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CITY OF ARDEN HILLS MEMORANDUM DATE: January 17, 1996 TO: Economic Development Committee FROM: Kevin Ringwald, Community Development Director SUBJECT: Monthly Report Unisource- Gateway Business District The Staff has been working with Unisource, a subsidiary of Alco Standard Corporation which is a Fortune 100 company, on locating in the GBD. The staff has previously provided the Economic Development Committee with a brief overview of the company in its monthly report for December of 1995. The company is looking at purchasing 25 acres of land and would be constructing up to 300,000 square feet of building (250,000 square feet initially). The company would be consolidating four different operations it has in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area into this facility. It would employ approximately 175 to 200 people (Exhibit A). • Operational Characteristics The company is essentially a broker in the finished paper industry. The company purchases finished paper products from various paper mills and then supplies it to various printing companies. In approximately 60 percent of these transactions the finished paper product is delivered directly to the printer from the paper mill, without coming to the company. The other 40 percent of these transaction requires some level of warehousing of the finished paper product. In delivering the warehoused finished paper products the company would have ten delivery trucks, four straight vans and six pup trucks. Given that the printing industry starts operating in the morning at least by 8:00 a.m., the company's delivery trucks leave the facility early in the morning. This delivery schedule also assists them in avoiding the morning rush hour, and would also assist them in ingressing and egressing the GBD. The company operates on two ten hour shifts, five days per week. Approximately 2/3 of the company's employees are located in the office portion of the facility. The company would approximate that the office would occupy 25,000 to 30,000 square feet of the building and the remaining 270,000 to 275,000 square feet would be warehouse space. The GBD zoning district standards would require at least 75,000 square feet of office and no more than 225,000 square feet of warehousing for a 300,000 square foot building. In preliminary discussions with the Planning Commission they would support the use of a Planned Unit Development to • accommodate the proposed use, subject to agreement on the treatment of the exterior of the structure.