00:00:11,100	Home or abroad, it’s 4 o’clock on August 8th, 2024, and this is the appointed time and place for the Bismarck Renaissance zone authority’s monthly meeting, and I chair the meeting and I see that we have a quorum present, so we will proceed with the first item of business being considering approval of the minutes of the

00:00:29,230	July 11th meeting. Any questions, comments, changes, corrections. If not, is there a motion to approve. And there’s no further discussion, we’ll just say if we’re in favor, we’ll all, all all all all the pose, OK, that motion carries. Thank you. We don’t do a roll call on the minutes.

00:00:53,130	Then we’ll move on to the regular agenda which uh mercifully is only one item today. And that is the Joemo House, the update which Isaac is going to kind of give us, uh. A little bit of background on please, Isaac.

00:01:16,530	So Chair Christensen and authority members Tro Tide Group LLC requesting Downtown design review approval at 5:15 East Main Avenue in connection to their previously approved rehabilitation renaissance zone project. Just gonna very briefly. Get the There we go. That’s a little better. So this is in connection to the previously approved rehabilitation renaissance zone project.

00:01:43,000	That project was approved by this board at your May 9th meeting and it has gone on to receive the necessary approvals from the Bismarck, Board of City commissioners as well as the state Department of Commerce division of Community Services.

00:02:04,200	So just as a reminder as you see some of these existing uh exterior images, this being a downtown design review product we’re just focusing on the exterior of the building, don’t need to look again at anything going on inside of the building, and this is for the proposed project that would be the rehabilitation of the existing commercial space for a new coffee shop restaurant use and the exterior changes were brought to our attention with this running that was submitted along with the building permit, um.

00:02:28,170	But with some further clarification, the changes can be summarized as follows The replacement of the storefront assembliage with functionally similar aluminum and glass you can see on the right side of the image on the screen here that the schematic of what the storefront portion below that metal awning will look like the uh metal portions would be, of course, the thinner parts, wider parts glass, transparent glass, and then the main

00:02:49,370	difference there being that the uh metal itself be a more natural aluminum color compared to what is uh existing there previously, which was more of a dark um.

00:03:06,270	Uh, just a darker color and then you also have the removal of one door in the middle, the two doors shown on the right, uh, on the left and right side of the storefront space, those would uh stay in place. And then the metal awning portion above there with the signage on it, that would be proposed to be painted white as shown on that rendering and the Western wall of the structure would also be painted white to match that upper awning portion and any just as

00:03:24,870	a reminder, any signage such as what is shown here or even if that were to change, that is. Uh, reviewed administratively by planning and building inspection staff when a signed permit is applied for, so you, you can see that, but you don’t necessarily have to make decisions based firmly on the design of the sign itself, just

00:03:44,030	for your awareness. As a result of the findings contained in the staff reports that were submitted to the authority. City Bismarck staff find that the proposed designs would not adversely impact public health safety and general welfare, and that they are generally consistent With Downtown design guidelines, the comprehensive plan, and Bismarck Code of ordinances and relevant state

00:04:05,330	law. So staff recommends approval of the proposed design for 515 East Main Avenue with the standard condition that any substantive revisions to the approved design must be reconsidered by the Downtown Design Review Committee prior to implementation.

00:04:26,800	Does the authority have any questions for me at this staff representatives of the owner here, but before we get to them, we have questions of Isaac, anybody? Joe, anything? At this point, I don’t think of Isaac, no. OK, thanks, Isaac. Thank you. Um, are the representatives of the owner here, the contractor and or owner. Both, would you, uh. Stand to answer any questions that we might have, that’d be great.

00:04:46,700	Just come up and say your name so we know for the record. We’d like to know who we’re torturing, uh, my name is Jake O’Connell. I resident here in Bismarck and I operate at 701 Construction. OK. Questions of Mr. O’Connell. Anybody go ahead. Kirk. Yeah, so we reviewed this and see no reason.

00:05:10,900	Why this shouldn’t be approved in terms of how it’s meeting the requirements for the downtown design standards, but we did want to make sure just so everyone’s on the same page when you look at that rendering. And the proposed uh storefront elevation that you have on the following page.

00:05:30,570	Um, we wanted to make sure we were understanding sort of what’s actually being constructed versus what they’re rendering is showing, they’re rendering showing some arched openings, uh, almost like some wood look paneling and doors, and I, I presume it’s.

00:05:48,270	There’s no wood, um, it doesn’t look like the arched openings are part of that, but just wanted to maybe if you could point out the things on the rendering that differ from what’s actually being constructed. I think that would be helpful. The rendering, I think in general is accurate as far as how the color scheme is going to go, but the design, yes, you, you’re accurate, it’s going to be all rectangles or squares, and there’s gonna be transom above the doors.

00:06:03,770	There isn’t going to be any kind of cut in facade or could say artificial arches. Uh, so it will be more of what you see now with just a different color so the existing structure is going to be maintained um as far as kind of form and fit, it’s just gonna change for to

00:06:22,570	from what is a bronze color right now to an aluminum, natural aluminum color. So the rendering is misleading from the detail that’s shown for that particular area, but it’s accurate for we’re trying to maintain the brick aesthetic as well as the texture around the, uh, window on each side of it and then Underneath it on a

00:06:40,730	small knee wall, uh, which will also be painted white, and then the sign will be painted white also, dawning. OK. And then we had a question on the material of the storefront itself, I think in the submittal it said natural aluminum, if I may, I have a piece of it here that OK great.

00:07:02,830	Basically we’re working with Rosta, the CH Glass. He recommended you go Some like Right from a distance, but at the same time it’s much easier to maintain and it doesn’t have a coating that could age you with time, but it’s anodized, it appears. He said it was just a natural uh extruded finish.

00:07:25,400	Basically says, um, as it goes on, you can use steel wool to basically maintain the appearance if there’s any discoloration. We OK. Is there a frame around the, the. Upper overhang.

00:07:53,800	The white part The it the rendering does show a frame, but there’s no desire to put a frame around it and I think that was more of the artistic license of the individual came up with the rendering, then, um, what reality is going to allow for. So, um, other questions? At this point. Joe anything from digital land? Uh, just like pattern in the windows. This is all just clear at this point, right? Yes sir, it’ll be clear glass.

00:08:14,700	And then the doorways, um, uh, is this an ADA compliant or what kind of, what kind of width that we had on the doorways? I haven’t done the math on there.

00:08:29,700	3 ft leads into a vestibule which is going to be approximately 7 ft leading to another door that’s basically a 3068 door, so 3 ft wide and your standards 6 ft 8 inches high. And then the doors themselves aren’t like a pull handle like we see in the rendering, they’re just a flat push pull. Correct. The both the doors for the inside vestibule and the entrance to the uh. vestibule will push out, which is ADA requirement.

00:08:49,100	Thank you. That’s all I have. Anyone else, other questions? Um, as Mr. McConnell said, it looks like the artist took quite a bit of liberty because what we’re being presented is not at all what’s going to be built there.

00:09:09,300	Um, You know, this is basically a brushed aluminum finish versus the brown that is shown in the drawing, uh, there’s no frame around the answers. The windows aren’t arched. Um, The doors you say, will be kind of a wood tone. Or not, or will they just, they’ll be natural aluminum also. They’ll be like a glass door frame door frame door frame door frame door exactly just glass in it.

00:09:27,170	And I, I apologize, it’s my responsibility to make sure it’s accurate, but that rendering was done months ago before we started getting the actual design uh versus reality.

00:09:43,870	And as we went on, uh, we realized there’s just some things that we weren’t going to be able to do financially for the cost of the project and see if you’re going to undertake the building next door which you show with a whole new exterior and window window screens. We’d like Square Plaza. They’ll like that too, but OK. Other questions answered. Um, and also so is the West Wall gonna get painted white? Yes, we’re trying to figure out what’s the best way to preserve the integrity of the wall.

00:10:05,470	And right now, um, we don’t know the exact history of the building, but what you have is the uh outside of that wall used to be the inside of the building, and so it was built for being on the inside of a building and protected from the weather and the elements.

00:10:21,670	And so for the last 60 years it’s been on the outside, maybe even longer. We don’t know. And so there’s been significant degradation and the pointing with the bricks and some of the bricks that were used were not meant for exterior. use, so there’s quite a few things that we have to do to preserve the integrity of the building.

00:10:35,430	We’re just not sure if it’s going to be stucco or if it’s gonna be Euss or if we’re gonna shotcrete it or if we’re going to do anything that, um, can be applied, that would be somewhat of a plastic resin mix, but first the wall has to be, um, you could say reinforced structurally, uh, to not fall

00:10:53,930	apart any more than it has, and then we will basically come back probably with what we think we’re going to do aesthetically, but it will be white. When we’re done. OK.

00:11:11,130	So are they gonna have to come back for another I heard him say they’ll come back once they determine what the actual finish is gonna be, correct? That be our wishes. Yeah, we, we don’t know if we’re gonna do stucco or if it’s gonna be a clean etus look or we’re going to go with trying to maintain the character of it and use a clear coating and we’ve been in touch with Oxteno regarding some of the products that are

00:11:27,600	out there and we’re just again not at that point where that’s a primary focus because we know what we’re going to end up with. It’s going to be a white wall and we’re trying to maintain the character. Other questions? What are your wishes? Mr.

00:11:52,600	Cher, I just thought of is that backside of the building, that’s all we’re talking, whatever you do to the. Would be the west side, or the east side of the building. It’s all getting the same, right? Yeah, what about the south side, side, uh, right now we’re trying to mitigate some water egress uh or ingress, and so I don’t think we’re going to change the

00:12:10,400	appearance of the back of the building, but we may code it again with Sherron Williams has some different weatherproof, uh, coatings that might go on there, but there’s isn’t going to be any wild departure from the back of the building. Will the color match the west wall? Yes, it will.

00:12:27,270	Yeah, Joe, anything else? No, thank you. Yeah. What are your wishes? I Um, I say we approve it as stated by the gentleman in front of us with the caveat that he comes back and About the West Wall. The final wall. moved and seconded.

00:12:56,570	Um, is there any further discussion on the motion? Joel, anything further out where you are? OK. All right, hearing no discussion, call the roll please, or Sue Sandra, sorry authority member Joe Fink. Yes. Kirsten Dvorak. Dustin Garrilo, Nancy Guy, Wayne Munson Chair Christiansen. Yes, motion carries. Thank you. Good luck with the project. Thank you. It’s a tough one. Sure. Well, it’ll improve the character of the downtown. Mhm.

00:13:28,230	Yeah, those old buildings can be tough. Other business we have any kind of report from the downtowners. Ms Kate. No Get your name for the record. Authority members, Chair, my name’s Kate Herz. I’m with the Downtowers. I’m sorry I missed you this morning. It’s girls golf season. I’m coaching up a storm, um.

00:13:59,030	Wanted to give you guys just a few updates on a few projects downtown. Obviously you’ve just heard from, from Joe Maha, um, you were talking about the depot as I had had walked in, um, they have a kind of a public event scheduled for the beginning of September, which will be nice if you’ve been over there.

00:14:15,430	The landscaping like mad right now to get everything finished up. Um, Oscars will be in the form of vault space on 3rd Street in Chad Wachter’s building. They had indicated that they were thinking of probably 2 months to hire staff and train staff, but I don’t think there’s a lot that needs to be done necessarily.

00:14:33,400	To the building since it was pretty functional um prior to that. Agency Mabu is now fully moved in downtown. They relocated into Quality title building, so we’re going to be doing an um. kind of a ribbon cutting thing with them in a few weeks.

00:14:50,300	Maloy, as again you mentioned, has been now demolished or the Malloy Law Office Building, which is north of our our New Mexican restaurant downtown, um, kind of kitty corner from the old Budget Inn location, um, talked to the contractor at Stanford. They have a lot of projects going simultaneously right now, but I’m going pretty good, um, they’ve got their same day surgery center expansion.

00:15:10,400	Which is on 7th and Main, um, which is, um, coming along nicely. They have been redoing the oldest parts of the kind of the hot, the main hospital, like the 50s parts of that hospital, um, so that’s coming along nicely and that’s kind of near the emergency room and some other things that are going on

00:15:27,670	there. And then they’re also doing um Their location in on South 7th Street on the old Barnes and Noble location, so those guys are are it’s very constructiony downtown and within Bismarck right now. That’s a word, um. There’s a couple of real estate projects we just like to talk about on.

00:15:47,070	There’s some buildings that just don’t come up for sale very frequently, um, and the city center building is now for sale, which is old, I’m, I’m dating myself, although I don’t remember being JC Penney, people will call it the old JC Penney building. On 5th and Broadway, um. And it’s kind of an interesting building because it was a JC Penney building.

00:16:05,070	There’s, um, everything’s sort of around the outside of the building and there’s this big center open space where the escalators used to be, and so it would be a kind of a cool project. I’d say it’s about 50% at least right now.

00:16:20,370	Um, the column building also is getting some more tenants, not on the 4th and 5th floor are still pretty much shelled out for anything, but they do have, um, A spa going on the main floor, I think it’s called Pebble Spa, um, the Good Kids, which was a marketing agency, has now moved into their, obviously, um, we’ve got the barber’s wife that’s in there.

00:16:37,330	I think there’s going to be another tattoo parlor there of some local folks that are gonna be in there, um. So that’s good that the Cowen building has has needed some tenants for a while, and that’s kind of a tricky building to being 25 ft wide and then with fire suppression when I believe the spa will be

00:16:52,230	taking the main floor and that lower level where there’s that outside staircase as well. Um, Clearwater Real Estate moved into the Logan Building. And they took the main corner on.

00:17:09,730	In the building, it’s the northeast corner of the building, right on that corner, um, and so we went over there for Raymond Cunning a few weeks ago. Um, come and go is under new ownership. Maverick, which is kind of um service station, gas station brand has purchased it. I don’t know what their, their plans are. They’ve purchased a lot of. Uh, common goals, and so we’re not quite sure. A lot of people are upset about $1 slushies.

00:17:30,500	um, and have talked to me about that. So we’re hoping to get some shoes back. Um, just a couple of other things and, and Comm., Comm., authority member, chair, Christiansen knows this, um, the parking ramps are getting quite full, um, which is a good sign, but we really need to start thinking about where that

00:17:50,400	next one is at, um. KLJ moved their entire operations downtown, which has been fantastic. They took a big chunk of spaces in the 3rd Street ramp, which was the one that we probably had the most capacity and, and so now we’re oversold and all the ramps, um.

00:18:08,900	And we, we really do need to start thinking about another ramp and another. Location downtown you referenced the Sanford Project and the old portion of the building on 6th Street by the emergency room. They’re adding 26 urgent care beds. That brings in 200 new employees, just that little piece right there. And they will move forward, you know, they.

00:18:29,500	They had kind of slowed some of their construction while they were considering buying another hospital company or or merging that didn’t happen and so they’ve really just starting to go full bore again on their construction projects. So that’s gonna be a major need and it’s gonna be a.

00:18:46,200	A hindrance at some point if we don’t get that going, especially for building on surface lots, which is what we’d like to do, we’d like things to. Um, In that case, probably wouldn’t pay necessarily a bunch of property tax, but it kind of is a musical chair sort of thing if we we can do that, then this opens up over here and that opens up here for, for private

00:19:01,900	development. I’ll mention a couple of other things that obviously you guys are going through your renewal and you’ll you’ll go or you, you know. extension, um, you’ll go to all the political subs.

00:19:19,200	We’ve got some money still in the pay is flex pace, um, interest rate buy down through the Bank of North Dakota through the North Dakota Opportunity Fund, which is the loan board that I sit on. So if folks are looking for that interest rate buy down, um, they should talk to. Um, either the chamber or or when they talk to the, uh, fill out the vision fund and they don’t fit the vision fund quite.

00:19:36,070	We’ve been moving people over to the North Co Opportunity Fund, so interest rates are still on the commercial side of things is still a little. Higher than the last, you know, 5 years, but probably historically not too bad. Um, but it is a little bit of a hindrance to to some things.

00:19:56,670	Um, couple other things we obviously we’re going through the, um, planning and or I would call it the planning and zoning rewrite. They would call it the Land Development code. Um, and that’s ongoing.

00:20:16,370	And then the last one is the neighborhood reinvestment initiative that or investment that we had started with the city, or you could take um homes that homeowners owned that were of a certain value and a certain age and get a lower interest rate um to do some home improvements there. It was our first year of doing that program and we had talked back and forth about what that minimum home price should be to qualify, and we settled on 275,000.

00:20:35,630	We’ve had quite a few applications that have come in just under that. So I think we might move that to 250,000 just to allow those applicants, or sorry, a little bit over that, over that 275 so that they can access that launchers loan program because we have. To,750,000 dollars in. Loan capacity and so we want to use as much of that up as we can.

00:20:56,230	So probably next year we’ll change that so that they can, um, Qualify. Um, I think those, I was hot and heavy. I think those are just quite a few of the things that are going on. Things are picking up decently. I’m pleasantly surprised, mildly optimistic, um, you know, there’s office movement again in the downtown.

00:21:18,830	Retail is still a little bit hard, but um overall things have. They’re flowing. I wouldn’t say it’s a flood, but. It’s moving a little bit now, yeah, you got a street fair coming up. Street fair, uh, September 13th and 14th. The day after our next meeting. OK Any questions of Kate? Go Oh, Nancy.

00:21:43,400	No, I, I was gonna say to Kate, I know, I know some people that deal with affordable housing, so if you’re looking for some ideas or program management there, hit me up. Will do. Thanks, Joe. Tell me again where Excuse me, for Oscars is going.

00:22:03,500	It’s in the old Lucky duck pond, there’s a basement one that was called the Vault, and that’s where they’re going to be at, and I think it’s an homage to Oscar Wills Seed Company had had a building there. His microphone was off for that, which is good.com Sesame Street.

00:22:28,170	Yes, Oscars, yeah, could be the grouch, but I think it’s Oscar Will, uh, that’s where the Will Seed house was,,, 11 of the locations of the, so that’s pretty cool. It’s all good. Oh, I have a question. When will the street construction wrap up. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, I suppose in October. They’re pretty much done. They don’t know when they’re going to do the fog, chip seal.

00:22:46,270	So I mean, I think for the most part everything is open, we got an um. An update from Kyle in engineering today. Mostly they just need to put the bike racks in, the trees in the tree pits, um, it’s just kind of some punch list finish up stuff, I think for the most part the ceiling I think they

00:23:01,670	wait a year now. I can do it next year, right Um. I mean, I think after they did 3 had to close 3rd Street for a while. I feel bad for them and then they moved as fast as humanly possible. I see them here like at 9 at night just trying to.

00:23:20,170	I mean, it’s not fun for anybody for sure, but um, and then what can you close? What can’t you close? And then they couldn’t do head head to head traffic on 3rd Street because of the bumpouts there then there wasn’t enough room. So, um we all those guys. leverage when that finishes up, I think.

00:23:40,830	Anybody have anything else for the good of the order or any other business? Jim, let me just if you, if you don’t mind, it says um. The contractor finished milling the surface. Asphalt of all the streets in the uh within the project yesterday, Northern Improvement will start.

00:24:01,730	Asphalt paving operations on Thursday, the plan is, well, that’s not exactly the right one. Sorry, well. Uh Um, the only work that’s scheduled to be performed during this week and next is installation of bike racks at the locations highlighted on the map. No parking signs will go up, only where those things are being installed. Um.

00:24:25,400	Installation is tentatively scheduled for August 16th contractor does not have a schedule for one the chip seal foxg seal will be completed but expects it to be done within the month. And then they’ll plant trees, um. Between September 15th and October 15th. Do you know when they’re gonna do the sidewalks on 3rd Street, because they’ve got those all ripped up.

00:24:41,200	In front of like jail and that federal building. Um, like the, the open gaps that are there. I know some of them were open for like uh some other like electrical or utility purposes or something, and then some are open for tree pits. So there’ll be a lot of trees going in these areas, which was nice to something on 3rd Street.

00:25:02,800	Here we got a new bump out now, but nobody can crash their. True, people are gonna get here. we we we I agree witness. Police officer not know when he was supposed to go. like he was trying to navigate I still try and stop there even though there’s nothing there anymore.

00:25:29,470	He was like, you can’t, can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but we’ll we’ll let them know, maybe they can put a zebra walk across it or continental crosswalk, portfolio. Do you know Isaac? You know off the They’ve been shuffled again, but I don’t know that would be who we want to talk to about that.

00:25:51,270	Janelle, do you know that’s dealing with it too. Engineering Comm. Zanker Zinker, yeah. Yeah. Hm, OK. If you ever have anything you can always reach out. All right, thanks, Kate. Isaac, do you have anything else for us? Yes, uh authority members.

00:26:14,370	I was just gonna add a brief little bit about the Renaissance and development plan reinstatement process to uh sort of expand on what Kate was saying. So as you likely remember the Renaissance Zone Authority approved that at their public hearing on June 13th and then it went to a public hearing at the Bismarck City Commission on July 9th, and then from there the world tour continues tentatively with dates scheduled for the parks

00:26:35,630	at August 15th, the county at August 19th. And schools on September 9th, uh, assuming timing works out and all of that, that is the current plan. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you, Isaac. Yeah. Anything else for the good of the order, Chair, you’ll be attending those.

00:26:55,830	Um, I reached out to uh Daniel and asked if I should or if you wanted me there or not, whichever the case may be, may not, and I haven’t heard back from him on that, so Isaac, do you have any thoughts on that? Do you know when you reached out to him because he is out of the

00:27:08,830	country at the moment and has been for a while I got an email with that schedule that you just received, so. When’s he back? He will be back on Monday. OK, so. Does the authority have a feeling one way or the other? encourage you to encourage you to That would be OK, right.

00:27:29,300	I can do that as far as I know. It’s the day after my birthday, but I should be OK by then, so hopefully it’s, you know, 5 o’clock you’re covered by that. And start all over again depending on how the meeting goes you never know, it’s a festival lane. That’s true, it’s a month long. OK.

00:27:50,700	All right. We we’re still on the clock here at a time. All right, if there’s no further business and if there’s no objection, we stand adjourned until September