Agenda - Council - 01/11/2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

The Landscape Plan has been revieWed and meets or exceeds the City's requireme,nts. Staff has made some suggestions for diversity in species and trees that are more tolerant of de-icing salt. The site plan for the Pond Building g~nerally conforms to the Town Center Development Guidelines. There are no public parks idd~ntified for this sub-district and small group sitting areas and a mixture of plantings and.pavement ~are encouraged. The west side of the building includes an outdoor dining area that overlooks thc landscaped pond. The selected architectural materials include brick, EIFS, split face CMU integrally treated with color, and metal aCcents. Staff is requesting a sample of the corrugated metal panel material noted on the building elevations. The guidelines recommend that 35°A of ground level street front facades be glass openings. The building does not front on a street but theiamoUnt of glazing on the north wall facing the parking lot is 18%. The reduction in glazihg is!acceptable as restaurants are not the typical window shopping experience the City is striving for With the retail buildings. The building material calculations indicate that 44% of the non-glazed area is brick and/or a comparable material. At the December 2na Planning Commission, the City Staff and Planning Commissioners reviewed the preliminary site plan. The discUssion focused on concerns with the design of the drive-thru feature on the Pond Building, in~ cOmbination with the drive-thru pharmacy feature on the Coborn's building, resulting in conflicting traffic patterns and flow through this westerly parking lot. Specifically, the following isSUes were raised: a) the length of the drive-thru lane may be inadequate depending on the tenant; b) the traffic conflicts that co~d arise from the entrance to the drive thru lane being so close to the entrance to the parking lot; c) orderly traffic patterns ~with two drive-thru's in the same area (Pond Building and Coborn's Pharmacy); d) impact on traffic flow to both drive-thru's if Coborn's expands as anticipated; e) continued compliance With off-street parking requirements for the multiple uses on Lots 1 and 2 as parking spaces would have to be removed to still accommodate 2 drive-thrus if Cobornr's expansion occurs at some point in the future. Subsequent to the Planning CommisSion meeting, Ramdance submitted revised plans for site layout, grading, and future site layout dated December 7, 2004. These plan revisions were reviewed by City Council on December 114 as part Of the request for preliminary site plan approval. The drive-thru for the pond Buil~dirtg was lengthened to accommodate 4 rather than 3 vehicles ~ The tenant will be Caribou Coffee, which involves much less traffic than a fast food restaurant. Caribou's standard is accommodating 4 vehicles: 2 at menu board, 1 at order board, 1 at pick-up window. The lengthening of the drive-thru lane required loss of one parking space and revised grading plan. In addition, the curbed parking node adjacent to the drive-thru lane was redesigned to make it virtually impossible to negotiate a right-in', turn into the drive lane and thereby decrease the potential for traffic congestion just south of the entrance into the parking lot. The plan is to also utilize parking lot directional signs to direct users of the Caribou drive-thru to the south end of the parking lot and then north again to the;entrance to the drive-thru. Users of the pharmacy drive-thru enter the parking lot and immediately head east and south through the drive-up window.