April 11, 2023 — Meeting Transcript

Here we go.

Okay, so the first thing on the agenda here is a presentation on the Fire Training Center. And this evening we have Chief Ernie Rhodes with us and then Battalion Chief Jason Hildebrandt, who's also the Chief Training Officer for the Central Core Cities, which are Brentwood, Maplewood, Richmond Heights, and the City of Clayton. So we have an opportunity to potentially acquire property through a lease for a fire training center and partner with Brentwood and Richmond Heights. And so Chief's going to walk us through that this evening. So

Chief Elder Brent, if you want to. Hmm. Okay.

Sure. So the fire training facilities, this map identifies where those are currently located in St. Louis County. The locations are listed. The star is where we're proposing or the piece of property that we would like to build one on in the future. And it is basically on the border of Shrewsbury and Maplewood. This is the proposed property. It's 2.68 acres on Carr Lane Court in Shrewsbury. As you can see, it is bordered by I-44. The new MSD project, that's where it started, the big tunnels dig project. That's where it started in Shrewsbury. The railroad to the west and then to the south is an industrial complex that the property owner already owns. And she is in complete favor of us being able to utilize her property for a fire training center. This is just a kind of an illustration of what that could look like. It will most likely be one of the shipping container style of training sites or training centers. And for the scope and associated costs, what we're looking to do is create a commission amongst the municipalities of Brentwood, Clayton and Richmond Heights That commission would be tasked with leasing the property with a long-term, low-cost lease. We would improve the property for our needs, purchase and construct a fire training center or structure, a restroom facility with an outdoor classroom, and then the ongoing maintenance and management of the training center. The phase one, we're looking to secure the lease or secure the property. It is a zero cost 20 year lease with three 10 year renewals. The property owner is not looking for any income. What they are looking for us to cover are her property taxes and a very small management fee to her property manager of $3,000 a year. So right now, the annual cost for us would be $18,500 divided between the cities. And then phase two is to construct the fire training center with the live fire training structure, the restroom pavilion. We have an estimated cost of 1.5 million divided amongst the cities.

Questions? Discussions? And if you could, could you explain a little bit about how

these containerized fire structures work and exactly how we would train in there?

Sure. So the one that we have initially proposed is similar to this. And on the first floor, it would have a clean burn facility. It would be a propane-based facility. burn structure. The second floor would be what we consider a class A burn room. So it would have the ability to burn just straw and pallets, which is what we typically train on any of the other fire academies. We included the clean burn or the propane base so that when we do need to, or when we want to perform training and we don't want to produce any smoke. Um, it will be a completely clean burn option for us. Uh, construction of them, they, they take fairly new, uh, containers and they're retrofitted and basically, you know, using, using like a one, uh, one trip container, it gets recycled, uh, and turned into, um, a structure that we can use and they're built offsite and then just constructed using, you know, a local contractor in crane.

About how long will this structure last? What's the life, life of it?

So you're setting

it on fire on a regular

basis. We expect, you know, A 20 to three or 20 to 30 year lifespan without significant refurbishment.

Then as far as the fire training being critical to live fire, can you explain for just a minute about how that factors into the city's ISO rating for insurance purposes? And then talk a little bit about just the difficulty getting into those other facilities that already exist in the area.

Sure. So relating to ISO, ISO requires that all of our firefighters receive 18 hours of facility-based training a year. So we have somewhere in the ballpark of four and a half, basically four and a half hours per quarter that we need to be offsite and somewhere else in order to train in one of these facilities. If you do not get the facility based training, The way that ISO calculates your training score, you have to train there first. If you don't get those, if you don't have those hours in and have access to that facility, then they reduce all the kind of the validity of all the rest of the training that you perform throughout the year. So they require 216 hours of training. 18 of it has to be at a facility or the rest of it gets reduced significantly to about 40% of what your total number of hours are. Getting access to one of these centers can be challenging. We currently go to West County Fire and EMS. It's about 12 miles from here. And We get, so they have, going back to that map, they had 10, they had the number 10 on there. So in other words, they're training 10 other fire departments and fire districts at their facility. So we get those days that they, the nine days a month, sorry, that's not right, 15 days a month that they're performing training for those other facilities, we get what's left over. And so the days that we book have to be booked a year in advance. So I booked all of 2023 in November of last year. So we've already had one day where weather caused us to have to cancel. We're not going to get really, we won't have an opportunity to rebook that day just because of their availability and their schedule. And that's what we run into the majority of the time is we get what's left over. And we, you know, we're paying $9,600 a year right now to go out. And we get, you know, basically every firefighter gets one afternoon of training or one three-hour session of training every quarter. That's kind of currently how we're operating.

And so everyone's familiar with ISO as well. That's what determines our rates we pay for insurance.

Correct. And our fire department rating plays into the, the fire insurance portion of

your premium. Right. So the more training available, the better. So I'm in the grand scheme of things. That's really what we're trying to do is get access to more training. As you can see here, there aren't a lot of facilities that operate right now within the metro area. So the thought is that with that excess time that we would have when the three cities that own the facility aren't in their, uh, training that we open it up to other entities and perhaps the revenue we get from that offsets the annual operating expense and some of the, in the ongoing maintenance for the facility and pay for it that way. So for that lease amount and the upfront capital costs, you know, you basically through those, those, those leases that you have pay the ongoing expenses of being there in the facility. When we have the two phases on here, just to let everyone know, I mean, phase one is really kind of right away. So this property's there, it's available. We've got a property owner that wants to know whether or not we're willing to go ahead and sign the lease. We can secure the lease and then come back and put the improvement on it next year, two years from now, three years from now, whenever the cities get the right fit as far as the improvements we want to make and come up with the funding structure and the funds to actually construct it. The biggest part right now, though, is that phase one, locking down the lease and making sure we can get access to it, because for that cost that we have up here for under $20,000 a year to try to rent three acres of property for fire training within St. Louis County is very difficult. This is a really unique opportunity where you're just paying property taxes plus a small property management fee, and you're really not paying what you would typically see and the lease. They're not looking for anything more than what they've got into the property. So that's the opportunity in front of us. And I know Chief Hildebrandt's been talking with Richmond Heights and Brentwood's Public Safety Committee, and it will go before those elected bodies as well. And finally, and then I'll let you all ask questions. There is a very similar facility right now that was constructed a few years ago in Fenton. That's on the map here. And we are going to send out some opportunities. If you want to go and tour that facility, we'd be happy to take you down there so you can see exactly what we're talking about and looking at. With that, I'll let you all

ask any questions the chief may

have. Rich, anything from you?

So I take it the other two cities are having these same discussions, and we don't go forward without everybody

saying yes? Correct. I was at Brentwood's Public Safety Commission meeting last week. They voted to make the recommendation to move the project forward to their Board of Aldermen. It will be at their board meeting next Monday. And Richmond Heights, I believe, is having this similar discussion meeting next Monday night as well. But correct, it will require Brentwood's Board of Aldermen to pass the resolution. And then it will be on our, assuming to be on our Board of Aldermens meeting and Richmond Heights, you know, the following meeting thereafter.

And the

cost would be divided. I'm just looking at the 20-year lease, and you said the structure has about a 20-year lifespan. I mean, at the end of 20 years, you have another 1.5 because you're putting in facilities. So it's probably something less than that for just to redo the structure.

Correct, but it should not require a full replacement or full reconstruction. Obviously the containers that are most proximal to, because there's certain areas that will be reinforced and enhanced to withstand the temperatures of the fire training. So those will obviously take the greatest brunt of the the thermal impact and thermal damage. So those would have to be probably replaced in 20 to 30 years, but the rest of the structure may not require a full replacement. Okay, thanks.

Good questions. Ira, do you have any questions or comments on this?

I do. And, you know, just looking at what you're giving us, but I'm just wondering about some other things and maybe it's irrelevant, but so there's got to be a cost of some costs for maintenance and there's got to some costs for providing the training, personnel, et cetera. Am I wrong?

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, So that you are, you are correct. There is an operating expense and we have kind of already budgeted that and we are able to with the PB, Harmon Zuckerberg, Addition of two cities that are coming on as on a part time basis to only be involved in the facility based training. and the cost of backing, or the money that we pay to West County, backing that back out, we have about a $40,000 operating budget which would cover our maintenance, the cost of the property taxes, and any other operational costs for utilities and so forth. The actual training costs related to instructors and so forth, that's all part of the training program that's already in place.

So if you could show us then sort of like line by line how this could actually be a plus economically for the city in the end, do we have those kinds of numbers? You said you have a budget. Obviously, we haven't seen it. I haven't seen it, but maybe it's out there somewhere. um could we get some some idea some analysis of how this lines up with if we don't do it what are we spending and but if we do do it what would we be spending

yes we so i they have put together some preliminary uh budgets and operating expenses for this so once we have that together we will share that with the board once that's been refined uh and then bring that forward when we bring forward the intergovernmental agreement that would establish the commission So whether that's on the 25th or one of the first meetings in May, we will provide all of that information so you can get an idea what those costs will be. And again, the intention is to offset all of those operating and maintenance costs with the leases that go out to the other agencies that will train at the facility.

Yeah, I just kind of want to see those projections.

Absolutely. We can show how that balances.

Good. No, it sounds like a worthy effort. So thank you for pursuing this. Thank you.

um yeah i had a similar question to ira's i was just kind of wondering how we're going to offset all the costs and hopefully we can fill it up the way west county does you know so um i'm assuming that is this property located in maple where is it is it

it's it is in shrewsbury literally i mean i can knock into maplewood but it is inside the city of Shrewsbury. And I'm assuming the

neighborhoods around Shrewsbury are aware of this and willing to allow, you know what I mean? I mean, I don't, you know, I don't know exactly.

So there are no residential, yeah, there's.

The city of ShrewSbury knows we're going to put a fire training center in the middle.

Right. So the, like I said, Shrewsbury, I think I had mentioned that Shrewsbury joined us on a part-time basis in January. So their fire chief is aware and we're actually, we've been working with him and also some of the personnel in Shrewsbury to help, you know, facilitate moving this project forward. Um, But we will have to go through their zoning and permitting process in Shrewsbury when it's time to build the structure. I think I measured it out. I believe the nearest residential area is about 1,200 to 1,400 feet away. So it's almost a quarter mile. I

think that's all. And then I'm assuming it sounds like as training goes up, our insurance costs might go down. Is that the hope? And is that...

That's part of it. We know we can at least check that box that we have training. If we can provide more training, I don't know how big of a benefit that is or if it knocks you up to the next level for ISO ratings. But the biggest thing for us is the ability to train when we want to train with the other partner agencies that we have. So chief may be able to talk a little more about ISO, but

right. So, so this actually ISO you hit it. You were correct on your, your analysis of ISO. If we lose a training center, then we lose our points. And currently we're working really hard at the city to try to get a class one. We're hopeful, but we'll wait and see. Right now we have a class two, which is, It doesn't impact your residential insurance fees, a class four does. And those are the best rates for residential, but when you get to 321 it really starts to impact your your industrial commercial, which we have a ton of commercial, which is a big benefit for our corporations and business leaders. If we lose access to West County because they're so busy, then we will get sanctioned for those points that were there. It'll be harder for us to get towards that one. Also too, this training center is more than just fire. It is rescue. I mean, we'll do rope rescue off of it. We'll do building collapse rescue in it. And that training gap that training ground facilitates urban search and rescue training like we can build a rubble pile that simulates a collapsed building, which is a big deal so it's it's like a multi purpose training Center. And, and also to it builds resilience into our training Center if we lose this training Center then we've kept our training capability. And here's a great example. By using the West County Training Center, we've increased performance on task by 30%. And that's with all our partners. Now, that's a big deal, right? That's a big, real interoperability number. that we can say our combined training consortium, our group is making a difference, not only in the safety of our citizens, but they're being really aggressive and effective extending the line or extending the ladder or ventilating the structure or doing a search. So this also has a lot of resilience built into the future of fire training for really the central core.

And I don't doubt the benefits of it. But I think, as you know, we are deficit spending. So it's just... Absolutely. I feel like I'm... You're doing your due diligence. Yeah. I don't doubt that it would be fantastic and that you guys... I don't doubt. I just am concerned about the cost. Of course. Was there any thought to adding in another full-time city to defray the cost a little bit more? Or is it just because this kind of three cities is that...

Yeah, we have a fourth partner in the central core. They weren't interested in this point in time and moving forward with the fire training facility. So it would just be the three of us, but we thought it was important that the cities that own and operate this facility are part of that training group, full members of that training group. So at this point in time, it would just be three of us. The fourth had declined just I think more due to budgetary reasons than anything else. And just so you know, from a budget standpoint, But the lease for the property, we'd probably charge to operating. But as far as building the improvements on that property, that would come from the capital fund, which is healthy at this point in time. So from an operating expense standpoint, if we can get those outside leases to offset our operating costs, then we really shouldn't have a hit to the general fund with this facility there.

Okay, good. Susan, anything? Yeah, most stuff has been hit on. It sounds like a pretty tremendous opportunity and the need, but obviously the budget it's always an issue. So just to clarify, so the three full-time cities, everyone, it's a one third, one third, one, third, and then the set offs from that. Okay. And then, I mean, I guess the bottom line question that everyone's asking, I think is coming is, you know, what is the net impact on the budget when you set off the costs for already paying and things like that? Aside from that, to get property when just paying property taxes and everything else in the location, the time savings for you all is really

valuable. It also, because we have other agencies to our south that are interested in becoming full partners, it's centrally located now for all agencies that are coming on board. And we do have other agencies that have already reached out because they've heard the chatter that we may be doing this. And they're just kind of waiting in the wings to, you know, at least find out what, what we're going to be able to offer.

And so capacity wise with the current participants, is there a capacity to take in?

Absolutely. We're we've kind of, we've already built that out as well. We have, we have the ability basically to take on almost double what we're currently going to be providing. So we will utilize it basically at a minimum of 50%. And the rest of that time, we have the ability to potentially lease it out or bring additional members in and utilize it. We would probably not exceed about 70% of that. available training days so that we have uh reserve days for makeups due to weather and you know other unforeseen problems but yes there is definitely capacity to expand

thank you alderman Gary Feder

thank you alderman fader

uh your estimated construction cost does that sort of presume that you would build this building this calendar year or what's kind of the parameters of the construction projection.

So the estimated construction cost was based on an estimate for the structure, which was received this past October. I don't know what price increases could look a lot, you know, could look like for 2024. The, the, The current lead time on the structures is approximately 14 months. So once a contractor, we have a budgetary, we have a commission and a budget set, then we'll be coming back to get current quotes.

I'm assuming from what David said, the main purpose here is to tee this up to lease the property And then at some point, if it's two years from now when you want to construct a facility and it's now $2.5 million or $3 million that the board hasn't necessarily agreed to that figure, it's really more to get the project going. And at some point, you'd be back to us with what the actual construction costs are going to be.

That's right. We're really not locked into constructing anything. We're just looking to set up the commission at this point and they get the property under contract to lease it. And then as far as the lease provisions, that's something we can take a look at in there where if we didn't build the structure for whatever reason, is there a way at that point in time to terminate the lease because that'd be beneficial to the property owner too. And rather than just having somebody pay their property tax over time, the property owner would have other options if they could lease it at full, the full rate or potentially sell the property. So I imagine that the property owner would probably be okay with some kind of termination clause if for some reason we didn't build it out. Seems to me

the Lee certainly makes sense at this point.

Yeah, I agree. I think every question has been asked. Thank you for... Oh, you have one more. I

do have one more. Oh, sorry. And it was, I guess, as we were talking about the real purpose of a training, we were all focused on the cost, but the real purpose is training. Correct. And it benefits our... our team to have this. Did you say there's been a 30% increase just training?

Chief Rose did, but we've been timing and measuring performance for the past year, and we have seen due to the interoperability of our training group, we have documented a 30% increase in firefighter performance on the fire ground

so and i assume that these other that both richmond heights and maplewood have had the same issues with training as we've had correct yeah where

um

that's correct everybody is because um Prior to my position, everybody trained themselves. Everybody did their own thing. My position has allowed us to start training together. And now we have taken like the next step is starting performance measures and where every agency involved in our training group. is seeing performance improve and seeing measurable performance improvement. And truly, that is what has gotten the attention of the surrounding agencies, the surrounding municipalities to begin to want to join our training organization.

But I guess I'm saying that having this facility will also benefit those other departments and my thought went to the fact that those departments are often assisting our department. So we want them to be as trained as we are.

Correct,

because we're all,

everybody's kind of a one engine, one station department. So on any structure fire, we're going to have six other departments surrounding us coming in to assist us in our community. So we want at their maximum capacity and capabilities, just like we're trying to prepare to do. Thanks.

Thank you so much. I can just say lots of good questions. I'm totally supportive of this effort having been to a fire training myself and Rich was there too. It's really kind of amazing. And when you recognize you see fire for real and people going in and out of buildings, it's really great to be able to train sort of in real time, in real life. And I'm sure that has really enhances our performance levels immeasurably really, I'm sure. So great, we'll look forward to hearing all the background details and the budgets and all that next time. Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Okay,

I think we

can start our seven o'clock meeting. Do we need to do anything on the computer? Transition over. Okay, very good. All right. Well, welcome to our April 11th board meeting. And will the city clerk please call the roll?

Alderman Lentz

here.

Alderman Berkowitz

here.

Alderwoman McAndrew here. Alderman Buse here. Alderman Patel. Alderman Gary Feder here. Mayor Harris here. City Manager David Gipson here. City Attorney O'Keefe here. Thank you.

Alderwoman McAndrew here. Alderman Buse here. Alderman Patel. Alderman Fader here. Mayor Harris here. City Manager Gibson here. City Attorney O'Keefe here. Thank you.

Okay, now's the time in our agenda when we will ask for public requests and petitions. If there's anyone in the audience or online that has comments or questions about something not on our agenda tonight, now's your chance. Do we have any? We don't have any attendees. Okay. I see none. We'll move on to the public hearing. I would like to open the public hearing for the rezoning on Sterling Tower project and request proof publication.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a request for a public hearing for review and consideration of the rezoning and related plan unit development for proposed mixed-use development. The rezoning, plan unit development, and subdivision plat are being addressed together in this report. though the plat and the land use elements entails separate ordinances on the board's agenda. The project received architectural review board approval and the plan commission recommended approval of the site plan lot consolidation rezoning and development plan on April 3rd, 2023. The 39,921 square foot site includes three parcels located at the northeast corner of the intersection of South Beamiston Avenue and Carondelet Avenue. The properties have a zoning designation of high density commercial district or HDC. The site is currently improved with office buildings ranging in height from two stories to eight stories. The proposed project consists of the demolition of the existing buildings, widening of the existing east-west alley and the construction of a 24 story mixed use building with office retail apartment and parking uses. The proposed development includes construction of 254 apartments, 11,300 square feet of office, approximately 1,100 square feet of retail, 4,000 square feet of first floor financial institution, and 341 parking spaces. Off-street parking is provided for. The use is an attached parking garage. The building will total 460,000 square feet. The total height of the new structure is measured from the average existing grade to the top of the flat roof is 280 feet. Access to the parking garage is proposed off of Carondelet Avenue. Pedestrian access to the retail space and residential entrance is located along South Beamston Avenue. The main entrance to the bank service area is at the southwestern corner adjacent to the intersection. City standard streetscape will be installed along the project limits on South Beamston Avenue and Carondelet Avenue. A pocket park is located along the east side of the building. The loading dock and service area is proposed along the north side of the building with access from the alley. The proposed project includes modifications to the public right-of-way. The existing alley will be widened to provide the necessary 24 foot width to support safe use and function. The subject properties and proposed development meet the minimum requirements for a mixed use PUD. Staff in the plan commission are of the opinion that the development contains a reasonable ratio of commercial and residential uses. A PUD must provide public benefits to the surrounding neighborhoods and to the city above and beyond what can reasonably be achieved by application of the zoning provisions of the original zoning district. The Board of Aldermen may approve alternatives to the zoning regulations, subdivision regulations or design standards applicable to the property proposed to be rezoned to a PUD in exchange for developer provided public benefit. All PUDs shall provide at least one public benefit or combination of public benefits that total at least 10 points beyond those additional points required for any desired code alternatives, even if no code alternatives are requested. After the minimum 10 points are achieved, the developer shall provide a public benefit or combination public benefits totaling at least five points for each code alternative requested. The project seeks relief from certain development standards that are set forth in the current HDC zoning district. The total number of public benefit points required to be achieved as a result of the requested modifications for the project is 30. While each PUD in the city is different and should be reviewed individually, there should also be some level of consistency in how similar features are reviewed and scored. Features or elements of new projects that are similar to previous projects may be valued differently as the individual project, site, conditions, community and goals may change. As part of the analysis of the proposed project and benefits, staff reviewed how other PUD projects were scored in addition to the specific context of this project. Staff's analysis of the proposed public benefits resulted in a recommended point total of 32, which is above the minimum requirement of 30. The plan commission voted to recommend staff's points analysis to the Board of Aldermen. This analysis and detailed information on each criteria for approval has been provided. The proposed project will redevelop vacant and underutilized buildings while also creating a new home for a longtime Clayton business. Located almost directly in the middle of downtown, the project will inject density and height to connect other recent developments. The proposed project includes an appropriate mix of commercial and residential uses to activate the site throughout the day. Staff is of the opinion that the permitted uses, public benefits, and design of the site and building are compatible with regulations and the context of the neighborhood. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the rezoning and planned unit development per the required development commitments set forth in the Ordinance Exhibit C, Sterling Tower PUD document. Staff also recommends that the Board with the conditions set forth in the ordinance for adoption. The development team is here this evening, as is Anna Krane, our Director of Planning and Development Services, should you have any questions.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a request for a public hearing for review and consideration of the rezoning and related plan unit development for proposed mixed-use development. The rezoning, plan unit development, and subdivision plat are being addressed together in this report. though the plat and the land use elements entails separate ordinances on the board's agenda. The project received architectural review board approval and the plan commission recommended approval of the site plan lot consolidation rezoning and development plan on April 3rd, 2023. The 39,921 square foot site includes three parcels located at the northeast corner of the intersection of South Beamiston Avenue and Carondelet Avenue. The properties have a zoning designation of high density commercial district or HDC. The site is currently improved with office buildings ranging in height from two stories to eight stories. The proposed project consists of the demolition of the existing buildings, widening of the existing east-west alley and the construction of a 24 story mixed use building with office retail apartment and parking uses. The proposed development includes construction of 254 apartments, 11,300 square feet of office, approximately 1,100 square feet of retail, 4,000 square feet of first floor financial institution, and 341 parking spaces. Off-street parking is provided for. The use is an attached parking garage. The building will total 460,000 square feet. The total height of the new structure is measured from the average existing grade to the top of the flat roof is 280 feet. Access to the parking garage is proposed off of Carondelet Avenue. Pedestrian access to the retail space and residential entrance is located along South Beamston Avenue. The main entrance to the bank service area is at the southwestern corner adjacent to the intersection. City standard streetscape will be installed along the project limits on South Beamston Avenue and Carondelet Avenue. A pocket park is located along the east side of the building. The loading dock and service area is proposed along the north side of the building with access from the alley. The proposed project includes modifications to the public right-of-way. The existing alley will be widened to provide the necessary 24 foot width to support safe use and function. The subject properties and proposed development meet the minimum requirements for a mixed use PUD. Staff in the plan commission are of the opinion that the development contains a reasonable ratio of commercial and residential uses. A PUD must provide public benefits to the surrounding neighborhoods and to the city above and beyond what can reasonably be achieved by application of the zoning provisions of the original zoning district. The Board of Aldermen may approve alternatives to the zoning regulations, subdivision regulations or design standards applicable to the property proposed to be rezoned to a PUD in exchange for developer provided public benefit. All PUDs shall provide at least one public benefit or combination of public benefits that total at least 10 points beyond those additional points required for any desired code alternatives, even if no code alternatives are requested. After the minimum 10 points are achieved, the developer shall provide a public benefit or combination public benefits totaling at least five points for each code alternative requested. The project seeks relief from certain development standards that are set forth in the current HDC zoning district. The total number of public benefit points required to be achieved as a result of the requested modifications for the project is 30. While each PUD in the city is different and should be reviewed individually, there should also be some level of consistency in how similar features are reviewed and scored. Features or elements of new projects that are similar to previous projects may be valued differently as the individual project, site, conditions, community and goals may change. As part of the analysis of the proposed project and benefits, staff reviewed how other PUD projects were scored in addition to the specific context of this project. Staff's analysis of the proposed public benefits resulted in a recommended point total of 32, which is above the minimum requirement of 30. The plan commission voted to recommend staff's points analysis to the Board of Aldermen. This analysis and detailed information on each criteria for approval has been provided. The proposed project will redevelop vacant and underutilized buildings while also creating a new home for a longtime Clayton business. Located almost directly in the middle of downtown, the project will inject density and height to connect other recent developments. The proposed project includes an appropriate mix of commercial and residential uses to activate the site throughout the day. Staff is of the opinion that the permitted uses, public benefits, and design of the site and building are compatible with regulations and the context of the neighborhood. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the rezoning and planned unit development per the required development commitments set forth in the Ordinance Exhibit C, Sterling Tower PUD document. Staff also recommends that the Board with the conditions set forth in the ordinance for adoption. The development team is here this evening, as is Ana Crane, our Director of Planning and Development Services, should you have any questions.

Okay, very good. I think I can just open this up to discussion, but I wanted to see first if the developer wants to address us in any way first. Not necessary, but if you want to.

Give me a moment to follow up. Joel

Oliver and the chief development officer green street we're incredibly thrilled to be here tonight we've been working on this project for about 18 months it's been a wonderful collaboration with the city and staff we're really proud of what we're presenting. We think it presents a great opportunity to provide a new wonderful space for Sterling to stay in Clayton and provide some great density that'll bring more hopefully young bodies to really add to the nightlife. So Tom, our architect is here. He's going to walk through a quick animation and then we'll answer any questions

you have. Thank you. Mouse. So I can get this work. Oh, she

said okay sorry sorry Tom young representing green street and he architects on the design of the project so. Like Joel said, I'm going to pull up an animation that just kind of will kind of hone in on the site and give some of the context. And then we'll talk, there's an animation that'll walk

around the perimeter. Okay. And then do it, I'll have to click share screen, correct? Let me pause this guy. That would be appreciated. I will try. I've done this before. I feel like I forget every time. Yeah, you can close that out. Okay. So

to start off, we're just kind of starting off with the existing context. So this project occurs at the corner of Crandallette and Beamston. So this is a bird's eye view from the southwest. So our partner on the project, Sterling Banks, at the existing southwest corner along Beamston, the existing Clayton Tower project, and the Natalie Gale building is just to the west of the recently reclad Centene Garage. City County or the county parking lot just to the west. the Justice Center just to the southwest, and the Clayton Plaza Hotel just to the south. So this is a view of some of the context. So Louie's, the alley, and the garage entry for Sterling Bank to the north. A view from the southwest, the existing Sterling Bank, Clayton Tower, and some of the landmark towers in the background. In the lower left-hand corner, Clayton Tower. Natalie Gale Building with garage access. And then as we pan right to the right, that same building with another garage access location and the Centene Garage just to the east. As we move on to a bird's eye from the southeast, this will set up a view for what we're proposing. So again, Bemiston on the west end, Carondelet, the site's dropping approximately 13 foot from that southwestern corner to the southeastern corner, and you'll see that in our massing. So What you'll see now is what we're proposing, which is a 24-story mixed-use development. There's 254 apartments on levels three through 24. There's roughly 11,000 square feet of office on the second level along Bemiston, and that's for our Sterling Bank partner, longtime tenant of Clayton. And then there's 5,500 square foot of retail on level one at the southwestern corner and along Bemiston. So part of that will be Sterling Bank's retail location. as well as a small cafe tenant for the community and also for our tenant. And then there's a 348, actually I'm gonna pull back here just a second, or you're driving. So this is viewing from that Southwest corner. You can see Sterling Banks retail location located right on the corner of Beams and Cronolet. As we pan around to the West, that second floor is their corporate headquarters with residential occurring above. Mid-block, we will have the residential entry. Right now, we're just showing some generic signage, but there'll be branding above that. We're showing a white masonry pilaster with some masonry detailing that will be highlighted with and washed with lighting from above. And you'll see here in a second, there's an overhang for an architectural trellis for our profile piece. So one thing that we've done here, is the property line occurs right at this edge of the paving. So we've pushed that in approximately 36 inches. So we plan to have plantings along that. We've shown a representative image in this animation, but there's a landscape plan associated with this middle. At each retail location, we've recessed it in to give some additional depth and experience to the pedestrian as they work their way south on Beamiston. So a shift in materials, architectural feature, and then signage and branding up above. So that would be the location for the small cafe. As we continue down, we have punched openings, like I said, with some white masonry. They'll be washed with lighting from above in the evenings. This would be the location and lobby. Again, some branding signage above with some secondary architectural features. And we really played down those interests because we wanted to focus on Sterling's entry at the corner really is kind of the primary retail feature. So that'll be recessed and there'll be a some architectural detailing with some of their branding in the floor below, and then some visual interest up above with that consistent kind of wood material throughout the project. As we look up above, there's also patterns of some linear white frit that's pulling down some of the balcony lines from the apartment tower above. As we move our way, and this is where we drop about 13 foot along Crandallette. And the important thing to note is there was existing three curb cuts on this property for all the uses, and we've consolidated that down to one curb cut at the low end of the site at the southeast corner to access the garage. So as we work our way down along Crandallet to the east. We've introduced some vegetation at the base of the building just to soften things. There's a recess space that will be activated by Sterling Banks. They'll have events and they'll have basically a social space in the interior of their program that'll spill out under that, but it also helps break up that wall of architecture. So just some subtle details that will make the pedestrian experience a little more interesting. As we move to the east, we've located our garage on the east end of the site. Again, contextually next to Centene's recently repainted garage. And then we created that iconic marker at the corner of Bemis and Cronallet with the residential tower. So program-wise, that was our concept. At the base of the garage here, we're going to have basically a lighting installation with a recessed landscape planter bench area. This is the access for the garage for the Sterling tenants. There'll be some public parking there as well. And then all the residential private parking up above level one. So as we turn, one thing that we did through the process with the ARB is, and one thing that came up as we dove a little bit closer to the site was there's an existing plumbing easement on the east end of the site. The previous project or the existing building is built over that easement, but we weren't allowed to build over it. So we had to push our building approximately 14 foot off our property line and then Centene's garage is approximately 10 to 11 feet off the other side. So what we proposed as a public amenity was, to create a small little pocket park that could be amenity for our tenants, but also just for Clayton residents. So there'll be little breakout places for lunch and seating and so on, and a dog walk for the tenants at the rear end of the site or the rear end of access. So the other thing is we left it continuous and open at the end. That's the alley just on the other side of some of these scale figures. And the idea being that if there is a future development in the future, we could potentially connect with that. And then just also for security sake that there's multiple access egress points for anyone that's circulating through the park. Another part of that was we're required to have a rating on the first floor of our property, which basically be a concrete block wall, but we're going to hire commission an artist that'd be approved by your council to come in and put together a concept. So right now this is just an illustration to say there'll be some kind of mural painted on those facades. And then up above, we've clad our garage in a screen material that wraps on the east facade and then also along that northern alley facade. But the primary facade along Cronolet is clad in the same glass that will be clad on the tower above. So we wanted to make it look like it was of the same family and architecture of the tower and that it could stand alone as its own piece of architecture. So again, parking consolidated on one curb cut at the low end of the site. This is where we're We're talking about having this kind of illuminated art piece that's got a composition and at night could be an interesting way to activate the street and also just illuminate it and keep it safe. As we continue west up towards the Cronolet and Beamson corner, you can see the Sterling Bank retail location up here on your right-hand side. Again, that recess with some metal detailing and there's a significant, you know, 30 inch architectural brow projection up above just to add to depth and make that experience for the pedestrian a little more interesting. So as we zoom away back to where we started, this is that view from the corner itself at Cronallet and Bemison. The tower above, like I said, is there's residential levels at level three. but the typical footprint occurs four through 24. And there's, I can't remember the number of balconies per floor, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight balconies per floor. So a lot of recesses. That was one, an expensive detail, but something we thought was critical to help break up the mass of the tower above and just also just have an amenity for the apartment tenants. So that's the animation. So I'll sit down and then if there's questions, we can hop back into it.

I think these animations are really helpful to me to put it all in perspective and in context with what's around it. It's really great. Absolutely. So thank you for doing that. The other thing

we worked on with the ARB was just widening the sidewalks and maybe modifying the standard streetscape and not modifying it, but there's two options for what you could do. And there was this concern that some of the streets are a little narrow. So we pushed those tree wells out. So that was part of the adjustment as well.

Thank

you.

All right, I think I'm first going to say is there anybody in the audience that has questions about this project or comments. And no attendees so i'd like to open up to the board for discussion i'm going to just ask if you have general questions for the developer that we kind of do those first and then we will see if there's any discussion around the points okay so i'm just going to go around in order of seniority.

whose property is the park on? Is that all your property or is it shared with Centene?

So the idea being, and I could pull that animation back up, but the idea was we've shared all this with Centene and we have their approval and we will be providing everything. So most of the architecture, the seating, the hardscapes on our site, and then there's a couple of little breakout spaces that would be pavers that could be pulled up if they ever needed access to anything below grade. And then all the trees are actually in planters. So again, they could be picked up with a lift and moved out if they ever needed to access anything below.

That doesn't make sense to me based on what you just showed us. Are there going to be plants permanently planted in the park? yes and and and on whose property

on both properties and

who's

taking care of them so we would be maintaining that centene has approved it but we would be maintaining everything

the whole thing yeah okay that's that's what i needed to know thanks um that's the only general question okay

okay good i have any general questions or comments

yeah i have a few um Could you tell me the actual dimensions of the sidewalk that you are going to be expanding?

Yeah, I can. I do have a PowerPoint in that folder. I guess I can just access it right. There we go. Now I'll just share the screen. You may have to close.

I'm happy you're doing it. I just kind of want to get my head around how much and what the picture shows a certain amount, but I'm not sure I want to trust that.

Here, let me... Share screen. Is that working? Can you see the PowerPoint? Okay. So the

width is 12 foot 3 inches?

Yeah, so actually if I flip down. Sorry, I'm trying to get back to. And we had a whole study and that's an additional slide deck of we walked all the way down to the corner of Quran led all the way at the far end of the east and there was recently improvements made with all the 17 recent modifications to reclining that office building and repaying the garage, but we're what they had dimension wise between their planter edge. and the edge of the masonry of the tree well was five foot. And we basically said there's two options for your tree well scenarios, which is we could either bump it out and you could have this continuous masonry band, which is an additional one foot eight. So we'd take that six foot eight down to that same five foot that's standard in other locations. And at the ARB, it seemed that this was the preference was there's two options. We'd rather have the wider sidewalks. So I think I have a view of along... HAB-Jacques Juilland, Beemiston and oh here's this

is it the same on being listed. HAB-Jacames Juilland,

yeah sorry there's like a lag here, so you can kind of see, this is existing sterling bank, this is that secondary tree well option, so we just maintain that along Beemiston and you can see that's nine foot eight on this side. If I flip to my next slide so we're maintaining that same nine foot eight except there's basically an additional 36 inches of volume. That you don't have with the current scenario and some landscape just to soften the edge of that building, so this we're we're keeping the same but improving it. If I go to that next slide. So this is that view I was just talking about. That's a little bit further down the existing centene garage that was just repainted. You can see that landscape edge there from that line to that line is five foot. And you can see that one foot eight continuous masonry piece that could, that occurs along the curb edge. And we brought it up DRB to say, we're happy to do either scenario here. It's just, we're either going to match what was recently approved down the street and make that sidewalk five foot, or we can bump it out like it is on the, on a long beam and get the six foot eight. So. It's a long-winded response, but there was a lot of research put into that.

I understand. No, I appreciate you need to let us know your process. So did it look like on Bemiston, you had actually a 15 foot wide from building to the curb?

Let me... So this is current.

Yeah, 15 foot from the building to the curb line. And this is a little confusing because I flipped the view that was tied to the animation. So we still have that 15 foot from here over to the edge of the sidewalk, but then we have another 36 inches of planter where currently there's just a facade of a building right at

this edge. Okay.

Are you planning on having any restaurants or anyone take over in retail on the ground floor?

So we're thinking that a small, like I believe it's 1700 square feet cafe that would be in this location. There's so much program that gets needs to get kind of packed into this first floor. And with Sterling being our partner on this one, they wanted their retail location, which is focused on the corner. We basically had to get all our other transformers fire command centers, everything else core for the apartment tower Sterling, one of their own elevators. So it's like we packed in everything we could. And we even pushed a lot of the residential amenities up to the fourth floor. to free the space up to get a retail tenant in there.

Okay. And then tell me, can you tell me what the dimensions of the pocket park

are? Yeah, let me flip down to that slide. So

Basically this line, and hopefully you can see my screen, that's the line of the property. And our building's roughly 14, 13 to 14 foot just to the west of that. So let's say 13 and a half feet. And then their building's 11 foot off of that. So 24, 25 feet width from garage to garage. And then we really try to kind of keep a central access point and use landscape barriers up against just to soften the base of those garage. And we also just wanted the park to be open just for security sake.

And you said you're going to have kind of a dog park back there. Is that mostly, is that going to be for the residents of your development or is it also open to other people?

I believe it's just for the residents. And I don't know if that is due to liability or how that works, but the idea being there could just be a place out there that they could, you know, use the facilities and then, you know, go on a dog walk, but that's basically what it's for.

So that's not part of the park and pocket pocket park, as long as you're going to be using it only for residents.

Yeah. It's fenced in with, with a door access from kind of like, there's a core that comes down through the project and then there's a hallway that circulates over here. There's also a dog wash area back in the base of the garage behind that concrete painted concrete brick wall, I shared the animation.

Okay. And then one last question. So for the garages you have, can you, from the street, could you see inside the garages and see the cars? Is that how visible are the cars that are going to be in the garage? How visible are they from the street?

So From the street, they won't be visible at all. The alley is open, but the alley has these perforated screens, and it's not dissimilar from like Forsyth Point that just occurred, like where they wrap the screen material. Our building actually wraps. Our glass is actually wrapping down the alley for the full width of the tower, and then we've, that also came up through the ARB, is there was some preference to have some cladding at the alley until some project gets built maybe just north of us, but That's what we're showing is the same screening material that you see up above. So the idea being the first level, yes, would be a masonry wall that gets painted with a mural. But up above, there'd be some cars that you could see. But from the primary streets, no, you would not see cars.

Do you have a mural in mind for that wall?

The way we went through the ARB process, similar to other projects that we worked on you all with, We basically, I think we got an average of three points and then we'll work with the Arts Commission to make sure everyone's on board with what we're proposing.

That's it. Thank you. Very good.

Bridget, your turn.

I don't have any questions. You've been through all these questions already. I'm sorry.

All the women abuse.

Yeah, I'll pick up where Ira left off on the pocket part. So who can access that if it's between the, I mean, I know it's open to the public. Yeah, it's

just open and we have overhead lighting. We got permission from Centene to actually, I mean, it would all be powered from our facility, but we are anchoring to their project. So we'll span that with some nice lighting you can kind of see in this crescent image up above. But the idea being it's highly illuminated in the evening hours to be maintained by our staff, but it is open and The large openings along Crandallette here, but there's a smaller access. One, we're showing some plantings just to screen what is an alley, but the idea being if there's a future development just to the north of the alley, it'd be nice to have some connection through.

And with the plantings and everything, I know there was some discussion in materials we were given on permeability. What are you using in there? Is it just the planting areas on the stresses or...

What we're currently showing is permeable pavers. So you can see some of that patterning. And this is what I was talking about on Centene site. This is our property line. So we're putting the larger scale trees in boxes so that we can relocate them in case they need to get below grade. And then all the smaller scale plants will be planted with the thought that they could just be removed if they really needed to. And then there's the little breakout seating areas with pavers that could also be pulled up if needed.

And I got the other question I had is something that hasn't been touched on yet. And I think it's appropriate for now versus with the points. One of the zoning variances you're requesting is apartment size and you'd less than 750 square feet. What are you all envisioning for the residential makeup of the building?

I mean, I don't know if Joel or someone was just the rents of what those smaller units are, but they're significant.

How many small apartments? Do you have three-bedroom apartments? Oh,

yeah. I could pull up the plans for the typical floor. That might

help. I wasn't part of saying 750 was a minimum square footage. I'm sure there was a reason for that. And I'm wondering what we're looking at as far as the residential draw. We might

just stop

sharing and reshare. So just a second here, Ira and others. I appreciate you pulling it up. Pretending like I know what I'm doing. That's that lower level garage. We work all the way up. Thank you, sir. So I will actually, I'll start at the corner of Bemis and Ira, I got to share my screen, sorry. So at

the southwest corner of Bemis and Cronolet. So I believe there's two bedrooms plus balconies on every corner. A junior bedroom, which is basically just it's not a studio. It's just the bedroom isn't on the exterior wall. And that has to do with like structural layouts and how much you can actually get on that exterior wall. So junior one bedroom, a full one bed without a balcony. We'll keep moving up. uh structural sheer walls stairs so on one bedroom plus balcony this is another junior one bedroom so again not a studio true studio would have a bedroom out in the living space i just that

would be the smaller units right under 750 yeah

so the junior one bedrooms um these other one bedrooms and balconies and so on sorry it's kind of lagging behind on me here but uh And then as we move our way to the north end of the building, it's another two bedroom plus balcony, two bedroom plus balcony. So on the ends, okay. So I don't, there are no real true studios. They're marketed as one junior, one beds.

Okay, and then the only other question in these developments, have you ever looked at any type of rent sensitivity or affordable housing in any of the developments like this or this is something that

you all talked about? I could talk about the architecture.

We actually do have a program that has kind of workforce housing components. We've actually talked to the city in general about it before. It's very, very hard to achieve and high rises that are just so unbelievably expensive to construct. So there are other projects where we've included that and we've had really good conversations with the city about that in the past. It just doesn't work, unfortunately, in a project like this.

Okay. And then... The last question, again, isn't something you all addressed yet. So sorry about this. And maybe it comes back with the points, but I'm not sure what the best, you know, I'm a lay person at this. But the placement of like the EV stations inside the garage, I think a couple of them are public access. Do cities typically put those along street parking or are they typically inside a public garage like that? What is the?

We're going to talk about how that works with charging and

Yeah, the EV space is actually really interesting as that's evolving everywhere. Different cities, counties have different rules. We've been very inclusive of that in all of our properties today because we think it's just a great amenity to offer. I have never seen personally a development like this where it's in the public right-of-way. I don't know that a private developer could do that. Um, so in this use where it's in the Sterling parking area, that's accessible to the public. Um, that's how they would access that. So,

um,

and generally what we do is we put the conduit in place so that you can add more of them in the future as the technology evolves, you know, as we see what Tesla is doing now and, you know, making it open to more people and giving ourselves as much flexibility as we can.

Got the infrastructure there while you build it. Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.

Alderman Gary Feder, any questions, comments? No

Alderman Fader, any questions, comments? No

questions right now. Thank you.

Okay, great. I just have one. I think you've explained everything. We had so many great questions. But what is the target market for these units? Is it single working people or is it all over the board? What are you thinking there, just in general?

Yeah, I think we see a range of people and that's really what we're seeing across the board is that this would be accessible to young professionals at one end, but also to kind of call it empty nester kind of folks if you want, you know, that maybe have a larger home in Clayton, want to stay in the area, but don't necessarily want to own a condo. this would present an option for them also you know these communities are very amenity rich which is really attractive so generally that's what we're seeing is kind of we call them the bookends you know we don't usually see a lot of families with kids but there is some of that so young professionals kind of

yeah

older is relative right hud says 55 pluses it's really

offensive Okay, and do you have any, have you talked about the rent rates at all? What kind of leasing? And don't tell me the square foot. Tell me the like for a one bedroom or two bedroom.

So I don't have that off the top of my head. Do you have a target

for that or thinking range?

For the junior one bedrooms, the monthly rents

price, starting price of roughly $2,000. Okay. $1,900, give or take, depending on different levels of the building that you would be in. On the one bedrooms, they go range up to $2,300 to $2,500. And just over $3,000 is the starting rents for the twos.

All right. Just curious. Thank you. Okay. Well, I think if that is all for the general comments, we can talk about the points. The way I'd like to do it is to just ask if there's anybody that has questions or a comment about any one of the point areas rather than going through each one. So does anybody have a question or comment about one of the areas? We'll start over here.

Yeah, I've got a couple. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I guess right off the BAT i'm. PB, Harmon Zuckerberg, i'm not sure I understand what is unique about the building in terms of architectural. PB, HarmonZuckerberg, I understand that there's some nice little. PB, Harmonzuckerberg, points about it, the overhang on being missed in looks Nice and the with a little. flowerbed and stuff. That little curved wall on Carondelet looks nice. But the overall impression I get is not, there's nothing unique. In fact, even in the write-ups of both the applicant and the staff, they talk about it being very much like the other stuff that's been approved. So I don't see anything terribly unique. So I'm struggling with those points. There are some other ones that I think the discussion about recycled materials on the sustainability portion, it's just one point each. I'm not going to quibble over it, but I don't understand it and I would really need more detail to feel comfortable with any points for that. I just don't know that you have a project. The project is basically one garage. So it's not like the project is coming out and saying, gee, we really worked hard to get just one curb to bring it down to one curb cut. I mean, that's what the project is. There's one curb cut. There's one garage. So I don't understand why that is a benefit per se.

And then the other one was...

I'll obviously the mural is going to be, we'll see what happens with a mural, but just the fact that it's residential. I don't know that that in and of itself is a benefit. I mean, I don't know. I just don't, I don't understand that in terms of our point system. I liked the project. I liked the idea. I just, given this process we have, I don't get the 30 points. But that's

my

comment. Okay, very good. Would the developer like to go ahead and address those points now or wait till we get all the way through? Yeah, you wanna, yeah. Okay, well, why don't you while we can all still remember what they were?

do our best to cover all of those. Tom's

going to probably have better insight than I do. I think part of my view is having high density residential as a community benefit brings the ability to bring those bodies to a community that may not be there otherwise. So as the city has a desire to bring more people and increase that density, I would think that on the curb cut, What you're saying is true, but we intentionally designed it to reduce the curbs. We have lots of projects that have multiple accesses to garages. Curb cuts obviously impact traffic patterns. So we worked to have the one curb cut design the garage that way to remove the two. You can probably speak to the architectural significance more readily.

Yeah. So, I mean we started this project roughly 18 months ago and have been designing kind of back and forth, not only through the entitlement process but also with pricing this thing and the reality is there's certain rents you can get in this market and there's certain materials we can clad this building and we think we've clad it in like the richest material we could. We want it to be a Class A property and it's being constructed in St. Louis, and its construction costs are high. So what we've struggled with is just trying to get something that pencils, and after 18 months, this is the option. And through the ARB, we're excited about it. We think it's going to be a great project. It's a glass building, correct? I know there's been other glass buildings recently approved. But this building has, what did I say, eight balconies per floor is over 20. So it's got significant relief and residential texture that these office buildings don't have in those balcony makeups. And then around the base, I do think we were thoughtful about how we were cladding the garage, not just in like a metal screen or something, but like a material of the same family of the tower with different patternings that could appear to be its own piece of architecture. I'm trying to think what else. But at some point, yes, there was a rooftop terrace and all this. And through pricing exercises, they come in 30%, 40% of our budget. And that's the reality of the market we live in today. And as far as the curb cuts, it's just, yes, we are consolidating down to one. And the idea is just a more active streetscape. So where we've, yes, there are curb cuts for multiple program pieces on that site. The reality is we're replacing them with cafes and retail bank locations and pocket parks and recessed benches instead of curb cuts with cars flying in and out of those garages. So that's the benefit to maybe one use on this building over three or four, or

three or four uses on this site.

Did that at least-

Were there other, I'm trying to think what else there was, the sustainability points. Yeah, I can't speak to exactly

how it interacts with the point system, but just as a point of reference on our multifamily projects, regardless of the form factor, we pursue national NGBS, which is the National Green Building Standard for our projects. You know, it's similar to what LEED used to be, but it's specifically targeted for multifamily, so it's a little bit more applicable. So the standards that we'll achieve for this project will meet that certification standard. Thanks.

Ira, do you have some comments or do you want to talk about any specific area on the points?

No, I'm not going to repeat Rich's comments, but believe it or not, I actually agree with Rich's comments.

Do we get that on recording?

Yeah, I have a problem with the design. I certainly don't think it deserves the points that it's got. I actually sat on ARB when they first brought this to our attention. I don't see much difference in the design from the time we told them we didn't like the design at ARB. So I'm not wowed by it. I think that could be... That design could be anywhere, and it's certainly another one of those box-looking buildings that has absolutely no, as far as I'm concerned, real architectural interest. But other than that, yeah, I think I have a serious issue with some of the other things, as Rich has, but you guys have responded to that, so I don't need to repeat, and you can go on to Bridget.

Very good. I mean, I you know i'll just address we did talk about at a RB you know that it was. kind of a boring glass box, you know, and I think that the group came back and made some adjustments which I think made it a more attractive building. I do think it's attractive. I mean, does it, I mean, do you stand in front of it and are you, you know, wowed by it? Or like, is it architecturally stunning perhaps the way the apartment building is on Kings Highway that got zillion, millions of dollars in benefits from the city? So, however, I do, I mean, I would certainly support going down a point in the architectural feature down to like two points I totally understand Rich and Ira's point. It's not, there isn't a wow factor, but there are some really nice parts of this building. I mean, I think a glass building is nice. I think it's great that there are so many, you know, unlike the 212 building, which I don't think is particularly attractive. This building has a lot of cutouts, a lot of those, you know, balconies, which are great for the people living there and breaks up the mass of the building. So I do like that a lot. And I do appreciate that there, again, there was that addition of that big band around the first or second floor, wherever it was, which I think really does break up the massing of the building and looks better at the street level, which is where really people are mostly going to see this building. I mean, in terms of all the other points, I think, I mean, I would be in most agreement with them. I will say with regard to the curb cuts, I understand what Rich and Ira are saying, but when I walk with my children around this area, there was like multiple, especially like down Bemiston, we constantly had to peer over to make sure nobody was wheeling out of the garage. So it makes for a much safer pedestrian experience around this building than exists there right now. I mean, honestly, Carondelet is not very busy, but Bemiston is. So it really does make for a much safer place. So I would support at least three points in that area, which still, you know, I guess gives them, still gets them the 30 points. So, you know, so I think the pocket park is a great addition to downtown and, you know, we talked about the massing, the garage massing along. Again, that was another addition that the development team made. after ARB was really upset that, you know, we're just going to see this big garage. So I think this will be a very artistic and pretty feature walking around Carondelet. I mean, yes, I would love to see more retail, but realistically, this is going to be a residential tower with a bank that's really financing the project. So we have to live with the fact that we're not going to have a restaurant right there. There will be a bank there. So I think having that attractive artistic piece along Carondelet Would it, I mean, yes, of course it would be nice if it was a coffee shop or a restaurant, but that's just not realistic. So, so yes, I guess, I mean, ultimately, I guess I understand what they're saying. I'd be happy to come down a couple of points, but I think that still gives you about 30 points if all the other points are equal in the other areas.

Very good. Thank you. Alderman Buse, you have comments?

Yeah, I don't, I don't have much after that presentation, which I appreciated very much. The only, when I first went through this, the one thing that struck me was the pocket park, which is a nice feature and it has been done well. When I first read it, I thought it's a space that can't be used anyway. You know, that it's going to be there on both sides. And so five points to make it look attractive. Everything else, that's, you know, I kind of wrestled with that. But again, how many concern I have wouldn't be enough to change the... the point total, but I hope it is an amenity that's used well and adds some lightness. I look forward to you getting a certification with the green building and the diversity in housing with the different sizes, I think is a real attribute for the city. That's all I've got.

Yeah, go ahead. I know one of the thoughts

that came up was why do we get points for bringing people to the city? I think the thought is you know, maybe where the office market across the country has started to dry up a little bit and slow down, hopefully it picks back up, is like you have more folks living in the city boundaries to go to these restaurants and fill them beyond 9.30 at night. So when you see these multifamily projects, that's the hope is that that is bringing money and tax dollars to those uses so that those restaurants can be sustainable.

Very good. Alderman Gary Feder, comments, questions, whatever.

Very good. Alderman Fader, comments, questions, whatever.

Well, I think I've attended every meeting where this project was presented going back at least a year ago to when it was presented the first time. And I think the developers made, you know, tremendous strides in responding to the staff and the plan commission ARB. Their project a year ago, I think was received a fair amount of criticism from the plan commission. They spent a lot of time, I think, working on it. What they came back with was a whole lot better than what they had a year earlier. And then I think a month ago or five or six weeks ago, they had a presentation and again, received some criticism on different aspects and came back. And again, I think made some significant changes including to the architecture. I think some of the notches in the building didn't exist previously. So I think a lot of the, a lot of the project has changed for the better. And my general thought is the PUD system is obviously subjective and difficult to apply, and my attitude is that, especially on architecture but more generally. When our staff spends endless hours and the ARB spends two or three hours at various meetings going back and forth with the developer, at least in my own mind, that makes their final tally of points at least presumptively correct. It doesn't mean we should rubber stamp it just because The ARB said it should be 32 points, but I also think we have to recognize there are numerous architects on the ARB in contrast with this body, for example. So I think we need to give credit where credit is due. I wouldn't start nitpicking going from 32 to 31. I believe the staff worked hard on this, ARB did as well. As far as the public benefit, I think it's already been addressed. I think the city 10 or 12 years ago made a commitment to having more people in downtown. That was the whole idea, bring more people. And so again, the developer didn't necessarily have to do apartments. They could have done something else. So I think there's a true public benefit in that. So I give credit for what they've done. I give credit to the staff and the ARB for working this project over during the course of a year. And as far as I'm concerned, I would leave the 32 points exactly where they are. And I think it's going to be a great project.

Well, good. I think, you know, I would just comment that I understand and agree with many of the points brought out here. And I really want to compliment the board on your questions earlier because I think you have some really really good pertinent questions um i i myself uh i like the project uh i don't have a problem with the architecture i know we have other glass buildings but i feel like we'll probably have more glass buildings i mean as we talked earlier these things kind of go in cycles but uh in terms of why we why we uh are appreciating the fact that this is residential uh it it Mary's up with our master plan our master plan states that we want to have more residential in downtown to support our retail and and even get get even more retail. Also recently we just went through a big analysis, with a company called H3 about another part of the downtown area, but the big there was a big emphasis on widening the sidewalks if we ever could. and also on fewer curb cuts and fewer garage entrances where pedestrians are going to be walking. And I see those things reflected in these plans, and I really appreciate them because not all developers have decided to adhere to those recommendations. So I wouldn't follow my sword over a point But I wouldn't want to take away any other points personally. So if we want to talk about that, I think we're kind of at a point where we could vote. But do we want to discuss as a group notching the architecture down one point?

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I mean I I agree with Gary and that it's I don't want to quibble over point here and there, I think my main issue is I just think it's another glass building and I don't i'm not excited about that aspect of it all the rest of it is fine, although the. PB, Harmon Zuckerberg, there's a lot of it as. PB, HarmonZuckerberg, To be fair. PB, Harmonzuckerberg, The street level looks great I just think from. When we look back at our skyline, it's another glass building and nothing too exciting. So I don't think it's unique. But once again, I'm not gonna, don't wanna quibble. I think even when I redid my calculations, you know, I get to 27, 28, and I'm not gonna say no just for two subjective points, so.

Okay. um all right well i think what we what we would do tonight is have the first reading and vote on that and then in two weeks has been our procedure for transparency and allowing the public so many of whom are here tonight um to come and to come and comment uh if they want to a second time a second opportunity that's what we'll do and so um unless somebody wants to make a motion. Otherwise, I would just take a motion

to... Anybody talking now? Anybody in the

public? Nobody's got a... Nobody's here and nobody's got a hand up. And by the way, if we're getting ready to vote, I have to follow my procedures here. So if we're done discussing it, I will close the public hearing.

And I'll introduce Bill 6966, approving the rezoning of 48 South Beamston Avenue, 7745 and 7751 Carondelet Avenue from high density commercial district to a planned unit development district to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Sorry, any discussion? All right, Mr. City Attorney.

Madam Mayor, if I may.

Oh, sure.

The bill as presented and as introduced has blanks in it for the points. That was on pages 15 and 16 of the memorandum are blank. As a starting point, at least for your discussion, it might be appropriate for there to be a motion to amend that to fill it in now with the recommendations from plan commission. And then on your second reading, if there is debate about any given one of them, you have a place in the bill where you can make that adjustment.

So if

that pleases the board, a motion to amend the bill by the points recommended by the plan commission, which I believe Mr. David Gipson can recite for us.

that pleases the board, a motion to amend the bill by the points recommended by the plan commission, which I believe Mr. Gibson can recite for us.

Yes, and that would be five points for architecture, or I'm sorry, three points for architecture, which is 405-1380-B1, on B2 of that section, five points. On B3 of that section, two points. On B5A through H, a total of seven points. On B9, three points. B12, three points. And B16 would be six, seven, eight points. for a total of 32 points. So four for the reduction of curb cuts, two for the density, one for the public dog run and two for the EV charging stations for public use.

I'll move to amend the bill to include the points as staff, as read by the city manager.

Yeah, second.

Can I do a clarification real quickly? It's not a public dog run.

It is not.

Okay, that's how it is on the developer.

Right. It must be public. I misspoke. It's accessible. It's not like a locked gate, so I misspoke.

Okay, very good.

There is a gate on the plan.

Yeah, can't let the dogs out. uh okay so it's been amended and now we can just have a voice vote

it's not been

well

read i'm it's amended but it's not been read

oh that's

true so it is we haven't voted on the amendment yet

correct excuse

me that's what i

meant okay so a voice vote on the amendment you're

getting the hang of this voice

vote on the been amended it's been seconded all those in favor

aye

aye any opposed okay great now we can move forward with the

it's do i have to read it again no sir bill number six nine six six first reading an ordinance providing for the rezoning of certain property located at 48 south beamston avenue and 7745 and 7751 carondelet avenue from hdc high density commercial district to a planned unit development district to be known as the Sterling Tower Planned Unit District, providing for the change in the zoning map of the city of Clayton, Missouri, approving a planned unit development for the subject property and other actions related there too.

All right. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, very good. Okay, so... We've had the first reading and we'll do the second one in two weeks and go at it again. Thanks.

We have your other bills.

We still have your lot consolidation if you want to stick around for that. You're anxious to get out of here for some reason. All right. Next is the bill number 6967 and we need a motion.

I'll introduce Bill 6967, approving a plat and lot consolidation for 48 South Bemiston Avenue and 7745 and 7751 Carondelet Avenue to be read for the first time by Title Omen.

Second.

Any discussion?

All right, Mr. City Attorney. Sorry, I'm trying to get through all these pages to that legislation. I apologize. No worries. All right. Thank

you. Bill number 6967, first reading. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plat to consolidate certain property known as 48 South Beamston Avenue and 7745 and 7751 Carondelet Avenue in the city of Clayton, Missouri.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, very good. I'm

sorry.

We're going to just read this. I'm sorry, we're just going to do this as a first reading as well.

Why don't we do a second reading on the law consolidation?

We don't want to do the second reading? I

believe, I do not wish to speak for the applicant, but I don't think they necessarily want the lots consolidated if the plan is not approved. Okay, great.

We'll do all that the next time around. Okay, very good. Now we're done with you. You can go. Thank

you very much.

Okay. Moving on, we have our consent agenda. Mr. City Manager.

Just one

item on there. We just need a motion for approval. I'll move to approve the consent agenda. The item listed.

Second.

Alderman Lynch.

Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz.

Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder. Aye. Mayor Harris. Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Aldermen Fader. Aye. Mayor Harris. Aye.

Thank you. Okay. Now we're ready for the city manager's report.

Yes, the Board of Aldermen included funds in fiscal year 2023 budget for consulting services to help guide the city through the process of developing a new comprehensive plan. The last citywide planning effort of this type was completed in 1975. The comprehensive plan will touch on many aspects of the community to develop a vision for 20 years from now. The plan will focus on land use and development with aspects of transportation, sustainability, economic development, and equity planning. On December 14th, 2022, the city issued a request for proposals for comprehensive planning services. Submittals were received by staff on February 1st, 2023 and reviewed by a selection committee comprised of representatives from the plan commission, the city manager, director of economic development, director of public works and members of the planning and development services department. Interviews were held at the end of February. The selection committee completed evaluations and met to discuss the submittals and interviews. The insight questions and feedback from the resident members were very helpful, and we would like to thank them for volunteering their time to assist with this process. Completion of a comprehensive plan will require expertise and guidance from the consultant on multiple aspects, including community engagement, land use and zoning, infrastructure and transportation, smart city technology, and sustainability and equity. The committee felt that the team comprised of PGAV, WSP and key strategies group was best suited to handle this task while bringing fresh perspective to the process and design. PGAV has provided a scope to meet the plan requirements as identified in the RFP. The scope of work will involve multiple layers of community engagement and analysis. The project is expected to take 12 to 15 months to complete. The proposed base fee to complete the work is $278,000 with an additional $6,000 estimated for reimbursable expenses. The city's budget is $300,000 for this project. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance authorizing the execution of a contract with PGAV planners to complete a comprehensive plan. And we do have Adam Jones with PGAV here this evening. If you could come up and just introduce yourself, that would be great.

Oh, good evening. Adam Jones PGA V planners 200 North Broadway. Green Street was thrilled to be here I'm thrilled to be here. So I appreciate you know we're excited to get to work excited to give you all something that I think fits your community. And again, we thank you very much for being able to be of service to the city.

Very good. Anybody have questions for this gentleman right now. Okay, very good. Thank you. Okay, so any other discussion about this? All right, Alderman Lentz.

I'll introduce Bill 6968 to approve a contract with PGAV Planners for consulting services for the comprehensive plan to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 6968, first reading, an ordinance approving a contract with PKAV Planners for Consulting Services to develop a comprehensive plan

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? All right.

I'll move the board and give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill 6968 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed. Let the minutes reflect the board has given unanimous consent.

I'll introduce Bill 6968 to approve a contract with PGAV planners for consulting services for the comprehensive plan to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? All right, Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 6968, second reading and consideration for adoption, an ordinance approving a contract with PKAV planners for consulting service to develop a comprehensive plan.

Alderman Lentz. Aye. Alderman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Berkowitz.

Aye.

Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder. Aye. Aldemar Harris. Aye.

Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Fader. Aye. Aldemar Harris. Aye.

Okay, the splash pad.

In October of 2010, a new splash pad was installed at the north end of Shell Park as an extension of Tree Top Playground. The splash pad has proved to be a popular amenity for families visiting Tree Top Playground, which is a destination playground in the St. Louis metropolitan area. However, over the years, the splash pad has grown somewhat stale and lacks upgraded features that newer splash pads now offer. The Clayton Community Foundation, or CCF, their approved project list includes system-wide playground improvements. To that end, CCF recently received a donation to upgrade the water play equipment for the splash pad with new features that would tie in with the adjacent nature-themed treetop playground. Raindrop Products installed the current splash pad and has now proposed new water features that will easily fit into the current layout. This will allow staff to simply change out the equipment and avoid replacing the current concrete to rework the mechanical systems underneath the pad. Raindrop Products participates in the Source Well Purchasing Cooperative, which is a nationwide purchasing organization for public sector procurement that offers an extensive portfolio of sourcing solutions and partnerships. As a result, Raindrop Products has provided a lump sum bid for the project, factoring in an 8% discount from the normal price of their products. The full project scope includes repainting the concrete pad and installation of the new water features, both which will be completed by city park staff. The Parks and Recreation Commission is in support of the project and the overall design concept. The equipment is expected to have a six to eight week lead time and installation should take place approximately seven to 10 days once the new equipment is on site. Funding for the project is being provided by CCF in the amount of $51,678.36. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve an ordinance allowing for new water play equipment for the splash pad at Treetop Playground in Shaw Park through raindrop products in the amount of 51,678.38, pending approval of some suggested contract edits from the city attorney. And Tony Searing, our Director of Parks and Recreation, is here this evening if you have any questions.

All right, any discussion or questions? I just want to say thank you to the Clayton Community Foundation once again. That's a big chunk that they secured for this. I think it's really great. Okay, Alderman Lentz.

I'll introduce Bill 6969 to approve the purchase of water play equipment for the splash pad at Treat Top Playground in Shaw Park to be read for the first time by title only.

Seconds. Any discussion? Okay. Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 6969, first reading. An ordinance authorizing the purchase of new water play equipment for the splash pad at Tree Top Playground in Shaw Park.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Alderman Lentz.

I'll move the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill 6969 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, let the minutes reflect the board is giving unanimous consent.

And I'll introduce Bill 6969 to approve the purchase of water play equipment for the splash pad at Treetop Playground in Shaw Park to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? City Attorney.

Bill number 6969, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance authorizing the purchase of new water play equipment for the splash pad at treetop playground in Shaw Park.

Alderman Lentz.

Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz.

Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye.

Okay, very good. We can, I think we have a little time. We can do a little round table. So we can start with Alderman Lentz. Anything you want to report on from the past two weeks?

No, I have not had any meetings as I was out of the country.

Oh, right. We'll hear about that hopefully someday. Okay, Alderman Berkowitz.

Yeah, there was a parks and rec meeting And for the life of me, I can't remember what we talked about.

Someone else is here to help you.

I hate when that happens, you know? I know it was a lively discussion about some really important things. I can't put my finger on it, but anyway, this came, I'm sorry. But yeah, Susan was there and I know she could tell us all about it.

I got your notes right here, Ira. I got you covered. All right. All

right. Good.

Anything else, Ira?

I hope they say nice things about me. No, that's it. Yeah, I do have one more thing I want to bring up. And that is the I know that we've gotten our trash bids in and David's going to be looking really hard at those and seeing what they mean. And now it all figures in. But I what I wanted to bring up is that I would like us to think in terms of providing a mechanism, no matter what the numbers are, that we provide a mechanism that For those residents of the city of Clayton that are on very fixed incomes, where this expense really does impact seriously their ability to actually pay their expenses and to feed themselves. I know there probably aren't very many of those people in Clayton, I get that. But if there are some or there are a few even, I would like us to make sure that before we do anything, that we would set up a mechanism to make sure that the people who are on those kinds of fixed incomes and they are our residents, that we could provide for them some manner of helping to pay for this added expense. That's what I'd like to see happen.

Okay, very good. I don't want to belabor it too much, but I think we had talked about that before, and I think the different haulers have also mechanisms built into their fee strategies too. I think when

we were talking about that, it was in the context of we went with a curbside

Oh,

style service. Would they have something for those that couldn't get a container to the sidewalk as far as any kind of subsidy that may be provided for the cost? Correct. That's something that the city would do independent of the trash contract. So we've got plenty of time between now and October 1st when that goes into effect to discuss it. We do have a retreat coming up as well. So we can put this on the potential list of topics to discuss. But we could do that completely independent, whether it be a refund. And that's what you see in a lot of places. if they have any kind of discount available for certain residents. So there's some different things we can explore with that and discuss it a little bit. We've got six months or so to figure

it out. Great, great idea. Thank you. Okay, we're on to Bridget.

Gary and I went to Maryland Walk and had a spirited discussion with the residents there. a couple of weeks ago. It's always nice to go and go there and hear from everybody there. I also attended our Cardinals home opener, and I just want to say kudos to the staff. I think especially Kristen and Gabby, they were probably the ringleaders, so they did a great job, and it was a great event as always. It's just kind of fun to go to events again by the city, so that was a fun event. I'll let the mayor discuss more, but went to the opening of the commerce tower and also the opening of the residence in which it's just nice as somebody who has to drive in that area all the time. It's great that these buildings are, you know, completed so um there's little things here and there but the residence and let's just i was you know i just the lobby area i didn't have a chance to go to the have a tour of the other floors but it really is a really nice building i mean it's really really nice so um so yeah so that was exciting it's kind of about it very good and i had a plan commission meeting but really the big thing we talked about was the project we all just talked about so very good Yeah,

the Cardinals home opener was really fun. And of course the sunshine helped, but also it was well-planned and just very welcoming. So that was nice. And I guess Parks and Rec, I have to channel Ira here. One of the really interesting parts of it is Deb Grossman from sustainability came. And I think it's really exciting when our commissions and committees work together you know, and they're sharing the information because those the issues of sustainability are very much a part of the parks work, etc. So and she was, you know, very impressive talking about doing the strategic plan with with your sustainability and everything else that that was really exciting. Let's see what else they it's funny always doing with Tony here who's I'm getting information from her but I'll say it anyway. The camp enrollment and revenue is is up which I guess it makes sense with taking the place of the summer quest camps we've had before, but that's also, it's a very good thing getting through COVID and everything else and having those camps take off. With the high school, I believe taking over the sports camps that the city had involvement with last summer, but now those will be run by the high school. And what else was there? Maryland Park done late, will be done late July. The Oak Mill Pavilion, uh late june everything's ordered and in the splash pad we just heard about that was a great development that money came in and that we're ready to start the livable communities but we know that as well so that's what i've got thank you

Can I just chime in? I know Gary goes next, but let me just chime in on the Parks and Rec Commission now that I've been reminded what the topic was. Deb Grossman was phenomenal, as Susan mentioned, and she presented to the Parks and Rec of almost anything we could possibly think of that would really fit into sustainability and in planning for projects that the Parks and Rec Commission actually does perform, and then ways in which it could act on its own as its own department It was phenomenal. I mean, it was she covered every base and was so detailed. It's like a checklist for almost any project ever done by Parks and Rec to maintain itself as sustainable. So I was very impressed. She was amazing. So and I apologize that I forgot that that was that was her meeting and it was she was phenomenal. So thank you.

Okay, very good. Alderman Gary Feder.

Okay, very good. Alderman Fader.

As Bridget said, we went to Maryland Walk. I told my wife they said it was going to be an hour. I was sure it would be an hour. It was a lot longer. It was an interesting evening. Also, because I had an opponent in the aldermanic campaign, I actually went to the Barkley House one day apart from my opponent and So that was interesting. And they obviously, those who attended know more about him than I ever learned. And I did go to the residence in and I actually did make it up to the, I think it was the fifth floor. And the most remarkable thing I think are actually the views. I haven't really looked out those windows often at Chapman Plaza and that whole area, but it's really, it's quite spectacular. And then a week ago, I was watching the election results roll in. And I mean that sort of facetiously it's a very long and slow process but fortunately it was a good result and so I'm glad to be back on board here for a few more years thanks

very good well yes and so I think it's a given but I will just say congratulations to our our winners victorious in uh winning their races we have one in the audience Rick Hummell and also the esteemed Alderman Gary Feder so uh and the uh ultra esteemed Miss Buse. Even more esteemed. Even more esteem. No, so it was great. It was a great, great result for everyone concerned here. So congratulations to you all. I don't really have a lot other than we did have those two ribbon cuttings, which were really, really great events and of themselves, especially, I mean, Marriott Residence Inn was very good. They had a big crowd and a lot of, you know, nice remarks by everybody but uh if you but the commerce uh ribbon cutting was really a sort of a big event is what i would say and there were people there from the state the state legislature there were you know it was a big big event and um you know a number of people spoke um including myself, but Sam Page and someone, Mike Kehoe and Lieutenant Governor and others. And so, you know, I think the Kempers commerce really exemplified kind of a corporate citizen who's really cares about the environment and what they're investing in. And they have, I didn't realize it, but they They've been in Clayton for 40 years. And so hopefully another 40. They did just an amazing job on the lobby. It's not retail, but it's very entertaining. So you definitely need to go in their lobby. And actually, you can see from the street this amazing sort of virtual vista that is a piece of art in there. It's incredible. So I just can't say enough about how much we we are lucky to have these two new structures and, and the, and the sort of the inhabitants there in a really great Clayton. But I

very good well yes and so I think it's a given but I will just say congratulations to our our winners victorious in uh winning their races we have one in the audience Rick Hummel and also the esteemed Alderman Fader so uh and the uh ultra esteemed Miss Buse. Even more esteemed. Even more esteem. No, so it was great. It was a great, great result for everyone concerned here. So congratulations to you all. I don't really have a lot other than we did have those two ribbon cuttings, which were really, really great events and of themselves, especially, I mean, Marriott Residence Inn was very good. They had a big crowd and a lot of, you know, nice remarks by everybody but uh if you but the commerce uh ribbon cutting was really a sort of a big event is what i would say and there were people there from the state the state legislature there were you know it was a big big event and um you know a number of people spoke um including myself, but Sam Page and someone, Mike Kehoe and Lieutenant Governor and others. And so, you know, I think the Kempers commerce really exemplified kind of a corporate citizen who's really cares about the environment and what they're investing in. And they have, I didn't realize it, but they They've been in Clayton for 40 years. And so hopefully another 40. They did just an amazing job on the lobby. It's not retail, but it's very entertaining. So you definitely need to go in their lobby. And actually, you can see from the street this amazing sort of virtual vista that is a piece of art in there. It's incredible. So I just can't say enough about how much we we are lucky to have these two new structures and, and the, and the sort of the inhabitants there in a really great Clayton. But I

really appreciate it too. Like David Kemper's remark was very, his remarks were very regional, which was really great. Like he was like, Clayton's clearly thriving, but we need to look out, you know? So I appreciated that he really was talking a lot about our region in general and how we all need to support each other and improve all aspects of our

region. So it was nice. Right. And you know, they've said it, but they've put their money where their mouth is there with greater STL, et cetera. So anyway, we're lucky to have such players among us and that's all I have. Okay. All right. Then I need a motion to adjourn.

I'll move to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay. Very good.