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-� �J� � . Memo To: 2 CC: Mayor and City Council Members Bill Malinen, City Manager; Duane Schwartz, Public Works Director 4 From: Debra Bloom, City Engineer 5 Date: November 21, 2007 6 Re: HarMar Right in/ Right out onto County Road B 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 -. The Council will be considering the HarMar Mall Concept PUD application at your meeting on Monday, November 26. This application is for the demolition of the Firestone building located to the northeast of the shopping center. In its place the developer is proposing to construct a freestanding 6,600 sf retail building on Outlot 81. One of the conditions of approval that staff is recommending for this application is that HarMar close the right-out access located on County Road B between Snelling and the signalized intersection. HarMar is not suppartive of changing any of the access into their site. Their concerns were expressed to the Planning Commission and are detailed in the letter sent directly to the City Council earlier this week. They have also provided you a supplementary analysis completed by their traffic engineer. The purpose of this memo is to clarify why staff feels that the condition should a part of the proposed PUD amendment. 20 Since the closure of the first crossover median east of Snelling that served HarMar and the 21 Target parking lot in 2005, staff has seen an increase in U-turns at the HarMar/ County Road B 22 signalized intersection. After receiving numerous complaints from the public, Ramsey County 23 completed a turning analysis at this intersection and determined that it the road was not wide 24 enough for larger vehicles to complete a U-turn. To respond to this safety concern the 25 intersection was signed to prohibit U-turns on weekdays between 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m and 26 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. The intersection was not signed to prohibit U-turns at all times due to the 27 access needs for Midas and the Mister car wash located at the NE corner of Snelling and County 28 Road B. 29 30 From Police observations, it was determined that a majority of the U-turns at this intersection 31 were the result of traffic exiting from HarMar's right-in/ right-out access located on County 32 Road B between Snelling and the signalized intersection. 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 To address impacts of redevelopment on the City's transportation system, City staff routinely recommends traffic mitigation conditions as a part of land use application approvals. The conditions are based on the findings and recommendations of the applicant's traffic study and relate to what improvements are necessary to address the additional traffic being added to the public system. If a development's traffic causes the need for a change in access, the City has conditioned approval on the applicant either immediately making the improvement or making the improvement sometime in the future when it is necessary.