 because we just did those. I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of July 28th, 2008. So moved. Second. Having a motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Minutes are approved. All right, we'd like to welcome the city's consultants for the Taylor Drive Project, Omni Associates. I'll let them introduce themselves. Please, you're on camera. We need you to use microphones, though, because you're being filmed, and this is going out to the citizens of Sheboygan. So do we know which, should we make it that one and walk around and put that on? I'll introduce. Thank you. All set. All right, well, welcome everyone tonight, Council. As you're aware, we're here this evening to talk about the Taylor Drive Draft Master Plan presentation, which is going to be done through our consultants, Jeff Sanders of Omni Associates with a couple of other representatives as well. Just wanted to speak a little bit as to how we got to this point in time. The first, one of the reasons why we got here was it was when we did our original comprehensive plan in the early 2000, the Taylor Drive areas was one of the areas that was specified that we should take a closer look at to do an area-wide planning effort. Obviously, in the late 2006, early 2007, quite a few tenants had started to leave the Taylor Heights Shopping Center. A lot of stakeholders in the area, a lot of citizens, council members, staff were concerned about what was taking place there and were concerned about the health of the district itself. So with that, the mayor and the council, along with staff, had developed a request for a proposal and in April of 2007, we had sent the request for proposal out. In May of 2007, we had received 10 applicants. In July of 2007, the City of Shboygan Plan Commission interviewed three of the consultants and Omnion Associates was selected. In February of 2008 of this year, we've had two public meetings so far. In February 2008, it was the initial kickoff meeting and these meetings were held at the Shboygan County Historical Society. During that kickoff meeting, what we were after was to, one of the exercises was referred to as a SWAT exercise. What are the strengths? What are the weaknesses? What are the opportunities? What are the threats in the corridor itself? So that was one of the first things that Jeff worked on with the stakeholders, the citizens, the people in attendance to give us some feedback. What did they see as the positive, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats? Also at that time, there was a visual preference. 50 slides they went through and just identifying certain types of buildings or uses or signs or roads or parkways trying to get a sense of what people in the community thought would work well in the corridor. So that was what initially took place at our kickoff meeting in February. In April of 2008, we again met at the Shboygan Historical Museum. This was referred to as the visioning meeting and then the visioning meeting, we did a visioning exercise and basically what that exercise was was to take a look at what every, all the stakeholders, all the citizens, what everyone attending in the meeting felt was gonna be what the corridor should look like in the year 2028, what types of uses, what types of amenities, what types of transportation, all the different areas and so again, compiling additional data. The other thing was to actually refer to what was the mapping exercise which took into account the boundaries of the corridor which tend to be Kohler Memorial Drive to the north and Indiana Avenue to the south and you kind of see from some of the maps and things like that, that it kind of varies on the east and west sides along that area and basically with that mapping exercise it was try to identify where do you want a specialty retailer, commercial business, restaurant? Where would you like to see some industry if there was any in there? Where would you like to see pedestrian pass? Where would you like to see green space? And so everyone again once again had the opportunity to take this maps and identify those spaces that they thought would be appropriate for those types of uses. From that information, basically our consultants had an opportunity to compile all sorts of data they collected quite a bit and probably are still continue to accept it on the internet and things like that for those who didn't participate but there's a way for the public to continue to participate whether it's at the meetings or through the internet but that's how we got to this evening's meeting and basically at tonight's meeting what we are doing is we're having our consultant present the draft master plan for Taylor Drive and with that I'm going to turn it on over to Jeff Sanders about me and associates. Thanks Steve. Well thanks for summarizing the process Steve. My colleague Clark Meyer and Andy Raul will be talking a little bit later but what we wanna do tonight is go through the chapters and draft form that we've presented. We're gonna do this very very quickly for the first six chapters. The all important seventh chapter which actually presents the three design and development alternatives that we are suggesting as appropriate for a variety of reasons which we'll discuss. We'll get into in a little while. I'm not sure the format. Chairman Bauch if you want to. If there are questions we'll need you to mic up we'll need you to speak very loudly and then you can reiterate the question please Jeff. Sounds good. So as Steve mentioned what we did is put together a proposal some time ago that called for a seven step process or a seven phase process. For those of you who can see the process is up here but essentially we're looking at an existing conditions assessment, a transportation assessment, planning area infrastructure, everything from sewer and water to potable water to electricity, communications, that sort of information. Market considerations, defining the future which encompasses all of the public participation actions that have occurred thus far, design and development alternatives and finally the implementation section. Now the implementation chapter, chapter eight is the only chapter that is not being presented tonight. And the reason for that is you as a community have not yet decided which alternative or perhaps which blending or which of, which blended alternative you'd prefer to see. So to save costs for the city instead of putting together implementation for a bunch of things that may never happen we're holding off on that until we get the recommendation back from you. So in terms of the introduction and feel free to peruse through the map or peruse through the chapter if you'd like as I go through this. Chapter one has a location map very similar to the one I was holding up a moment ago. And instead of holding this, can everybody hear me okay? It also includes a summary of the plan structure. So a very brief description of chapter one, two, three, et cetera. There's a chapter guide explaining what each one of those chapters are intended to demonstrate or present or propose. And then finally a brief section on how the map will be implemented. So as Steve mentioned in terms of the project area basically we're talking about Kohler Memorial Avenue to Indiana Avenue. Sorry, Kohler Memorial Drive to Indiana Avenue. Plus a chunk of land that kind of triangular chunk of land northwest of the intersection of Kohler Memorial Drive and Taylor Drive. Sir? Steve? That was defined within the RFP so before we became involved so I'll leave that to Steve. Correct. Right now we felt that. Steve, you wanna pick up Bob's mic? Pick up Bob's mic. There you go. The reason we felt that the sugar farm should be included is if you take a look at the overall corridor it's likely that one is gonna impact the other. So when development does occur on that property what is the proper type of development? How does it fit in with the existing development that's already in the city? So we felt that you couldn't just concentrate on the existing retail and businesses and development that's in the city. We felt that that was a part of that corridor and it should be studied because sooner or later it's likely that that will be in and hopefully we'll have the opportunity to develop it and we thought this was the opportune time to do some planning ahead of time so that if and when that does come in we have some things that we've kind of can show people hey, here's the type of things we're looking for or development in that area if we choose to do that. Not to get ahead in the presentation here but would the thought be that there'd be a phase sort of implementation of the plan? Seeing that, I guess it being that it's my district to hear a lot of concerns about Taylor, I see more, you know, two areas that are really suffering in that area. So would the focus initiative be on those areas before we put mental and financial resources into that new area of development, work on what we have? I don't know if we'd like to go through the rest of the presentation or how we'd like to address that. Or perhaps not, so I'll address it right now. That's a question that remains unanswered and you as our client are gonna determine the answer to that question. We have not begun the implementation section yet. What I've done is I've put together lists of funding sources that are available, different types of economic development programs that you may choose to utilize with whatever alternative forward with. Now, once you've decided an alternative, obviously the next question is how do we make this happen? How do we implement it? And another obvious question that would follow that is should we do this all in one fell soup or is it phased? It's almost always phased, you know, unless there's somebody out there with a very large wallet who looks at it and says, you know, here you go. We would be looking at a phased approach, I presume, but that decision will be yours. We may have a recommendation, but at this point I'll leave that question to be answered between tonight and the presentation, the second presentation of the preferred alternative. The project area itself includes Memorial Mall, Shopco, Taylor Heights Shopping Center, the former Walmart and Century structures, Sheboygan County Museum, Blue Lion Ice Center, and as Steve pointed out early, a large undeveloped property that throughout the plan we refer to as the Shugart Farm or the Shugart property for obvious reasons, that's the landowner. In terms of existing conditions, chapter two, what we're trying to do is describe the landscape as it exists today, and that includes the description of existing land uses, a natural resources and a natural resources map, historic and cultural resources assessment, a current zoning map, kind of a brief outline or summary of recent planning efforts, including the comprehensive plan that Steve mentioned earlier, and then identification of some of the cursory surface development issues and concerns. Obviously a high level of vacancy rate in some of the facilities and two large structures that are completely vacant would be one of the issues and one of the challenges. In terms of the natural areas map, before we became involved in this project, all this property was to me, was a large undeveloped piece of land by a river with a stream running through it. Once we became involved, we learned a lot more about that stream. Those of you who live here are probably much more aware of it than we ever were when we began, but Willow Creek is significant in many ways. In terms of its status as a cold water trout fishery, that's something you typically don't find until you get far north of here in the state of Wisconsin. So what we wanted to ensure and what we told staff as we went forward is whatever proposal we put together would be built upon the sustainable development principle the RFP called for. In other words, it is our goal that whatever proposal we offer to you, that land you should be fully implemented will not only negatively affect Willow Creek sub-watershed, but it should enhance the sub-watershed at least within this area. Now the downside of course is Willow Creek continues westward outside of your jurisdiction. So decisions that are made by the community's west of you will play a significant role in the long-term ecological viability of that stream. But because of its significance and because of the emphasis on sustainable development that the city placed on this project, we wanted to make sure that our plans called for enhancement of this area. So even when you see the types of development that we'll be talking about in a little bit more detail later, keep in mind we're looking at that stream as an incredibly important resource. In addition to that, we did a cultural resource search, archeological site research and not surprisingly found that there's a lot of stuff out there. Now the sugar property would be right here, Indiana Avenue, Taylor Drive. So all of these items, all these polygons and items that you see listed are recorded archeological or cultural sites. They can vary from anything to a Native American campsite which in terms of significance, although they're all significant, would be somewhat less significant than a burial or an effigy mound, which there are also in this area. So as you look at chapter two when you get to the cultural and historical resources section, there's a description of what each one of these icons, each one of these color coatings mean. So again, as we go forward, certainly with that part of the, or that part of the archeological area that is within the project area, we want to be aware of that. Well, what does that mean? Well, there are some existing statutes out there that protect the kinds of resources that might exist here. The two that most people are maybe familiar with are ARPA and NAGPRA. ARPA is Archeological Resource Protection Act. NAGPRA is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Both of those come into play anytime you stick a shovel on the ground and you find something. So you as a community need to be aware that if you do decide that development is desirable down here, that development quite likely will discover some things that were previously undiscovered. So good for that. In terms of the transportation assessment, I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague, Andy Raul. Andy is a transportation planner with Omni. Thanks, Jeff. It's okay. Basically, the main things that I focused on are the bullet points here. You look at the previous transportation plans. Most of that, I looked at the bicycle and pedestrian comprehensive plan that Cheboyk and County has. In that, we noticed that there were a lot of areas where they wanted to improve on bicycle and pedestrian paths throughout the whole county, but there were a lot of them actually in the district area. And I'll talk about them in a few minutes. I also looked at the existing transportation network, all the roads, the sidewalks, also the river and the railroad that go through the area. What kind of things do we see there that exist now? And then also the challenges and opportunities that we see in those areas. I'll refer to the Transportation Master Plan map. I believe you also have a copy of that in your handouts. Now the map should be in the back of your packet. I think the transportation map will be the second one that you find at the very back of your packet. Okay, thanks, Jeff. Basically, Taylor Drive, as you would all know, is the North-South Highway going through the district. It does play a very important role in the whole metropolitan area of Cheboyk. Because it acts as a North-South alternative highway than I-43. I know some of us like taking a highway, some of us like taking a slower road, such as Taylor Drive. It is a key road going through the area. And also we have to kind of balance, it carries a lot of traffic, 20,000 vehicles a day, which is great because that's 20,000 vehicles that may go past businesses and areas through this area. But also because an alternative route, let's say there's a crash on I-43, vehicles are using that and they just want to get through. So we have to have a balance of getting them to kind of stop and go to our businesses or whatever we plan on doing, or as well as getting cars through there. That's a transportation engineer. My normal role is getting traffic to move through. And I kind of have to come up with a little different view on this. So forgive me if I sound a little crude on that part. Basically, there's five or seven traffic signals starting at Wilgus, two at the ramps at Colon Memorial Drive, Erie, the one at Walmart, New Jersey, and Indiana. One of the two main ways of getting into this area, as you would all agree, Colon Memorial Drive and Indiana Avenue. Colon Memorial Drive has about 28,000 vehicles right here, west of Taylor Drive, 19,000 here on a per day basis. That's a big difference. Where does that drop going? Well, they're going on to Taylor Drive. Yes, sir? Yes, how correct are those numbers? Those were from 2005. Walmart would have been included in those. Walmart likely was there during that time, yes. We would use more current volumes, but every three years the U of T comes up with those. So they would have counted some this summer. So if there's time, maybe we can get those volumes into the final report depending on the whole process. So back to that, because there's about 10,000 volume difference between east and west side of Taylor Drive, it means there's a lot of vehicles that are accessing Taylor Drive from the west and from I-43, which is great. It does create some bottlenecks and some congestion there, but really an interchange system with Colon Memorial Drive as a state highway and Taylor Drive as a county highway, there's really no good way to, a better way to get traffic moving from that area than having an interchange. The other main access using Indiana Avenue, another route that crosses I-43. Now, it may be beneficial in the future if an interchange with I-43 in Indiana were there, that could really help out the metropolitan area, also giving another access into Taylor Drive from the south rather than coming in from the north, which will alleviate traffic congestion in this area. And later in our plan, I don't wanna, I guess I don't wanna spill the beans or anything. Depending on what's going on here, we might want access from Indiana Avenue, which will be easier for vehicles to get in there if there was an interchange in I-43. Otherwise, other highways, so we'll go here, get Erie Avenue, New Jersey, those are giving access to our business and commercial areas and also to residential areas to the east and west of the district. Overall, all the roads are in decent shape. The forwarding facility of Taylor Drive is definitely good enough for the volumes. I know no one likes stopping at red lights, but when I was out there, I thought the traffic signals worked fine. I mean, it does get busy, of course, but I think it works well and it should work well into the future. Maybe some improvements at intersections with left turn lanes, lengthen them, other technical things. I don't wanna get into too much details. I know it's in your plans or in your, yeah. Wilgus, it is difficult up here with this intersections that are so closely spaced unless you have really significant reconstruction of that area, there's really nothing that we can do about that at this time. With pedestrian and bicycle routes, there's a bike route coming from the trailhead, Kohler Trailhead Park, actually crosses into Kohler area under I-43, comes on Erie Avenue here and crosses, goes up past the historical society and all along Memorial Drive. That's actually one of the list of the pedestrian bicycle enhancements that should be done in the future to better identify it and to make the route just basically easier for people to use, make sure it's safer, especially at crossings such as here, make sure that whenever there's vehicles, pedestrians crossing each other, we wanna make sure that it's safer for everybody. Also with the railroad, it's a transportation item. It is used, it's a union-specific railroad. It really creates a barrier because it is elevated maybe 10 to 15 feet above the grounds north and south of it and it creates a barrier in the shoe cart properties. There is a narrow bridge right here and there's also a farm machinery type of bridge right there. In the future, if something were in here, I believe this would be one of the main ways into this area by vehicle, but this bridge would likely be reconstructed to at least have two-lane traffic. Right now it's only about, it's only one and one-and-a-half, it's wide. Other areas, maybe pedestrian access from other locations, but we'll talk about those a little later. And then the last transportation piece, water. The Shabuaigian River flows right at the south part of our district, also with the tributaries. The Eskigen Park is here. It also looks like there's access right in this area that's possible for boating and recreational use. Overall, that's the general view of our transportation assessment. I don't want to get into too much details if you want to read more about ADTs or specific improvements at intersection or road you can read through the document. Thanks, Andy. In terms of the infrastructure assessment, we're looking at is the existing capacity within the project area, but obviously we want to know if development occurs within the sugar property, is existing capacity sufficient enough to serve that development, serve that change in land use? If it's not, what steps are necessary? So as you go through chapter four, you'll get a better, more detailed understanding of what that is, but just to briefly address a couple of the key points. On this map, and again, on the utilities map, which should be the third map in your packet toward the end, you'll see blue lines that extend around and through the sugar property. And those are water lines that are proposed if development should occur in here. And there's a couple alternate routes. You could come down and cross over by the train tracks, or you could come all the way down more along Indiana Avenue and come back up by that western access point that Andy mentioned a moment ago. But in terms of electricity, sewer and water, communications, everything's fine. We have sewer and water here, or excuse me, sanitary sewer here, here, here, there, and down in the bottom. So there should not be any infrastructure issues precluding development in here. There might be costs associated if you had to use lift stations, for instance, because as you well know, if there's a ridge right here and it drops down quite a bit. But for the most part, there shouldn't be any considerable limitations on infrastructure. Market considerations. What we wanted to do is look at the market, not just for the city of Sheboygan, but at a more micro scale for the Taylor Drive area, the Taylor Drive district. So what I did is I searched for communities that shared much in common with the city of Sheboygan. Now, one of the things that I would do if I were sitting in the audience right now looking at that list is I'd immediately look for the differences between those communities in Sheboygan, which is perfectly understandable. Ashwabenan 17,000 people, Sheboygan's 60 some, 50 some. But what all five of these communities have in common with your community is, first of all, they're located on water. They're either located on a great lake or a significant river. And the way they're oriented to that water is significant. Secondly, they're all compact geographically. Regardless of the population difference, all of these communities tend to be very compact in terms of their geographic footprint. Thirdly, they all have a corridor or a drive very similar in scope, economic and land use diversity. And again, size to the Taylor Drive district. And each one of those communities have something very similar to what we have in Taylor Drive. So what we did is we selected those five communities to compare and contrast with this community in the Taylor Drive district. We also included something called a socioeconomic base analysis. What is that? Well, it's just kind of a neat way of saying a demographic study. We looked at the age of the community, education within the community, projected population within the community, comparing them to these five as well. We compiled a bunch of market area data. As someone who is not an economic developer or an economic planner, I can tell you this is not gonna be sexy reading for you. Unless, of course, you are an economic planner, economic analyst. But all that information is critical to identifying the existing needs, whether this community is an importer of certain manufacturer and industry sectors, or whether it's an exporter, meaning are you producing a lot more manufacturing jobs here than communities of comparable size? We have a summary of market opportunities and a future market analysis, which kind of round out chapter five. So again, what we don't wanna do tonight is go into detail on the chapters. We wanna spend as much time as possible talking about these three alternatives. I have no doubt that Steve and Paulette and Chad and other staff will be in communication with you as you consider these options, discuss these options. Chapter six is the summary of all the public information activities that have occurred to date. Steve went through all of them quite well and mentioned them for those of you who are in attendance. We had the big piece of paper that we filled up. We had the mapping exercise, all that kind of stuff. But we also did seven stakeholders, stakeholder interviews. The city identified key landowners within the project area that they felt because of the significance of their interest in the project area warranted one-on-one interviews. So what we did, Omni did, is put together a list of 25 questions aimed at gauging their interests, their concerns, and perhaps their visions for the future of the district as related to their business. And that was really important because the public stuff is great because you get a general sense of how the community feels about the district. We heard things like it's a declining district. It's lost its luster. It's competing against the north part of the Taylor Drive and it's competing against the lake front and the water front. Those are the kinds of things I would have expected to hear from the general public. The kinds of comments we received from the stakeholders were a little bit different. And as you go through chapter six, particularly towards the end, you'll see the 25 questions that we asked. You'll see a tabulated response to all of those questions from the seven people who participated in the survey. And now the reason you're all here this evening, Clark. Clark Moyer is the head of our architectural department. He's also the project architect for Taylor Drive. All right, what we did is, as Jeff said, we took all of the information from our public meetings, compiled that, and that's also included in your packet. And we met with city officials as well as the stakeholders to find out exactly what are the best ways to resolve the problems and issues out on Taylor Drive. One of the things we talked about was that this area does not have any identification to it. So we felt it was important to create some signage and way finding to identify the district with monument signs located at key points throughout the district to help people not only find their way, but also to create an identity for that area. We also looked at the lack of landscaping that is in that area and one thing that could also be implemented to create an identity for that district as well as well as sustainable development. One of the items we looked at was the lack of development and current usage of the Taylor Heights, the Walmart, and the grocery store. And there is no quick fix to this area. It's been an issue in Sheboygan for years. One thing that we thought could happen is this area could be redeveloped into a mixed use type of occupancy in which you would have retail space, commercial office space, as well as living space, townhomes, condominiums, loft departments. Once that is in place, that would also then attract additional business such as restaurants, nighttime activities, as well as specialty stores to service those people that live and work in that same area. Along with today's economy, everybody knows the gas prices are going up, so to live and work in the same facility or the same neighborhood without the need for additional transportation could be very appealing. This is something that could be done without the acquisition or any improvements to that chukr property. However, in the long term, as you'll see in some of these schemes, that element could be a nice starting point for development in that area. The first scheme that we looked at is our event park in which you could take the chukr property, develop some hospitality, maybe some conference and banquet facilities along India and Avenue where you have the higher traffic, and then develop the back portion into an event park in which you may have an amphitheater for summertime activities, wine tastings, high school graduation could be held here instead of at the land park, which is where I was when I was here years ago. Anyway, that could all be developed into that lower level that would also serve as a public park for those people that are living in this mixed use area. They could use pedestrian walkways down from the upper level down to the park itself. We also are indicating that there could be a roadway for emergency vehicles to enter off of New Jersey and come in on that. There's an existing trail that kind of cuts through the trees. It wouldn't be used for regular transportation, but could be used for emergency vehicles. This particular scheme plays upon the fact that we would have a lot of people in this mixed use area which could then use that lower level as well. Option number two. Actually, Clark, before you move on. Okay. One of the things that we've also included here, and this doesn't sound like this one, which is a chance, there you go. Testing. One of the things that we included in all three proposals is the establishment of a riparian corridor around Willow Creek. It's obviously not easy to tell the distance when you're looking at a map like this, but we're proposing a 50-foot buffer on each side creating essentially a minimum 100-foot corridor. And when I refer to the corridor that we refer to in the plan is a vegetated riparian buffer which means no structures would be allowed whatsoever within that corridor area. Now, the exception would be passive recreational uses. So if you were to create a recreational trail or an educational trail with a nice wayfinding system explaining the significance of that particular stream, that kind of stuff would be acceptable. It would be an amenity that would benefit the stream as a whole. But that kind of lime green snake that you see square going down there would be essentially 50 feet marked off from the high water mark on the bank of each side. So you create a minimum 100-foot buffer around there. The other thing to keep in mind is Clark mentioned. We're looking at pedestrian access linking to the trail that already exists that Andy mentioned before, but also the trail that goes around the project area as part of this development. So what we'd want is the ability to enter the trail system anywhere within the Taylor Drive project and have immediate access to other trails within Sheboygan all the way to the waterfront, ideally, and also to Kohler. So when you see these little blue arrows, they're referring to places to get in or get out of the project area. All right, the second scheme. Sorry, hold on a second. Okay. Is there a question on that buffer concept? That's the creek you're referring to, is it? Correct. Okay, what about the other, it looks like tributaries to the north. Can I borrow? I've seen the blue lines that those are other feeding into the creek. Good point. This area up here, it's identified in blue lines because that happens to be the color coding we use on this particular GIS mapping layer. That's indicating wetland. So although it's quite possible there could be intermittent streams that appear somewhere in there, the DNR map did not show any navigable waters other than wetlands. So I think on your map, on the natural features map, it's probably a little bit clearer. That would have been the first map included in the packet. But certainly if there are existing streams outside of Willow Creek, and they could be minor drainage tributaries, intermittent tributaries to Willow Creek, I would suggest that buffering, those would be a good thing too. Is the feeling that those are undevelopable? The wetlands are undevelopable. It is possible to develop a wetland. You have to go through an extensive permitting process and it's possible or conceivable that you could do that. I would argue strongly against even considering it because you'd be taking away one of the big selling points of this property. For those of you who've never been down there, it's beautiful. And when you're in the midst of this property, you do not feel like you're in a city. I mean, you're surrounded by that ridgeline that goes all the way from the north by Schopko all the way down to the river. That ridgeline is covered in trees and vegetation. So you can see that Schopko's up there. You can hear cars going by, but if you're looking north or east, you don't see the city of Sheboygan. Now, looking to the west, there isn't the same kind of topography there, but you have residential neighborhoods with a huge wooded buffer. So again, looking to the west, there's a cocoon-like feeling. The only time you actually notice any development is looking south. So whatever occurs, whether you go with the alternative one, two, or three or some blended version of them, what we would suggest is including some sort of vegetated restoration down here would further create that kind of nestled cocoon-like natural area, whether it's a park setting for offices, a park setting for events, or a park setting for any of the other activities that we've suggested. Yes, ma'am. You mentioned the underdive. Right now? Yes. Right now, there is an existing curb cut right here that enters on a small road with a very narrow bridge. As Andy pointed out, it's about a car and a half width wide bridge. There's also a curb cut right here. This road does not go through. Actually, there's like a tractor trail kind of over there. Right. And then there's also by, across from New Jersey here, there's a little pathway that goes into the woods and comes down the ridge. That literally is what I think if I say tractor trail, the mental image that you have to dirt pass, that's what this is here. So those right now are the only existing entry points, ingress and egress points. For the development, for the alternatives that we're proposing, these two on the south would be the primary ingress and egress points. This one here, as was mentioned earlier, would be a primary pedestrian, bicycle or alternative transportation entry point, but it would not be open to vehicular traffic other than perhaps maintenance vehicles, service vehicles and emergency vehicles. This access up here is pedestrian only. It would be, for those of you who are familiar with the switchback, it means a trail that has to go up a ridge but you don't want to do a lot of climbing, vertical climbing. So it kind of switch back and forth and take you up there. And as Jeff said, it is pretty steep from here down. As far as elevation grow. 40 feet plus, maybe even a little bit more in some places. What was that? Hydro. The second option that we're looking at is a research office park in which the city could develop a relationship with the University of Wisconsin to develop. Excuse me, just one second before we move on. Is now the appropriate time to ask questions about what would bring people, what helps improve the economic state of that? Who comes to that secluded area bringing their deep pockets to spend money in our city? Absolutely. With the first alternative, the event park, Clark, this is more your, I guess I'll let you. Well, we're looking at a facility or grounds that could be used year round. Whether it would be for, like I said, the wine tastings or outdoor theater, musical events in the summertime. Oh, got one. That those types of functions, that could be whether it's weekend events, farmers market, that kind of a thing or just a general park could bring people to that area as well as if that mixed use development was there, those people would be there during the week. I'm assuming that the park would be used more on weekends. All right, one of the understandings we had, forgive me for turning my back to you from it, one of the understandings we had as we went forward was we would present one alternative that was a relatively minimal impact upon the existing sugar property. You know, one option obviously is no development at all. And we talk about that very briefly in the plan. One option for the sugar property would be to leave it completely alone as it is. There are benefits, there are environmental benefits to that action. There are economic costs associated with that action. One could argue either way, I'm not taking a position in favor or against. But what we wanted to do with the first alternative was to find something that took advantage of the unique natural environment and landscape down there but at minimal impact or effect to the site. So when you see Clarkman, when you see the orangish in red areas here, this is where actual development would occur, concentrated south of the rail line. This area would be primarily untouched. There might be some trails, a trail, access trail in place, and there might be some sort of structure where you could see holding music events, you could see holding outdoor weddings. What we said is we do not want to compete with existing businesses in this proposal. So we were not attempting to replicate any of the banquet, hotel, conference center facilities that already exist in this community. What doesn't exist in this community right now was a really cool place for an outdoor wedding or a really cool place, I take that back. What doesn't exist at this scale in this community right now was an outdoor venue that could cater to a couple of hundred people or 500 people. Now, if I was booking my wedding, which I will be doing in about 13 or 14 months, and yeah, we've already talked about you going in. If I were booking my wedding here for a spring, summer, or fall day, I'd want to make sure that if it started to rain, we had an alternative. So that's part of why you have these structures here. Now, this is not the Sheboygan wedding site. As Clark mentioned, it's called an event park that would allow for all kinds of activities and attractions to select this area for the park. But allow me to be clear on this. Of the three proposals, this is the one that would be the lesser of the economic generators. So if the goal is to put something here that generates the kind of development and redevelopment we desire over here, this one is the one that does it, but does it to a lesser degree. Sir, you had a question? That's an excellent question. When we do, what we're doing here is we're proposing three different concepts. And these concepts are called the event park and the two that Clark will continue mentioning. What we're not doing is laying out specific footprints about where parking would go, where the roads would go, that kind of stuff. And the reason we do that is pure economics for the city. If we were to do that, the cost of this proposal would go up about another $15,000 to $20,000. So what we want to do, and what we proposed many, many months ago, was we would come forward with concepts with a strong economic and market basis, allow you to review them, and once you as a community coalesce around a preferred development alternative, then we'll go to that level of detail of identifying where parking would be, where infrastructure connections would occur, where the footbed of the road would be, and that sort of thing. Yes, sir? When you did the market assessment, why did you rule out or did you consider it all, seeing Kenosha, Katahe, some of the other areas that have Lake Michigan advantage, but also have a lot of commercial development close to I-33? Sure, of the three communities. The question was, when we did the market study, or when we identified the select communities, why did we or did we not look at Racine, Kenosha, and Katahe? I did not look at Racine and Kenosha. Katahe was in the mix until they were cut. Racine and Kenosha didn't share, in my opinion, didn't share the same kind of overlapping interests and commonality with this community as we did, but that said, we could have picked many, many more or fewer. I wanted to look at a good diversity of examples of communities, 10,000 to 100,000 in size, but my preference was to stick at a cap around 60,000. Jamesville kind of snuck in, because there's a lot of similarity in that community to this community. But I also looked at O'Connell Walk, and they were in for a while. I looked at Green Bay, and they were in for a while. I looked at Sturgeon Bay. I mean, there were a variety of different communities that could have. There's no reason you couldn't do Racine or Kenosha in place of some of the ones I did, but I thought they were less compatible and comparable to Sheboygan as the ones I selected. But it is, I stress, it's a subjective decision. I looked at the data. I picked the communities that I thought were most relevant to this community. Yes. You got a question? You got me down. Oh, yeah, I got you good. Thank you. I'm no expert in condo and mixed use development, but in that mixed use living and working development, do you see that putting pressure on the development we're doing at the South Pier and along the river? Is that a competing entity with that? Is our community the outlook for our community such that you can see us growing demand for condo and living space? Help me get excited about more condos. Sure. Well, I guess what I would say is, I don't want to help you get more excited about condos because condos are an option that would warrant consideration, but we're not advocating condos over townhouses or rentals or single family homes or anything of that sort. What we are doing is trying to identify market-based economic generators for the project area that would achieve some semblance of long-term sustainability. Ideally, this plan, whatever one you go forward with, will bring long-term viability to the district. Well, yes, of course, we looked at existing areas within the community as well. And what we did not want to do and what was requested of us by staff was to not try to compete with other places in Sheboygan, or for that matter, to try to compete with the village of Kohler, which is a different kind of dynamic. So then the question becomes, with what's happening downtown and with what's happening on the riverfront and the lakefront, is there still a need today or in the future for mixed-use development in other parts of the community? I think the easy question is absolutely yes. The question, of course, is what type of mixed-use development? And if you, as a community, decide to go forward with that, if that's something you would see as beneficial, that's one of the things that we'll do as the next step. We'll flesh out some of the detailed options for mixed-use. But do keep in mind, the mixed-use proposal that Clark talked about requires complete redevelopment of the site he mentioned, which means Taylor High Shopping Center, Walmart, and the Sentry Store. So I mean, ideally, you'd look at that place and you'd say blank slate and start from scratch. Now, there are obviously some reasons that's not gonna happen today. Tomorrow, who knows? Thank you. You're welcome. Dan. Thank you. There you go. Sorry, Clark. On this map, you have the first map. So do you envision the conference center up in the old Walmart Sentry area? Down along Indiana. The conference center down along Indiana? The conference pointed out on the map up on top. Down in here. The yellow. The yellow. Right. This would be used for mixed-use. That'd be mixed-use. So, why don't you back up one more slide. One of Clark's staff, one of the architects on our staff put together some of these line drawings. This is what they do. And when I go to them, I say, can you draw me something? They draw this. I can't take a picture that's defined. But what we're looking at is an example, not a recommendation, I stress, but an example of something that would represent a multi-story mixed-use structure. Where you may have livable space on the upper floors and the first two floors or the first floor could be some sort of commercial development. It could be a donut shop or a bagel shop or a coffee shop, a bookstore. Second floor could be some sort of offices, insurance agents, real estate agents. Who knows? A mixture of uses. So that concept is what we're proposing for the Taylor Heights Wal-Mart Century site. But we're not proposing a specific level of detail yet. If you feel comfortable with that, if you think that's something that might work, what we would do is put together more detailed concepts for that site. You mentioned that this plan is probably the least economic generator the way that you're developing the Shukr property. Correct. The revitalization of the Taylor Heights Century exists with that in mind, I mean. Excellent question. One of the things that staff also directed us is to look at the project area, this is simplistic, but to look at the project area with and without the Shukr property. Now, we have to be clear on this. If you take the Shukr property out of the mix, you dramatically handicap your ability as a community to ensure the long-term economic viability of the quarter. Period. The market has changed considerably over the past 20 years. And you're seeing the results of that. Certain types of businesses that in the past might have considered locating on Taylor Drive look elsewhere, either closer to I-43 or in other places. So the question is, what can you do? What can the city do within the corridor to enhance its marketability for the types of development that you would desire? Well, one of the things you could do, again, taking the Shukr property out of the mix is to change the inherent dynamic of the project area. Putting in mixed-use development means you'd have a group of people in the district 24-7, seven days a week, 24 hours a day living there. Plus, you'd be bringing in a different kind of business. Now, as the gentleman pointed out earlier, there are other places within the community that have this type of development. Certainly, downtowns are ideally suited to mixed-use. When you're talking about a quarter that's at the periphery of the city, it's a different kind of mixed-use that's usually desirable. But it's also doable. And if the city decided to go forward with that, you could utilize TIF funding or a big district or a variety of other local economic tools to generate the kind of interest in that type of development that you'd wanna see. Basically, to lay the groundwork for it. You could use TIF to lay the infrastructure for that kind of development. Now, if that occurred, if some sort of mixed-use development occurred there, it would, in a very positive way, change the economic dynamic of the district. It would change the level of vitality. It would change the perception of the district. It would no longer be that fuddy-duddy street out on the west. It would be someplace where there's a lot of interesting neat stuff happening. And hopefully, in complete compatibility with the residential neighborhoods due east. I tell you what, if you can, just go through alternatives two and three. So then, all of us have kind of a context to discuss this. The second option we looked at was a professional office or research park in which this area could be developed into an office campus that could include, like I had mentioned earlier, work with the university as far as maybe it's medical research area, high-tech businesses, computer, that type of thing. Those type of industries in a campus setting can bring in two to 3,000 people could, depending on how this is all laid out, could be in this area at any one time. If that happens, then you get the added benefit of creating more specialty retail restaurants and that type to serve those people during the day. The people that are living in this mixed-use area, they could also be working down in this lower area so you could provide the circulation to get to those buildings and the workplace that you can again cut down on the amount of traffic that would be running along Taylor, but yet these people would be working in that same general area. It's basically an urban village concept and that's planners like us, we talk about things like traditional neighborhood design and new urbanism and all that kind of stuff. What we're trying to do is create almost a sustainable micro-community within a larger community, which is what a downtown is. It's essentially what your lakefront, your waterfront are. They're distinct communities within a bigger community. Taylor Drive right now doesn't have that sort of defined character or identity. It's going through the transition that many quarters have gone through over the last 20 or 30 years. So all of these options aim at providing or identifying some sort of character. And if you were to go forward with alternative number two, as Clark mentions, I would, I'm trying to think of a good example locally and it's not coming to my... Acuity. Acuity? Out on the highway. If you were to locate a business like Acuity down here where they could have a large campus and be located in this particular location, think of all those people that would be in that area during the day, every day. And it would be a campus setting. So when we take campus setting, we're talking about some distance between structures, lots of trees, lots of open space, restored prairies, trails, rest and reflection areas and picnic tables and benches, all that kind of stuff. Now you create that sort of framework and you become much more desirable to businesses that are looking for a new place to build than just some industrial park or some business park on the periphery of some suburb, some place. You're creating a place where people want to be. I know when I've interviewed for work in the past and when I've interviewed people for work, if people are coming into that business or that park area and they're seeing trails and open space and people walking during lunch and laughing and happy, I mean, that's desirable. That's a hard to quantify but undeniable attractant for business. So that's essentially what we're talking about with alternative number two. The other thing we talk about in the packet that you have is this could be developed as a lead or a green building area in which you could attract people from all over the United States and they want to have their business in an area that has been designed as a green or a lead community as another selling feature for that particular area. Given the sensitivity of the wetlands and this is gonna, I'm gonna ask you for a swag here but given the amount of space you've got allotted where you could put buildings for people and I'm assuming this campus concept, mostly office people, maybe they have some training facilities, that kind of thing. How many people could you put here, ballpark, without impacting the wetlands? What size of a company would we be drawing to this campus type thing? Excellent question. First of all, I don't think, I think we should think about it as companies, not company, we'd be looking at a park conceivably. And the other thing is these maps in planning parlance are called bubble maps. So unlike a zoning map or a land use map, when you see those polygons, little brown ovals in circles, don't, I ask you not to assume that that's where we're proposing the structure to locate. For instance, the bubble that is kind of to the far north is sitting right, the brown one, right there. That one's sitting right on a wetland. Obviously we're not proposing a structure on the wetland. We're saying generally you'd have a dispersal of structures within the site. In terms of the answer to your question, well obviously it would be conditioned upon how tall we're going. I would think you do three story down there, no problem without negatively affecting the visual image of the district, both from within looking out and from without looking in. Four, five, at some point it's completely incompatible with the existing landscape. So if you're talking about a couple multi-story structures, decent size footprints, yeah, the number that we were thinking is in the thousands. And you could go with either on ground or below ground. Whether it's 2000 or 7000. Thank you. That's something going back to the phased question, the phased question earlier. That's something that would happen over time too. I mean, anytime you open up a business park or an industrial park, it happens incrementally. What you want to do as a community is make sure that whatever locates there, locates in a way compatible with the overall plan, the overall vision for that district, for this community. So you lay out all the groundwork, you lay out all the design criteria and then let the businesses and developers say, wow, that looks like a perfect place to put our business. Same way, an individual might pick out a lot in a subdivision, you know, you're picking the one that has the amenities that you want. This would be that kind of concept, albeit on a somewhat greater scale. The next one could be senior residential development. With the senior population being one of the fastest sections of our population, this area developing into a senior housing project, not necessarily assisted living or any more independent living, multi-story, having the amenities located in this area, such as tennis courts, indoor pool, activity centers, those type of amenities would keep, you'd have another population that would be in this area. Again, as Jeff had mentioned, 24-7, where they would then be the people that would be shopping in these areas, which would then take a building like this, the old grocery store and provide a need for a new grocery store or a new type of grocery store. Maybe it's a whole food store, something like that, more of a specialty type of store where the individuals living down here, again, transportation is not a long drive. They could, we could introduce electric trolleys. You could go with golf cart travel. That would be another mode of transportation to get to this Taylor Heights area. Again, when you have the population here, the retail will come, because these people will drive the need for additional use in that area, whether it's Taylor Heights, the mall, or possible retail development along Indiana Avenue. When it comes to putting together plans, whether it be a comprehensive plan like you went through a few years back or an area plan like this, there are very few things that planners and demographers can say with absolute certainty. There is one though, the percentage of your population represented by 65 years and older is going to grow and it's going to continue to grow over the next 20, 30, 40 years. Fastest growing demographic in the United States right now is octogenarians, people 80 years and older. The baby boom generation, and again, for those of you who sat in on the meetings that have facilitated thus far, you're probably saying, oh, he's gonna talk about the baby boom generation again. Yes, I am. The baby boom generation was the largest generation in American history in terms of its size and in terms of its impact and effect upon the country. And as I've said, every community that exists today, almost every community that exists in the United States today exists in the shape and form, and it's morphology, if you will, due to that generation and there's no reason for us to expect that that generation won't continue to shape the way communities look, function, feel, et cetera. Well, as a 45-year-old person, I'm on the tail end of the baby boom generation. 65 years old right now is the front end of that generation. And that group of people within that 20-year age range are approaching retirement, entering retirement, will continue to do so over the next 10 to 20 years. We're living longer and we're healthier in our later years than we've ever been in the history of this country. So what does that mean to a community? Well, it's gonna change the way the community interacts with itself and others. So the question then becomes, if there is this growing population of seniors, not only in Sheboygan, but perhaps in Northeast Wisconsin and Central Wisconsin, Eastern Wisconsin, the Midwest, what opportunities does that provide to the city? And one of the opportunities it provides, of course, is creating some sort of senior residential community that is unique and distinct from the types of senior housing that are typically available in this part of the state. So that's really what this option focuses on. An existing market is out there right now that we also know is growing. And then some of the amenities that Clark mentioned, linking to alternative means of transportation and providing an additional market for the commercial development that may occur east of Taylor Drive. No pitchforks or torches yet. That's good. So one of the things that I've found in doing projects like this with other communities is rarely does a community look at the options and say, we want option two. What tends to happen is you see things that you might like within multiple alternatives. And in the end, a blended alternative may be what's most desirable. Or you may go to the list and it's towards the end of chapter seven, a list of some of the things that we considered but didn't pursue and say, we kind of like that. Maybe it's industrial development. Maybe it's single family homes. Perhaps your vision for the sugar property would be some sort of residential development. These are all valid things to consider. We put together three alternatives based upon the information that we collected, not only the data that I collected but the information I got from you as participants in all these meetings. So one of the things that we hope you'll do between now and the next time you see us is to talk about, argue about, but to consider these alternatives, identify what you like, perhaps through staff, get back to us with the things that you would like to move forward with so we can refine those concepts into a specific plan for the Taylor Drive district. Jeff, we've got some questions on them, sir. The property really sounds very unique. Can you use your mic? Your mic. The property sounds very unique. I never been down there, but it sounds like it's kind of in a pretty picturesque valley. Is there any winter advantages, I mean, in terms like cross-country skiing or just regular downhill skiing or something that would attract people towards the winter sport in this area? Absolutely. I mean, that landscape is unique and presuming that we have climate conditions conducive to those types of activities, meaning we continue to get snow and it's regular. Absolutely, things like cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, any other winter events, whether we're talking about the event park concept or really either of these other two, because you notice all three alternatives have an integrated trail system and we would presume, we would suggest that that trail system should be a public trail system. It should be a city of Sheboygan trail system. Now, you may decide that if it goes forward with a business park option, let the business park have the trail and maintain it and deal with liability. The downside, of course, then they can preclude or exclude the public from using that system, which I think would be a shame because the sugar property is unique. In terms of downhill skiing, snowboarding and that sort of thing, I've been a skier since I was a little kid in the snowboarder for the last 20 years, so I mean, I'm always looking for other places, more places to do that. The problem is we don't get that kind of level of snow anymore, so the only way you can ensure that long-term economic viability of an operation like that is with snowmaking equipment. Now, snowmaking equipment has become much less expensive, much more effective, much less environmentally damaging that it has been in the past, but it's still a significant cost to ski hill operators and you can talk to some of the, because there are a few in this area to get an idea of what the market is right now. The market is saturated in skiing and saturated in golfing in Wisconsin. There are many, many, many more going out of business than would ever start up. Now, that said, I could see something like, I live in Ashwabana and in Green Bay, there's something called the Triangle Hill Sports Area. It's basically a tubing cross-country skiing, tobogganing hill that also has a rope tow that's operated when snow conditions are acceptable. You could see something like that there. I could see it working. The downside, of course, is Clark-Maybara is the ridges are right here. Those ridges are almost completely vegetated right now. And in order to make it compatible for those kinds of uses, you'd have to cut a path for that stuff. So I think you could make an argument for it. I think there's probably a stronger economic argument against more kind of aggressive actions, downhill skiing, snowboarding. But cross-country trails, passive-recreation trails, snowshoeing, absolutely, absolutely, I think would be critical and completely fun elements within the district. Sir. Person planning is actually the next. Thank you. I like your planning. In terms of the sustainability, that word kept coming up a lot. And whatever we do, we have to see as how can we be maintained in the future for the sake of the community and for the sake of the costs and the investment we're gonna make as a city. With your demographics, looking at Sheboygan, how do you see Sheboygan? I mean, you're coming in, we see Sheboygan as insiders. How do you see us as being an attractive, what are things about us that are attractive that would bring in our research groups or would bring in, what are some secrets that we don't know about or things that you think that you know about Sheboygan that would do this? Because we don't see that right now with people coming to us with the present layout of the city. I don't see it anyway. Well, I'll give a go at it and then Clark may have some things to say, but first of all, it depends upon which alternative. So I'll start with the one I'm probably more familiar with, which is the senior residential. And then Clark may expand a little bit with the research office park. Everybody's familiar with the concept or the term snowbirds, right? You retire in Wisconsin and you move to Florida, Arizona, Texas. And that's been the kind of MO that's been the way it's been done for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. That trend has retracted now and it's happening all across the snow belt all the way from the Dakotas Eastward to Northern New York. What we're seeing is people who in the past would have retired to warm places are staying in the North and then vacationing or taking an RV to the South. So the question for demographers and planners like myself is why is that happening? And there's a whole bunch of data that explains why. People prefer being close to their family, close to their home, close to the places they know, all that kind of stuff. When I say close, I don't mean necessarily living in the same community that they grew up in or raised their children in or worked in, but someplace in close proximity. So many studies have occurred within that demographic group 65 and older asking what are the attributes within a community that you look for in deciding where to live in your retirement years? In the past, again, warm golf courses, that kind of stuff. What they're describing now is they want proximity to larger cities, but they wanna be in a smaller community, a community that has a walking kind of field to a human scale to it. They wanna be near water and near natural amenities, near outdoor activities, that sort of thing. They want to have convenient access to the places that they wanna go, whether it be eating or shopping or whatever the case may be. So if you go through that list of things, and I allude to some of this in the chapter and you can certainly find more information on the internet and such, but if you go through the list of all the things that are important to that demographic and then you look at a map of the state of Wisconsin, you say, okay, which communities are eligible? Well, Milwaukee's out, Racine's out, Kenosha's out. The urban dynamic and the population density is not one of the things that's identified as desirable. Madison's out for a bunch of different reasons. La Crosse and Eau Claire make some of the criteria, but they're out because of their distance from us. They're a little bit closer to the Twin Cities. When you get into Northern Wisconsin, Wasaw, Rhineland, or all the way up to Ashland Superior, they're out because they're too far north. So you all of a sudden start coalescing around East Central and North Central Wisconsin. Then you look at those communities and say, okay, which ones would be the most desirable? Some are less desirable. I'm not gonna mention their names, but the ones that are most desirable happen to be the ones on the lake. Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Two Rivers, Algoma. All these communities have some attributes. Well, what does Sheboygan have that Manitowoc, Two Rivers, and Algoma don't? Your proximity to Milwaukee and Chicago. What do they have that you don't? Well, they're a little bit closer to Door County. But if you look at a map, Sheboygan's ideally suited. You're close to Fond du Lac, you're close to Green Bay and the Fox Cities, you're close to Door County, you're close to Milwaukee. You're on the river, you're on the lake. And then you have, can you back up a couple slides? Just anything that gets us to an overhead of the map. Then you have this beautiful area where if you were living down here, you would not feel like you were living in a city. Yet all you have to do is walk up those steps or get in your golf cart and cruise up here or get in your car and drive over there. So that's what I saw and what I see in this community as a visitor. In terms of the senior residential development, Clark. In terms of the research office, Park. Why would businesses want to come here? One, if this became a green architectural development that has a lot of pull in the industry now because everybody wants to have that as green and so forth. In fact, Columbus, Indiana, small town in the middle of nowhere, has the largest collection of our contemporary architecture. Why is that? Like I said, it's in the middle of nowhere. It's because that is what the city founders wanted to have in that community and that brought in that business. If this is developed as a green development that could stimulate and bring in those larger companies that are looking for that as one of their marketing tools as well. And you still have all the geographical proximity issues that you'd have with a residential population. I think, sir, you had a question and then. Yes, sir. My question is, I've been thinking, how do you keep this from being a sum zero gain? In other words, every business that offers services, every purchase that's made here is a purchase that's not made elsewhere so it seems to me, as I've thought about, either you need to attract businesses that provide goods and services that are unique that don't already duplicate what we have here. Or you have something that is attractive to these communities which just listed that are good enough to justify the track of the distribution of the zero-sum game is not sufficiently zero for all of the gas so that it's an infusion of money to our business. Because if we just rely on circulating our own money, I don't think that's going to be comfortable. That's an excellent question. And credit the staff when they put together the RFP for addressing this, they made it clear that they did not want a zero-sum game kind of proposal where this district was competing against other districts within the city. So well, how do you do that then? How do you generate the kind of economic development and redevelopment that you desire without taking it from other parts of the city? Well, the way you do that is you first of all, analyze the market. And again, like I said, chapter five is not the most interesting chapter to read but all that information's in there. Well, if you were to go with any of the three alternatives but certainly alternatives two and three, you're changing the dynamic in this district and in the city in a way that it hasn't changed before. The kind of office park development that Clark's mentioning does not exist in the city of Sheboygan right now. So would creating that sort of technology park, office park research park hurt other office parks in the area? Possibly, but probably not. I mean, there may be one business that's existing in a park in Sheboygan right now that would say, wow, that's what we've always wanted to do, we're gonna move. But you'd probably fill that one up right away because there is a strong market for conventional office park commercial and light industrial development. But if you created this sort of lead certified sustainable green research park place, once you have one or two businesses locating in there, you'll create some sort of critical mass that'll fill it up. Now, if that happens, then you absolutely change. Sorry, can I have that? We need more lasers. You absolutely change the dynamic in a way that creates economic development opportunities here that don't exist now and aren't the same as the economic development opportunities that exist in your downtown, on your lake front, further north of the district. Same argument, basically the same argument goes for the, I'm sorry, I did it backwards, for the residential development. The kind of development that would occur in here if there were an influx of 200 or 300 or 500 individuals, residents, senior population in this area, would be predictable, beneficial and sustainable if that project was done properly. It would be contingent upon identifying an appropriate developer or developers, making sure the city lays the appropriate ordinance and local land use requirements to ensure that the kind of development that you want there is what occurs there. But if that kind of development happens here or here, there's going to be a demand for development that does not exist today in the district or in other parts of the city. So that's my really long-winded answer to a simple zero-sum game question. We're not trying to compete against other parts of Sheboygan. In a way, in a sense, we're not really trying to make Sheboygan compete with other communities. Well, we're proposing here are things that are different from any of the communities you're competing with, different absolutely than any of the five communities I listed, and I would argue different from Racine and Kenosha and Cudahay and Oconumwalk and some of the other communities that didn't make the cut. Oconumwalk's actually looking at some senior development stuff right now that's kind of like this, kind of like what we're proposing. Gary. Jeff, attention and all three of your proposals, business and retail, okay? We can put a plan together. How do our kids, how are they going to be involved in helping find the retail market to move in there? Or is it we're going to build it and they will come? How do you do that? There's a struggle bringing in retail. Obviously, you see it up on Taylor Drive, you see other parts of the city, and just because we have a beautiful setting, it doesn't take, you know, franchises just don't pop in overnight and locate it in the city. Right, right. Well, you'll have to ask Paul that whether we'll be involved after this project goes, but in terms of what will you need to do to ensure that the plan is implemented? Well, that's part of what we're tasked with, to put together an implementation, section implementation plan for it. What I would say is, if you asked us to start with the existing landscape in the district and then go find businesses that want to locate here, well, first of all, I would not have pursued that work. No disrespect intended, but it would have been an almost unwinnable position to be in. The changes that are occurring in that district right now are occurring because the market has changed. So you either identify a new market, or you, let me think about this before I say what I was going to say. If the markets change, you either take a Liaison Fair approach and wait to see what kind of market replaces the old market, or you actively pursue the creation or recreation of a newer existing market. Okay, that's the simple portion, right? The city, this is a presumptive statement on my part, but the city has taken a relatively hands-off approach for the last number of years, and that hands-off approach has not exacerbated but certainly not ameliorated what's been happening there, right? Doing nothing hasn't made it probably a whole lot worse, but it certainly hasn't made it a whole lot better. If you did nothing, it's predictable what would occur within the district. The transition would be towards types of development that you may not find particularly desirable, extreme discount retailers, used, I don't want to offend anybody, used car lots, there are certain types of development that would be predictable future development to occur within the declining district, and I'd mean no disrespect particular to the alderman who represent this district. Now taking an active approach, then you look at it a different way. You say what changes could be made that would revitalize or reinvigorate this district? And that's really the approach that the city took when it put together the RFP. Now these three aren't the only approaches. As I mentioned some, you could look at industrial development, you could look at purely residential development, but I would argue that, and I have mentioned this to the staff and to the mayor, that what happens on the sugar property is, and I'll use this word intentionally, critical to the long term of success of this district. All right. Now whether or not the sugar property develops outside city boundaries, within city boundaries, is a different discussion, but if development occurs there, that development will change the existing dynamic. And hopefully it'll change it in a good way, right? And we would hope that the proposals that we're putting, the alternatives that we're putting forward would create that positive change. So Jeff, let me just ask a question to follow up to Gary's. So help us understand, and maybe it's a question for Steve. What happens next? We've got a decision process that has to be gone through and the public wants more input and stuff, but once we decide on a plan, then how do we recruit these businesses? Does an agency like Omni provide professional recruiting assistance, or is it up to us to have that vision and then go out and build the facilities that will attract that and then go out and have business development people like you and Steve go out and find them? How does that work? Do you want to go? We'll want you to use a mic though. Well, while she's doing, I'll just say this. First of all, we don't do that kind of work. Okay. What we do do is provide all the information you need to get to that point. So I mentioned some of the tools that you could use. And TIF funding is something the city has used successfully in the past. You certainly could use, and I would think probably we'll consider for this, but once you create that framework, once you have the appropriate land use tools in place, zoning and such, you could put out an RFP to developers, Wisconsin, Midwest nationally saying the city of Sheboygan wants to take a, we want to stand at the front of the line in terms of Green Office Research Park or new environmentally friendly senior residential communities. Come to us and tell us what you'd proposed to do here. In other words, you turn it around. Instead of you having to take an active role, you're creating the environment within which hopefully somebody will come in and say, wow, there's something. Okay, thanks. And we've got about five more minutes, Paula. I'll be quick. Is this on? Yeah. Okay, all that I was going to say was that we as staff would be looking for that as part of the implementation. Okay, we look at what the alternatives are. Then we look at what that implementation plan is. And is that implementation plan, does that include phasing? Does that include what level of marketing are we, RFPs or recruiting, what are we doing? And I look at that as being part of the recommendations on the implementation side. Absolutely, and that is part of the agreement. That was part of the RFP and it's part of the agreement. We signed that part of it. In the end, whatever happens, whatever proposal you go forward with, there are going to be different strategies to achieve. And in the shorter term, how can the public get more involved? What are the immediate next steps, Steve or Paula, for how the public can get it, can stay involved if they want to? Glad you mentioned that. I'll go through that briefly. And then for any of you who have questions specifically for me once this meeting adjourns, I'll be at home. Dan, do you still want to? Okay, quick one for all the member Hassell. Can you explain it real briefly? And I know you're tempted to here tonight, but my concern with developing the sugar property to a great extent is being a resident in that area 20 years from now, I'll be looking at more rooftops and more parking lots overgrown. Right, right. Can the county and the immediate area support more space, seeing that we have so many empty buildings, not just in my district, but around the city, where are these people going to come from? Is the county growing? Is the growth going to be there? Excellent questions. Go back and I'll refer you after tonight's meeting to look again at chapter five, the market assist, look at the population projections and such. The city's population is projected to grow. What I would say is, if you're replicating existing vacancies, you're creating an unwinnable situation, right? So if you're building the same kind of stuff that already exists, that is going through challenges, you're not helping yourself, but if you're creating something distinct, unique, different, not only does that provide an opportunity that may not exist in the community today, which is exactly what we've been talking about for the sugar property. All three of those alternatives, but again, particularly two and three, do not exist in this community today, and for the most part, don't exist anywhere within 50 to 100 miles of here. If that stuff happens, now you're creating solutions to the problems that exist outside of the sugar property within the district, and potentially outside of the sugar property in the district within the city as a whole. So if you bring a distinct group of, let's just say 300 people into that, living there 24 seven, 365 days a year, and you plop them in the middle of that district, just imagine we pick up these 300, wherever they are now, we put them there. Everything about the district changes, right? Because those people, whether they're young people, old people or in between people, single married, whatever, they have certain things that they want. There's certain things that I want. I'm a paddler, so I would want to be able to jump on the Sheboygan River and head to the lake front. 30 or 40 years from now, there might be a different set of needs and wants I have. So immediately that group of people creates opportunities for the district. And I guess the reason I brought the question up is just if you look at the population figures that you have in here, compared to the other communities, everybody else is up 70, 10, 12, 14, 18 percent. If you look at us for the last 17 years, we've been flat to declining. In the last three, four years, it's been trickling backwards. Yep. So we're not convinced that we're going to have this spur. Maybe that'll happen and so that's great. Sure. And that's a good point too. None of these three proposals. You got to be fast. None of these three proposals are contingent upon your population growing. Two of these three proposals will increase your population growth regardless of what your population projections are. So let me briefly go through the next steps quick and then if anybody has any other questions. Again, what I ask of you as council members, as staff, as a community and stakeholders is look over the plan, take it home, read it, highlight the things that you like, things that you don't like. And at some point, you as a community should get together without us and talk about this stuff and try to come to some desired options and alternatives. When that occurs, get that information to me. We'll revise, we'll come forward with a preferred development alternative that we'll present at the next meeting, which hasn't been scheduled yet, but will be scheduled once it exists. And then we'll complete chapter eight implementation. And in terms of the project website, if you go to, if you go there, you'll come up to our project website. If you click on projects, it'll bring up active projects and that'll bring up a list of active projects. Click on the city of Sheboygan and it'll bring up the project webpage. Before I left today at about 3.30, I told my IT staff to place all the information we put together tonight on the project webpage. So if you go there right now, you should see the entire plan that we just presented to you here. So anybody who wasn't here tonight who wants a copy of the plan, you can get it there. Okay, Paulette. And if I could just quickly say what we would like as staff is that there is the website and to get information onto the website or to us so that we can compile it and get it together in a format that we as a group can take a look at and make some recommendations back. That would be very helpful and I think very efficient. Okay, well thank you, Paulette and Steve for putting this together. Thanks to Jeff and the team for coming. We'll look forward to reaching out. Forgot any questions? Paulette and Steve are main points contact. Next item, next meeting, time and location. September 9th at 7.15 p.m. is an option or 9.22 that the two Mondays later at 5.30. And I don't know with us there being few of us. Is there a burning topic that people want to see on the agenda? Okay, then what we can do is remain flexible on it for another week, see what comes up in council if we wanna add to it. Just know that the 9th or the 22nd are the dates we'd be aiming at unless something more urgent comes up. And in lieu of anything else, I'd entertain a motion for adjournment. So moved. All in favor? Opposed? All right, finance committee just down the hall.