2015-0716 Regular City Commission Meeting

Home Browse Search

Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting July 16,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida mechanical equipment, if it is on the roof, will be enclosed either within a penthouse or within screening so if you look down from the top you won't see any individual roof top condensing equipment, etc. There is a substantial cost difference but it is really a functional item there too. Mr. Schulman said we have about 30 to 40 trucks a day that visit the existing Publix, not all of them are the big semi's, sometimes there is the bread trucks, the eggjtrucks, the smaller ones, all of those no longer on l83rd Street. The entrance for the consumers which are coming into the Publix from I 831 Street is separated by about 600 feet from the intersection at Atlantic Boulevard and 183rd Street, and so that is again separated, different from what it is now because nowadays you can come up in the back. We think it is ai better plan and are very anxious to move forward quickly to give you the Publix that you deserve. Mayor Scholl opened the public hearing, being there were no speakers, closed the public hearing. Commissioner Goldman said she has long been an advocate of improving the quality Of retail services in our City and obviously this is a watershed event to have a really high quality Publix in our City and so we applaud that. That being the case, while she recognizes their difficulties and their constraints dealing with the County and FDOT, her big concern about this is the congestion and the traffic that this is going to flow to 183rd Stret. There is a huge amount of traffic getting in and out of the school, and the current surface parking lot is used basically as a staging area with a lot of cars going in and out at certain times of the day. Obviously the elephant in the room is that parcel, the second phase of this which is going to add on hundreds of units potentially, and so you are dealing with not only a high-rise condominium project, you are dealing with no staging area of a surface!lot on 183rd Street. You are dealing with a very over crowded school, and now you are dealing with cars through this Publix that is not going to be able to exit off from Collins Avenue, and so she is concerned about the bottleneck. In a perfect world she would like to sere what option we would have to extend that right-of-way on 183rd Street, what it would take to alleviate that. Whether or not there is any feasibility of widening that road or doing something because she thinks this is the recipe for big problems on 183rd Street especially at 'certain peak travel time. Who is going to give up a little space to build a little road? Mr. Schulman said it is not a little road, right now we have a 10-foot landscape buffer easement that we have granted to the City as part of our original approval. And so we have sidewalk,we have curb and gutter, and we have landscaping. Commissioner Goldman asked if we need sidewalk when we are going to have a huge amount of cars? Mr. Schulman said your Comprehensive Plan says you are supposed to be pedestrian friendly and Publix is not willing at this time, nor were we willing in the original approval, to basically bring the traffic right to our front door without some buffering. That is not a state-of-the1art Publix, that is the old Publix where you have traffic going right by. If in the future, and keep in mind that there is another part of this street which is the south side, which could bye widen with some cooperation by that owner. If as in when there is a real plan to make it happen, then we would ask the City to come back to us and we would possibly figure something out. But at the moment, we are not causing that problem. The traffic report which your traffic engineer indicated was fine. In the morning peak end our traffic would increase 24 cars, and in the p.m. peak end 77 cars, which is 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and your school closes at 3:30 p.m., 12