2010-0218 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Commission Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting February 18, 2010 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida dangerous intersection, and creates an opportunity to ascend to a higher level within the park with an incredible view of the ocean. They have added and layered the ground parking to utilize this space as much as possible for parking. Along the edge across from the St. Tropez they have layered in retail that will be about 18,000 square feet which will promote pedestrian activity and attract people deeper into the project. There are three levels of stacked parking from ground level to the third level, and on the forth level, the roof becomes an area used for water j ets for children to play, for sculptures, for displays, etc. The forth and fifth levels will be for halls which is approximately 13,000 square feet and will accommodate 1,132 people on each floor. In this layout, there are 314 parking spaces, and the Luft report had identified 300 needed in this area. On the west side of the park is a display screen and a stage, and the steps that take you to different levels will also be used for seating in an amphitheater -like way looking at the screen. They compressed the building to achieve the open plaza and by compressing the building it had to go higher which gave beautiful views of the City. The skywalk has a tower at each end with stairs and elevators, and is 54 feet above street level. At the bottom of the base of the building will be landscaping, lagoon, water feature, and a lush tropical garden. Mayor Edelcup said that this is a magnificent presentation and a wonderful opportunity for our City to integrate the Wometco project with our park. Commissioner Goodman said one will cost more than the other, and Mayor Edelcup said the presentation from last month would be built by Wometco and we would be responsible for developing the site adjacent to the Wometco site within a uniformed design, and so the cost to the City would not change. Vice Mayor Thaler said there was an inherit cost to the park all the time, the park and the parking lot was always there, and the only thing added today was the skywalk, and so now they have laid out the entire project, not just the Wometco project. There are three different projects here: 1) Wometco; 2) park and parking lot; and 3) the skywalk. Commissioner Scholl said we had a conceptual presentation last month by Wometco, and this design is predicated on the Aquatic Center being built. He doesn't understand the nature of a public /private partnership because we haven't discussed that. It is a gorgeous design but he doesn't know what kind of process we are talking about, who pays, and what is our fallback position in the event that the Aquatic Center doesn't get designed. These ideas are a great starting point but there are a lot of details and we are talking about a huge project that is at the entrance to our City. There are a lot of logistics and financial considerations to be worked out, and he just wants us to be careful that we don't get ahead of ourselves. Commissioner Goodman said that you are also putting in retail and you have too look at who is the landlord, and City Attorney Ottinot said for the record that the City would own everything and that the Commission would make the final design choice. Mayor Edelcup said we all agree that we have a beautiful project here and that there are a lot of cost details that need to be worked out. We also have to start now to get a project like this even started to iron out the entire process in order to enter into these various agreements. Everything is contingent upon the whole project going forward or nothing goes forward, and the quote that got into the paper about public /private partnership envisions the fact that there are private portions of this entire tract that we are going to have developed with private funds and they are going to be public portions of this entire tract that are going to be developed with public funds. The actual design is something that we need to lock into early, and if 9