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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORKSESSION — DECEMBER 18, 2023 11 City Administrator Perrault thought the main takeaway was to continue to offer flexibility to allow for more types of businesses to enter the space. They had a retail person come in and someone from Greater MSP and two others that were more housing related. There is less demand for office space but more demand for light manufacturing, R&D, etc. The message was the more flexibility we can have in the zoning codes to attract businesses coming in will serve the community better. Mayor Grant said the retail person and Greater MSP aren't developers, they've not built a building. Greater MSP knows about commercial but they're not a builder, they're not the people with money on the line. Councilmember Holden said they didn't have anybody like Ryan, Roberts or Opus come in. She asked if the developer (Alatus) was planning on buying some wetland credits. City Administrator Perrault didn't know the answer to that question, but he could ask. Councilmember Holden stated some developers are saying that small offices are going to be big, not large buildings, but like Saltbox is now; one building with multiple offices in it, especially in the suburbs because people don't want to go downtown. She heard that from two commercial developers. She thought it was important that if they are going to have homes that people want to buy and keep them affordable, gasoline prices are only going to go up and people will have to go to Rosedale or Mall of America on a bus to get to work, and that won't be conducive to living life if they don't have anything close by for them to work at. Mayor Grant said after the 32 acres was taken out of that section there was about 80 acres left. If they put in a big box store, they're not going to generate a lot of jobs. He thought they need to limit building size, something like 65,000 square feet maximum. Jobs per square foot become important. He thought if they get into the really large big boxes, they don't bring in a lot of jobs per square foot. Councilmember Fabel thought it was way too early to be discussing that level of detail. The indication is they need flexibility and they need to see what comes forward after they do the amendment to the Comp Plan. The developer is starting to talk to people that might be interested in coming to develop and he thought they had to give it time for that process to work out and not tie anybody's hands in advance. They want to have the availability of retail in walking distance for the people of the town center and the entire project. They want groceries available with affordability, and a big box such as Costco might fit in just fine. He said of number of residents have told him they'd like a Costco. Councilmember Rousseau asked when the information about Outlot A becomes public. City Administrator Perrault replied it would be after the County's closed session in January. Councilmember Rousseau asked what was the square footage of a grocery store like Cub, or the unnamed grocery store. Mayor Grant said Cub was 64,000 square feet.