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HomeMy WebLinkAbout3-25-26 EDC Minutes CITY OF ARDEN HILLS, MINNESOTA Special ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION MARCH 25, 2026 7:30 A.M. – ARDEN HILLS COMMUNITY ROOM CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Present: Vice Chair Kristine Poelzer, Commissioners Ihsan Isik, Jess Daniels and Ted Brausen. Commissioner Bonine (7:43) Absent: Chair Judd Murchie, Commissioners Kyle Sorenson and Kayleigh Shrom Also Present: Senior Planner Elena Fransen, Community Development Director Jake Reilly and Council Liaison Emily Rousseau 1. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Vice Chair Poelzer called the meeting to order at 7:39 am. She noted there was no quorum present for the meeting. Community Development Director Reilly said the commission can still approve the agenda. No quorum is required to hold a meeting, and no quorum is required to approve an agenda. A quorum is only required to make decisions. A motion was made by Commissioner Daniels and seconded by Commissioner Isik to approve the agenda, as amended. Motion passed unanimously. Staff requested the 75th Anniversary discussion be moved to 4A under Unfinished Business. The rest of the items would shift down. With the arrival of Commissioner Bonine at 7:43, a quorum was established for the meeting. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. February 25, 2026 A motion was made by Commissioner Brausen and seconded by Commissioner Isik to approve the minutes, as written. Motion passed unanimously. Senior Planner Fransen noted that the January meeting and minutes reflected discussion on dining service and catering at Bethel University. The clarification is that there are dining services available to the public. There is no external catering service available. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – MARCH 25, 2026 2 Commissioner Daniels said the restaurant, cafeteria and the coffee shop are always open to external guests. There are spaces that can be rented by the public, and catering is available for events on-site, with the rental of a space. 3. COMMENTS AND REPORTS A. Report from City Council Council Liaison Rousseau would like to acknowledge Youth Commissioner Isik has made nationals with HOSA. She asked him to share with the Commission what that is. Commissioner Isik said HOSA is a student led, nonprofit organization focused on career development and developing leadership skills in their members. It has approximately 50 chapters across Minnesota. There were over 1,000 student attendees at the recent state leadership conference. He and a partner competed in the public service announcement event and placed third. That qualified them for internationals. His project was a public service announcement on brain health and the importance of breaking the stigma surrounding Alzheimer’s dementia. He said he participates in HOSA to stay diversified in the career fields he is interested in. He is looking at business and health care as possible career paths. Commissioners congratulated Commissioner Isik and he agreed to share his project at the next EDC Meeting. Discussion ensued on using Instagram content for the EDC. Council Liaison Rousseau said there are two new Economic Development Authority (EDA) members. She connected Commissioner Brausen with an EDA member at the City of Dayton. They have been very aggressive and have strategic planning sessions for the EDA. Some of their goals are: strengthening the local tax base, conducting an internal audit of internal processes/timelines, actions around creating a main street/historic village, expanding market efforts to build awareness around the community and targeting business sectors to bring businesses into the city. B. Economic Development Commission Comments Vice Chair Poelzer said she visited Commissioner Isik’s father’s business and left a newsletter and a pen, welcoming him to Arden Hills. Senior Planner Fransen said there have been a handful of permit applications submitted for commercial, interior tenant spaces. She said Wingstop and another casual restaurant called Hippo Pockets will be expanding into Arden Hills in the same multitenant building that houses Caribou. Community Development Director Reilly said he met with the CEO of a business called Airtopia Adventure Parks. They are similar to SkyZone but they have a full restaurant and bar. They have a couple of different models, based on the size of the facility. They are looking to purchase the building that was originally constructed to be a grocery store. The rectangular building with high ceilings is perfect for their needs. The current owner is not interested in leasing the building and would rather sell it. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – MARCH 25, 2026 3 Commissioner Bonine asked how the conversations start. He wondered if we are actively seeking conversations. Community Development Director Reilly said this is a large multinational corporation trying to get rid of real estate that it can’t use. The gentleman from Airtopia reached out to City Staff. Director Reilly and City Administrator Jagoe were able to meet him on site. He followed up with information on next steps if they choose to move forward. Commissioner Bonine said if we get Instagram he wondered if we can advertise locations like this where the city wants to encourage new businesses to come to Arden Hills. He has some ideas on how to engage the owners of these vacant buildings to encourage them to bring businesses in. Having vacant buildings doesn’t benefit the building owner or the city. He can see how promoting these spaces on Instagram could draw businesses in. Community Development Director Reilly said the EDA may be the better place to answer that question. Having a levy for economic development work may be needed. If we can understand how we do strategic planning first, then we can move onto the next step. Commissioner Brausen said the city needs to be more business friendly. Arden Hills can be a hard city to do business in, at times. That needs to change. Commissioner Bonine agreed. He said it is known within the development community to stay on the Shoreview side of Lexington. Senior Planner Fransen asked if the commissioners could provide three things that represent a business-friendly community. Commissioner Brausen said the signage requirements are terrible here. He shared an example of his experience with Council when he was seeking final approval. He spent an hour discussing the difference between a shrub and a tree. He was also required to install $30,000 worth of windows in a carwash. Council Liaison Rousseau acknowledged she was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting right after moving to Arden Hills. A gentleman said no one wanted to do business in Arden Hills because of what happens at the Council level. Commissioner Bonine thinks uniformity is important for a city. He appreciates having a clean look, but how you get there is a struggle. He had some proposals for his site that would have checked a lot of boxes for the City’s needs and would help the tax base. They ultimately decided not to bring it to Council because it would be a waste of $150,000 to draft a plan with no guarantees for approval. He had sign code conversations that lasted hours just talking about a few inches. He likes that we have standards. It would be nice if businesses could have conversations, before going to Council, to learn if a proposed project is close. Staff are the experts in this situation, not Council. Council Liaison Rousseau agreed Council should rely on Staff’s expertise, because it’s their full- time job, although Council does live in the City and resident feedback is considered Commissioner Bonine said the Council should facilitate the discussion and hear the community’s concerns. He asked if most cities involve Staff more in the approvals and decisions. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – MARCH 25, 2026 4 Council Liaison Rousseau said some councils can be a rubber stamp, ours is at the other end of the spectrum, and sometimes Council resembles an over-reaching HOA Commissioner Bonine asked Staff how they have seen the dynamic work with other Councils. Would they typically defer to Staff? What’s normal? Community Development Director Reilly said there is nothing normal in government. There are two common paths. One is where a group holds up a timeline for one reason or another. The other is where that doesn’t happen that often and the things that hold up timelines are more about criticism from the public. It depends on how tolerant a decision-making body is of the risk they are being asked to take. If they are not, they probably have written rules that make it almost impossible to take a risk. He thinks that may be part of the problem in Arden Hills. A lot of things that we have to follow were written a long time ago. Some of those folks are still around. That makes it harder to change because the risk is perceived as too great. Commissioner Brausen thinks it also depends on whether the staff is older or younger. He sees younger staff being more “by the book.” Seasoned staff may be more reasonable. He dealt with Shoreview on a few projects and its business friendly there. Community Development Director Reilly said Shoreview has a lot more financial resources. They have done updates to their zoning code more recently than Arden Hills has. Vice Chair Poelzer asked if the business owners on the commission had ideas for Senior Planner Fransen’s question about what three things make a community more business friendly. Commissioner Bonine thinks having an understanding about why things are the way they are. There are usually reasons why things are created. It’s important to know the original purpose and check in regularly to see if it still aligns with where we are today. It sounds like we have rules that were put in place a while ago and maybe those rules are outdated now. He would also like to understand why there is so much Staff turnover. Commissioner Brausen thinks part of it is that we are a smaller city. He suspects that pay may play into it. He asked why Staff decided to come to Arden Hills. Community Development Director Reilly said he came here because the opportunity to make something happen on a 400-acre site, where nothing has happened for over 20 years, was impossible to pass up. Arden Hills is very competitive when it comes to wages and we have a great benefits package. However, there is a reputation that it’s hard to get things done. Senior Planner Fransen said she was looking for her first planning role out of grad school. The ability to work on a variety of things drew her in. She wanted to do some land use/zoning code work but also economic development. Being a smaller city, she gets to work on more diverse projects. In a bigger city, staff can be more siloed on a particular path. She thinks historically the city has been reactive, rather than proactive in land use and economic development. The pay and benefits were also appealing. Council Liaison Rousseau said a consultant came in last year to complete a pay study. That brought current staff up to competitive levels. That contributes to the tax increases. We have to pay well in order to keep good employees. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – MARCH 25, 2026 5 Commissioner Brausen said he watches the city budget pretty closely. It’s not terrible. He thinks we need more business here to help. Commissioner Bonine said there is turnover in every company. He said the way staff are treated is usually the reason people come and go. He isn’t sure how that dynamic plays out here. Council Liaison Rousseau said they have been trying to put a City Council Code of Conduct in place. There was a challenge a couple of years ago where a councilmember was berating a staff member at the dais. If we’re able to establish a Code of Conduct policy, we would have something to point to, if that behavior happened again. Commissioner Bonine said he witnessed former staff get berated. It’s unfortunate to see how some people are treated. He would like to see less turnover. Commissioner Brausen agreed. He said we need to keep good people. Council Liaison Rousseau said at a council level they did strategic planning where they talked about what the goals are. That hasn’t been done before. We set up a roadmap for the next year on how to implement some of those goals. Part of that conversation is asking if we have enough resources and staffing. Vice Chair Poelzer said she thinks this has been a good conversation. She thinks everyone is on the same page. Conversations like this will continue into future meetings. 4. UNFINISHED AND NEW BUSINESS A. 75th Anniversary Update (Item 4C on posted agenda) Senior Planner Fransen repeated that the 75th Anniversary Committee was looking for support from the EDC to promote sponsorship opportunities with local businesses. Volunteers were going to share materials with the businesses they visited. She was asked to hold off on that until the committee could complete some initial communications that they wanted to ensure they got out. She will be in communication with the volunteers within a week after she gets an update. Discussion ensued regarding the information on the website. Staff will email the link. B. EDC Work Plan (Item 4A on posted agenda) Senior Planner Fransen said the Work Plan was approved at the last meeting. She said some items have been identified that should be adjusted. There was conversation about adding social media to the work plan. The EDC has discussed that Instagram would be a good addition to our current social media platforms for the city. She added “anticipated timing”. That will help project how this plan will flow over two years. Other updates were made to make the plan clearer. She is bringing this back today so the EDC can see the amendments that were made in advance of this going to City Council on April 13. Commissioner Isik has some ideas for Instagram. He said he can mockup posts and have them reviewed by the EDC before they are posted. He wondered what the EDC thinks is a good topic to prepare a mock post for, to show to City Council. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – MARCH 25, 2026 6 The Commissioners agreed a post about the 75th Anniversary, promoting the drone show or highlighting Adopt-A-Park would be a good place to start. Further discussion ensued regarding the process of Instagram posts. Commissioners will bring questions and a proposed strategy for Instagram to the next meeting for discussion. The proposal will need to be discussed with the Senior Communications Coordinator to ensure it aligns with the general social media strategy. The process is directors create content or identify topics for the communication coordinator, who has final creative approval. The topics and criteria that fit within the EDC narrative will have to be identified. The committee agreed the amendments are appropriate and the EDC Work Plan can be advanced to City Council. C. Draft Sign Code Review (Item 4B on posted agenda) Senior Planner Fransen said there are a lot of new members on the EDC who were not part of the initial conversation on the sign code. She noted a lot of the code has been simplified but recognized that there may be some context missing for newer members. The discussion portion identifies the current code. This conversation will discuss if a new business will be able to easily navigate the code to appropriately sign their business. Is it accessible and easy to understand? Does it allow for more creative signage that doesn’t require approval by the Planning Commission and City Council? She asked if anyone had questions or comments. Commissioner Brausen said it is a lot to read but he thinks it is done well. He likes that it is simplified and he’d like to see it move forward. Commissioner Bonine said a lot of thoughtfulness and resources went into this initial discussion. We polled other cities and experts. We expressed that the code is rigid and unreasonable. We shouldn’t require a business to go through the variance process for common sense things. He feels good knowing those previous discussions are represented here and the consultant validates it. Senior Planner Fransen said part of next steps will include a summary from staff that outlines that a certain change may eliminate permit reviews or show how some of the burden on businesses can be alleviated. It will clarify the EDC’s review and suggestions and also outline why the changes make sense. Commissioner Bonine said this was a long process that took a lot of time and work. If we think it’s in a good place, maybe we don’t need to revisit everything, for the sake of new EDC Members. Commissioners agreed. Senior Planner Fransen said Staff’s summarization will make it clear that even if things need to be changed, it reflects the EDC’s work, and the EDC doesn’t need to see it again. It can move forward. A motion was made by Commissioner Brausen and seconded by Commissioner Daniels to recommend the draft Sign Code dated March 25, 2026 be moved to City Council for consideration. Motion passed unanimously. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION – MARCH 25, 2026 7 5. ADJOURNMENT Vice Chair Poelzer adjourned the meeting at 9:01 a.m.