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HomeMy WebLinkAboutcoa.cclc.min.09102008COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2008 Chairperson, Terry Butler called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. Commissioners in attendance: Bill Dinsmoor, Roger Haneman, Mark Goodman and Fred Ayarza, Excused where John Starr and Don Sheeley. Staff present: Kathy Strickland, Chief Deputy City Clerk Public comments: Andrew Kole reported that he did 40 shows at the Aspen Saturday Market. Andrew thanked the CCLC for their support in recommending him for a board appointment. Bill asked what is going on with the outside dining. Kathy said the Assistant City attorney, Engineering and City Clerk met to discuss the issue. They determined that the approval process should go through the Liquor Authority because of the involvement with liquor licenses. The Clerk's office will be sending council a memo to get their feedback. Bill asked for afollow-up as to what role CCLC will play in the outside dining. Bill said in light of things the CCLC should give up the mall leases review process. Terry said she does not want to give up the mall leases. Terry will follow up with Jim True, assistant city attorney. Bill discussed the November ballot issue regarding a tax increase by the county. The five million is allocated in the general fund and not earmarked for dedicated funds such as roads etc. which was discussed at out last CCLC meeting. Andrew pointed out that 16 million is set aside for county buildings. Terry said we need to know if the 5 million is earmarked or not. Roger agreed that the ballot language should indicate where the funds go. Commissioner comments: Mark said he is concerned about the mural painting in the alley not being restored. Staff pointed out that the city cannot force someone to redo the mural. COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2008 Alley Study: Ben Gagnon, planner said in the 2003 Frick and Bier report it was recommended that the alleys be more palatable and useful. Clearly they are heavily used as delivery areas. We are fundamentally stuck with trying to figure out how we get past that. Phase II will be to investigate only allowing deliveries at a certain time. Those kinds of investigations will take a lot of time. Waste hauling and people delivering to the stores needs to be studied. We need to find out if there is something big that can happen. The underlying area is, can we get retail in the alleys and would the rents be lower. The idea is to make the alleys look more inviting instead of asphalt wall to wall. Possibly incorporate the use of pavers. Phases II's question is it realistic for property owners to try and make space in the alleys for stores. Is there a physical model and would a property owner be interested. Ben said CCLC had some done work on two alleys before regarding trash and recycling. Ben said he is interested in hearing what the CCLC is interested in. I am working on the AACP program which is a 255 page document. There is a joint meeting with the Council and BOCC next week. From then we will do a public process with surveys. Values and character of the AACP will be discussed. The web site is Aspen community vision.com Roger said the process will take at least six months. Ben said we will start up with focus groups and find out what people feel about the proposal or ideas. From there we will come up with a plan. Andrew said six years ago CC LC picked an alley for the compactors as a pilot project. As a suggestion one alley should be a test space to see if it works. No one has actually said lets go do this project. Bill asked what other big ideas are out there. Ben said the idea would be to create an atmosphere to make people walk down the alleys and see great landscapes and have the alleys cleaned up. Bill said the challenge is to use the grid structures in our alleys that we have. People who can't afford the full price of rent can be in the alleys. Such as delivery functions like a pizza delivery etc. 2 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2008 Fred said he feels there is not a commitment to do this from council. You should start with one alley and then two alleys but there has to be a commitment. Terry brought up the Red Onion and Brand alleys. Ten or eleven years ago the Paragon building was bought and Club Chelsea was opened. Judy Alexander talked about opening up the back third of the alley. It is better to go at it with one or two alleys and then proceed. Ben said every planner would want to work on this. Right now the work program is too heavy and hopefully this will be done in the spring. Fred asked what locally serving meant. Terry mentioned the Saturday market and there are requirements to get in. You could also use the self select process to get into the alley spaces such as the Saturday market. We would have to look at it carefully and find out what can work. Andrew said picking one alley and have five or six different businesses participating. We also need to look at new ways to regulate service vehicles. Why isn't one truck taking all the liquor into town instead of having five trucks? Ben discussed commercial mix: Over 1 %2 years we always find another piece to the subject. Where we are now we don't want to force people to do something. We don't want to regulate. We are trying to identify underlying concerns. A property owner is here for 30 years and sells the property and the new person plunks down money and what was there isn't there anymore. The concern at staff level is that some of these things or businesses need to stay. We briefly have a partnership and have a person go out and talk to those people before it happens to find out what is coming. Succession planning is the idea for outreach. We want to be more prepared. Fred said we need to stimulate the alley program somehow. Terry mentioned the success of the one way street project. COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2008 Fred said it works. 20 parking spots got picked up. We would have had more except for the loading zones. Roger expressed his concern with the abundant loading zones throughout town. Bill said there are significant encroachments etc. in the alleys. The deliveries don't get tied up on the street as they do in the alleys. Terry pointed out that Amen Wardy gets deliveries in the back. No one has revisited the loading zones. There could be more parking spaces in front used. Fred pointed out that the time doesn't have to be 24 hours. Terry said there is also the Boogies spot that needs discussed. Fred said we could gain another 14 spaces. Andrew asked if Hyman became one way what is the merits. Terry pointed out that half of Hyman is parallel parking and could be changed to head in parking. Terry said she lives there and had two spaces dedicated in front of her hotel and then they disappeared but the change has helped her with her business when unloading luggage etc. Commissioner comments: Bill said at some point the board needs to create goals etc. Ideas for the market survey: Where your sales over from last years. Was the market successful for you. Any suggestion to improve the market. Do you need or would you like more than 10 feet. If so explain why? How much space would you like? Have you had repeat customers weekly? Where the majority of your sales tourists. Are you in favor of expansion onto Hyman to generate more traffic and income for you? Agriculture vendors -can you expand your product variety inventory if we expand. 4 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2008 Kathy said a few of the vendors are interested in increasing booth fees in order to have a full page ad with individual advertising from each vendor. Research is needed to find out how much a full page ad would cost. Bill brought up the idea of getting a grant from the City to help get a butchery truck. Andrew said a service booth in the park such as a shoe repair would be great. MOTION: Mark moved to adjourn; second by Roger. All in favor, motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m. ~ .., Kathleen J. Strickland, Chief Deputy Clerk