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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.council.19751015 Councilmembers present were Steve Wishart, George Parry, Nina Johnston, and Mayor Stacy Standley to discuss with the Planning and Zoning Commission Uses for the Rio Grande. Present from the Planning and Zoning Commission were Roger Hunt, Patrick Dobie, Jack Jenkin~ t a nd Chic Collins. Also present was City/County Planner Bill Kane, Hal~Clark and John Stanford. Also City Manager Mahoney. City Manager requested that before P&Z members and Council started the study session on the uses for the Rio Grande Property if he could get a straw vote from the Council members present to build a new parks maintenance building. The building would be built next to the golf course and would be adjacent to Wally Mills property and bordering on the north and east of Cemetary Lane. Mayor Standley questioned how many sq. ft. Armstrong replied that it would be 6400 sq.ft. Councilwoman Johnston felt that the noise from the trucks and the traffic would not be fair for the people who live in the residential area plus the fact thai it is zoned residential.~ City Manager Mahoney asked Council for a straw vote before they presented it to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Councilmember Wishart, aye; Johnston, nay; Parry, aye; Mayor Standley, aye. RIO GRANDE USES Kane introduced the next level of the Rio Grande planning excercise. Kane introduced Larry Yaw of Copland, Finholm, Hagman, Yaw LTD; and George Porter of Design Workshop Inc. Kane gave a brief summary of the previous study sessions on the Rio Grande Property that the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Council have had. What the next step for the Plan- ning Department to do is to put together some general alternative fiscal planning concepts for the site. At the previous study sessions what was discussed were the general consider- ations of a Performing Arts Center and a general configuration of private lease spaces and other things Council and Planning and Zoning would make appropriate uses for the site. The next step is to look at the application of all the uses for the property and what opportunities there are. Kane would like to set up a series of meetings to arrive at an appropriate frame of the program by next April because there may have to be a vote should the City need a public approved financing scheme. Porter was then introduced and began by saying that the City is in a development with the Rio Grande Property and is difficult becuase the City not only has to put a product on the ground but the land is a cultural hub and transportation hub of the City. The land has to provide an important link in just about every system in thecommunity. Porter feels that the most important thing to talk about is a development process and a decision making process in the development process. What was told Porter and Yaw was that the focus of the Rio Grande Property was a Performing Arts Center which is a single project and to get to it Yaw and Porter looked at all of the issues that effected the project on the Aspen Community scale. Porter then said that there are a series of development decisions that nec to be made on the Rio Grande neighborhood level which are a completely different set of questions; then the property the City/County owns, then what they call land unit and then the development project. Porter mentioned that there is a rigid hiearchy that should be used to make a decision and any decision that's made under a development project level without asking the Aspen Community would not be good. Yaw and Porter looked at several issues which theY felt were important those being: 1) open space, 2) cultural and community. facilities, 3) transportation, 4) hydrology, and 5) land u.se. They first looked at the t~ansportation issue and felt that either the community will have the automobile as a means of transportation or not have the automobile as a means of transportation. Porter showed members plan ~1 which had a through highway and parking on the streets, the Smugglar Master Plan which has the Spring Street extenSion and a new extension to Red Mountain assuming that the aUtomobile will be the major mode of transportation. To make a decision about transportation on the Rio Grande Property, Porter felt that the through Spring Street will be an important issue and the kind of parking that will be there will be an important issue. What Porter and Yaw felt about the decision is that they felt that they don't have enough information to answer the question becauSe it needs more study. If there is an automobile oriented community it will be a massive thing Which Will provide automobile intercept for the summer tourist and parking for the local resident who uses the downtown area. The other alternative would be to demphasize the automobile as much as possible. Porter pointed at another plan which showed the changes and assumed a light rail alignment and a transit station at Rubey Park, an expanded mall system and a very much expanded pedestrian system. The plan showed that On the Trueman Property a neighborhood center that could be an aUtomobile intercept for people in the Red Mountain area, there would still be a City Market, and it could become a collector and the neighborhood center for ali the people from the east end of the valley however, no collector from the other end of the valley. Porter suggested that it might be appropriate to think in terms of some kind of a neighborhood commercial like the Other to provide as an intercept and a neighborhood commercial facility for the west end. Another point which was discussed is toUrist inter- cept at the airport and doing something with Independence Pass. The difference between the two plans has large impact on the Rio Grande Property. What the Rio Grande Property then probably means is that the Spring Street extension isn't required and the parking lots become smaller parking lots for people who are going to do some activity on this site or for people who are going to come to the dOwntown area, local people; residents of Aspen and that will basically exclude the local automobile. Porter then discussed the open space issue. The Hunter Creek trail, Hallum Lake area, the Rio Grande trail, the Rio Grande Property, the Hospital, and the fUture mall extension are facilities that are part of the open space system. Porter recommended that there are some parcels of property that could be purchased to put the land together and some properties al ng ' the Roaring Fork where access should b~ acquired so the trail system Could be completed. Porter suggested that the City and County get together and identify what properties have to be brought into the system and start a systamatic long term land acqUisition program. Porter then moved on to cultural and community facilities. Porter mentioned Stanford's input and that being instead of the Rio Grande Property being a cultural~ center - Aspen is really a cultural center. Looking at the map you can see the Institute, the Forest Service, the Historic SOciety, the mall system and the schools are scattered througout the community. So the concept of the Performing Arts building will be the central place for all the facilities. Another issue Which is hydrology. Porter mentioned that there are two kinds of Water that cross the Rio Grande site; those being 1)pretty clean Water that comes out of the Durant Mine and off the Mountain and 2~ urban run-off. There have been some studies; one issue of water quantity and one in water quality. He mentioned that there is potential flooding in this area and after discussing with them they have some expensive program to solve a problem that may never be a problem. The other problem-water quality-is more serious. The water that runs off streets of Aspen is comperable to raw sewage. Porter mentioned that in an environment as important as Aspen, we shouldn't let that happen. What they suggest is to separate the storm water run-off and the clean water. Another issue is land use. Porter pointed out a land unit map and mentioned that they do this to see what impact all of these external things have on land parcel - the develop- ment potential of the site. Transportation has the largest impact on site than anything else. They went through a series of senarios to speculate what would happen to the site under different set of conditions. Pointing at another plan, Porter showed a road which would be an extension to Red Mt. and it would go around the back of the Trueman site and up through Red Mt. and Spring Street wasn't extended. The City will have a large land uni which is extremely flexible piece of land to work with and very few points where auto and pedestrians can conflict. When the road goes between Trueman Property and the sewage treatment plan the land units get broken up more and there are a few more potential conflict points. When the road is left like it is, it's broken up a few more conflict points and then if the road is developed as it is proposed, as most proposals suggest, with Spring Street extension, the Red Mt. extension and still with the bridge crossing into Oklahoma flats you can see the land is divided more than it is in the other alternati~ and pedestrian conflict more of an issue. Porter went on with objectives starting with the Transportation objective. He feels that the City should respond to the through traffic needs but with more study. HE pointed out potential parking lot for use on the site and another parking lot that would serve for the downtown area and showed a link which showed a transportation link between the Rubey Park station and the Rio Grande Property. What could happen is that at one end of Galena Street there is one of the most famous ski area in the world and at the other end which in the future could have one of the most outstanding performing arts center in the world. That would make Galena a natural. The plan showed the transit line coming in then showed~ a trail loop and another trail loop through the City that will connect the Rio Grande Property in the central center with the schools and the neighborhoods in this portion of the City. One of the objectives is to reduce as much traffic as possible at Mill and Main. The open space objectives would be to provide a buffer between the tourist part of the community and the residential part of the community to provide co~nunity wide recreation facilities to conceptually bring the county into the city and to provide a focus for cultural facilities and to provide a focus and setting for historic buildings. From a water quali~y standpoint, there are several things that this site could be used for. 1) put in more temporary settling ponds to do what the settling pond is already doing and to retain water in this area and make it as clean as possible. Turn storm treatment plant into a facility which treats surface run-off and put in an underground sewer line and extend sewer line into this area. Two ways to treat this 1) mix the waters and 2) keep them separate. We are suggesting that they stay separate. Another thing that could be done is an extensive irrigation program on the Rio Grande property to use the Cities water rights and also go back and restore the street irrigation systems. In terms of cultural and community facilities we have talked about the wide distribution of cultural facilities. This open space system and recreation plan needs to be connected to the central area and especially the schools that are above the property now. The land use objective is primarily a process objective. In terms of the character of the site there are several things that are important, t) theI is an urban edge around the City side of the site. It is a landscaped valley and provides the opportunity to have that rural urban connection here. In breaking down the land units there are several areas on the site that are developed. Porter then pointed out drawings that were a summary of everything they could think of. He said that there is no particular meaning in the drawings except to show members the process that they went through. Showing drawing #l--he suggested running the road in the back of the Trueman property, having post office, and commercial cluster, showing about 370 surface parking, with a performing arts and library, and showed the existing transit turn around and then the County Court House; and sometime in the future this is a very valuable piece of land and will probably expand and pointing and saying that a certain piece of land could be valuable. He also suggested that the particular piece of land that the community would want to trade for another internal piece of land. It is conceiv- able that there may someday be a building program here with a trail through this area. Showing #2 plan it runs the road between the Trueman property and the sewage treatment plant. We added an activity over in the Holy Cross area which we think could become public. We have turned this development into a lake, have drawn in the amplitheatre form that has already been built out there and again we show this urban extension and this time we shortened this transit turnaround and we said that if the community ~enter and the performing arts facility go up here, this is a parking structure, it is conceivable that alot of people would be coming to this on-grade and that would be a logical place to have people go up the mall at that particular point and time. Showing #3 plan they looked at a different form for this commercial putting the performing arts center closer to the river and put the county building here, and have a shuttle situation here which doesn't relate to well with the performing arts center and a neighbor- hood commercial facility here, post office here, and then some kind of commercial or industrial complex next to the sewage treatment plan. We have taken out these buildings here just because all the drawings we did it seemed to make good sense that if this was going to be the river park that someday the community would acquire it. We put some tennis courts and game courts just to see what the scale of those things did to the site. We have gone over this with Armstrong and he feels a need for some kind of in-door recreation. We think that a facility like that in this complex would really add to the critical mass of the uses. So this could be a place that locals came to play tennis. These kinds of things, tennis courts, would be much more appropriate if they were located for the public in these residential communities. They are more a neighborhood activity instead of a community wide activity. Showing ~4 plan takes a completly different look and puts a performing arts center out next to the river and have turned the Holy Cross property into a cultural campus and then become more of a campus where people are walking around it. This road alternative, the road to Oklahoma Flats and extend Spring street. Porter continued to say that what they looked at were the Aspen community issues, the Rio Grande different issues in the Rio Grande neighborhood; some of the surrounding land owners and we also looked at how we thought specifically the City property could be used. The next issue is to determine land units. All areas are all developable land units and the space between them is public space, connecting space. To phase this development all that has to be done is to decide which land unit is going to start on. A great deal of connecting space has received attention. And then in future when roads and utilities and any kind of connection activity takes place takes place in spaces between these land units and consequently all the development options are continually opened to people to make future decisions in the community. Porter then pointed out a check which says community commercial facility on a land unit level. We are recommending that this first land unit is the place to start and we worked with Yaw to illustrate them how you can take anyone of land units and get more detailed information and begin to do more detailed land unit studies and eventually illustrate a project. After identifing the land units the architectural program options are still opened. That will probably be the next phase of the study. Porter continued by giving the members there recommendations having them broken down to cultural and community facilities, transportation, hydrology, and open space. The point is that you have to make a decision to approve or affirm all of these programs and after decision ts made then staff and consultants and do much more detailed program and after program detailed conceptual design can be conducted, financial strategy at that point take it to community for approval and then do the final development design contract documents and project management. Yaw explained to members what t~ey have been doing and that is they have worked through all the issues at a community level and they tried to arrive at a set of design determin- ates. Design determinates are the criteria or opportunities by which a physical develop- ment might respond to. Design determinates come in two forms 1) an activity or people format or the context of the town 2) physical determinates. We looked at those and set them into the last drawing which you might call as image quality. Yaw pointed at one of the drawings to illustrate the major response. He said that on the mountain side of the town is part of Aspen's image alot of recreational activity going on a focus for them which would be re-emphasized by the transportation and then a whole experien~l context which we will call shopping, having fun but in that order. On the other end of this which focuses on this open space or passive recreation in a very pleasently narrow, walking distance part of town is opportunity for another cultural note. Porter's drawings show how they focus. We then went through by detail and identified footprints for square footag of the building, performing arts feeding station we even looked into a library context, museums, and parking. This and this shows 800 cars on 3 levels of parking, what we did then was to try and focus a concept there is an urban edge. It also happens to follow a land form which is an embankment. There is a possibility to interlock the natural area and the urban activity around the civic center. We asked ourselves what a civic center is and we decided that it is place where people and activities enjoin and cross fertalize. We then asked the question, relative to this scale of planning, should it be decentralized from this context or should it be an extension of Aspen's activities. I think that we all had some bias towards the notion of extending as a direct natural extension of the activity. We also looked at the possibility of decentralizing different activities or centralizing them; maybe the notion of cross fertalizing of people enjoying and participat- ing in eack other. Then we looked at specific issues. The physical determinates that we were able to identify, one of important ones, the natural edge formed by both the embankment and the City. The blue linss show full build-up. We have then the problem of how to deal with the physical issue of 800 cars if that remains a program element. One potential is if this was designed so that it became a natural extension of the land forms already created, by extending pedestrial level out here that we could serve the visual interests of a big mass as well as plugging in activity. From the pedestrian move- ment into here we then looked at continuing that pedestrian movement down into the river valley open space we think it should be continued to the neighborhood shopping center and try to bypass the intersection of Mill and Main Street. So we tried to terrace this and planting it so it becomes a natural land form. The plaza is an ~mportant concept it would be the central area around which these activities focus themselves. We showed the possiblity of a performing arts center here, with step terraces on which the shopping could occur of dealing with the museum of integrating them with other activities in the corridors of the performing arts area into other areas. From a historic standpoint Yaw felt that the Court House sums up the character of Aspen. So we thought the Court House should participate in the pedestrial space still getting view up towards the Court House but also from the pedestrian experience down here letting the view go out here which helps the notion of bringing these natural areas up to this. The notion of using the clean water as an element, a fountain, use it as an envelope, work with it in the valley as a walking experience to even a lack experience. The County facilities which are part of the county expension plan can be placed in an area lik~ this to help make the space and to relate to the county functions. We showed a couple of options and one option is to have the office functions could expand under this level with velw around this way. Yaw then showed a sketch which is intended to give image quality to the design determinates. It uses the Court House and sets it off and as well as a green space, a paved space, with a water element, with a building form, with County facilities in here, with a terraced plan that related to essentially to an open perform- ing arts center, an amplitheatre used for anything from lunches to natural perfomances. We think there are building advantages to building here and in one context the notion of expansion stategy and initial cost attached to it. If you do a performing arts with interlocked activities are in here and built relative to a parking structure there is probably less phasing opportunity or opportunity to make up your mind later than there ls if you decentralize stuff all over that site. In this there are a couple of opportunities to do that. The physical and cost notions connected with it are not difficult to work out, they just need working out. The character of the building Yaw suggested should be related to an Aspen theme. Our first reaction was to think of it in brick, but thought that it would be good to take some of the old building elements that are presently being demolished and put them ~nto the building. Kane felt that this presentation was a total movement away from what has been done with the Rio Grande site. So now the direction is to keep the river valley as open space. Mayor Standley asked Kane what kind of format he would like Council to adopt and P&Z members to adopt. Kane felt that the closer the meetings and to get as much time as possible. Kane said that he was going to get a more definitive flow chart and come back to Council and then request a meeting night. Mayor Standley suggested that at the joint study session scheduled for Wednesday, October 22, to take the first part of the meeting to do the flow chart and the scheduling approach. Meeting adjourned at 6:30. Eliz~eth M. ~y~, ~eputy City Clerk