any questions? Brosnan: Madam Chair. McIntyre: Mrs. Brosnan. Brosnan: Madam Chair, thank you. Not a question so much as a comment because if this issue does proceed and garners Council approval it will go before the Zoning Board of Appeals which will ultimately have the final say in this matter. So for the sake of the record, I’d like my comments relative to parking to be on the records so the ZBA knows where I stand on it. Much like Mr. Kritzman my concern for parking is not nearly as great as perhaps what was expressed at the Planning Commission level for a number of reasons. Number one and most outstanding for me is exactly what Mr. 21 Hyman started with in his conversation with us which is that it is really impossible for me to believe that those who manage it and own this property and that have retail establishments on it would want Panera if it wasn’t going to be beneficial. If it was going to be detrimental I would imagine that we would have them standing before us protesting this waiver use. So to the degree the tenants and those that are leasing from Laurel Park believe this is a good idea and that this helps stimulate business, I believe along with them that it will. Secondarily we as a community have been looking to find opportunities where out lots can begin to attract more business to some of our retail centers. The fact of the matter is back in 1986 when we developed this site and we put this parking plan in place at this site we did our very best to try to create something that was going to work for that corner. But the fact of the matter is retail has changed considerably since 1986. Traffic at malls has slowed considerably with the dawn of the internet alone and internet shopping. So the traffic patterns that were in place when we created some of these--some of these criteria have changed. We as a community though in our defense have tried to change along with that. We did within the past seven years I believe amend our parking requirements and we’ve tried to accommodate some of the changes in the industry. There could always be an argument for going back and revisiting that again. I do understand the argument for not creating a site that’s made to deal with just Mother’s Day, Easter and Christmas and as a frequent user of that mall those to me are always the three most at risk shopping periods. If I get that close and I don’t have a Mother’s Day present for my mom, I might not get a parking spot in order to get in there. I may have to park over at St. Collette’s and hoof it across the street. But that presents too some creative options that could exist for Laurel Park. You’ve yet to introduce valet parking at the site. You’ve yet to introduce off-site parking for your employees during those peak--peak times. Those are all options that would be available to you should you as those lease space find that you can’t get enough consumers through your door. But that would be up to you to decide that that is a smart move to make. So I--and I do believe this is one of the most successful malls in the country as a matter of fact, malls of this scale. So it is being operated with some amazingly smart business practices. I have no doubt that you will rise to the challenge should there be one that is presented by any parking congestion. The only issue where I do see in the future that should parking congestion at any point in time create a backlog so there is traffic buildup along Six Mile or Newburgh Roads during peak holiday times that we find traffic flowing out of the center and creating other problems in the community then we would have to come back and address the issue of parking. But I am pretty well assured that again that is not going to be something that Laurel Park Mall allows to happen because that will be detrimental to business. And I can’t see where you wouldn’t be able to creatively resolve a situation that perhaps came to that point. So just for the sake of my ZBA 22 colleagues who may eventually get a chance to hear this case, as one council person I believe the parking situation has been pretty well addressed. Thank you. McIntyre: Thank you Mrs. Brosnan. Mr. Bahr. Bahr: Yeah, I would also concur with almost exactly what Councilman Kritzman said earlier and then what Councilman Brosnan presents come creative ideas as well. For me the parking--the parking is not the issue either. My big concern is as Councilman Kritzman said is the design of the building and I will echo what he said. And with that in mind we’ve talked a lot about this tonight, I’ll just offer a resolution to send this to the Committee of the Whole because I don’t think we can approve it at this point with the plan that we see before us here for the reasons Councilman Kritzman stated. Not having an issue with parking I’d like to be able to approve this but I’d like the opportunity to work with the developer to see something that would allow us a little bit more and I think the best place to do that is probably the Committee of the Whole so-- McIntyre: Okay, thank you. Meakin: Madam Chair. McIntyre: Yes, Mr. Meakin. Meakin: I’m going to offer an approving and a denying just to keep this moving forward. We have almost since the petitioner asked for postponing this th meeting to October 17, that gives him almost a month to come back with some additional drawings, you know addressing the signage, the landscaping and if he gets that to us in time we can still have an th opportunity to vote on it at the 17 meeting. McIntyre: Okay. Anyone else? Yes, Mrs. Brosnan. Brosnan: Just a comment taking off where Mr. Meakin is headed, I do think there is ample time for the developer to come back with some revised site plan. And I just want to lend my voice too in support of Mr. Kritzman concerns relative to design. And just to give you a sense of where I’m headed, you know the building as a whole looks rather utilitarian to me. I do think there might be an opportunity to create some dimension. You know this mall it is a stellar development in our community. And now we are going to position a building on an out-lot that is at a corner of a very prominent piece of property in Livonia. So we’re really going to want the best Panera that you can possibly bring. And I just think we can probably do a little bit better than what we have here. But in concept I think this is a great ad, so I--you know--I think you’ve got a block which you can work with. 23 McIntyre: Anyone else? Mr. Bahr. Bahr: Sorry, I’ll just add--I’ll tack on a comment which I meant to express earlier which is in support of the project. I’m very familiar with that site as I imagine coming in off that--off Laurel Park Drive whatever that exit--that entranceway to the north of the site, I actually think this is going to be a really--really--really attractive look coming in rather than being surrounded by pavement. Having a Panera that is as I’ve seen with other Panera’s is well maintained and a classy looking building and you’ve already got the tree lined street there. I think this is going to be a really attractive look and it is just the building itself that I have the issue with so. McIntyre: Thank you, Mr. Bahr. At this time, I’d like to go to the audience. If there is anyone else who would like to speak on this project. Helmkamp: Good evening. McIntyre: Good evening, Mr. Helmkamp. Helmkamp : Alan Helmkamp, 37488 North Laurel Park Drive, Livonia. Having heard the comments and the discussion I’m not sure what I brought tonight would be of that much more but I had a few observations as someone whose lived for 18 years on the north end of the mall. I’m in Aspen Place just off of Newburgh. My comments are mostly in the traffic and in the parking area. It will be brief. Of course I use the mall all the time but beyond I--my walk route is around the mall and so I’m in a position--have been in a position to view traffic patterns, view parking cycles what have you. It was briefly mentioned about the period of time last year when substantially this same footprint was lost to the mall when it was fenced off for a staging area with equipment and building materials for all the improvements inside. And as someone who walked passed that regularly and admittedly as Councilman Jolly mentioned it wasn’t during Christmas but at different times I can tell you that that loss of the that parking space did not really cause any difficulty. I didn’t see cars cueing up, I didn’t see cars cycling looking for parking. People going into that end go to Bar Louis or Max and Erma before it closed they might have had to park a little closer to Newburgh. But I didn’t see that as an issue. So I think that presents some empirical data for you if you will. It--my testimony is that of dotal but that was absolutely pretty close to an apple to apples opportunity for you to see how--at least for those six--seven months how the loss of that area for parking played out and I don’t see that as an issue. The other observation I wanted to make is of course all those condos and multi-unit complexes along the drive there, the Laurel Park Drive, there’s a lot of people who I see would be accessing this establishment by foot. 24 And so that doesn’t happen now, I don’t see many of us crossing Six Mile to get to the current location. I see many of us who live in that area walking and so that’s just a factor that I think will positively bear out on the parking and traffic issue as well. So beyond that I’m just an occasional user of Panera. I think if it is there I will use it more often and so I just wanted to go on record as being in support of the project and the waiver use. McIntyre: Thank you very much, Mr. Helmkamp. Helmkamp: Thank you. McIntyre: Anyone else like to speak on this project? All right seeing none, we will adjourn the Public Hearing. Thank you very much. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 8:11 p.m. SUSAN M. NASH, CITY CLERK