Parking garage meeting transcript 9/3/26

14:07 Sorry, I missed last week.
14:08 We missed it. Wasn't the same without us.
14:11 We missed. Then I went back and I tried to watch it and I was like fast forwarding. I'm like, "Oh my god, this is terrible."
14:18 It's hard to watch a meeting and just sit there and watch it move through.
14:22 So remind me, I have a question about the sun sunshine laws. Yes.
14:27 Once we're officially in the meeting because I'm getting like people are walking up and saying, "Hey, I listened to this."
14:34 And they're asking a kind of been like shutting them down. You can answer people's questions. Yeah.
14:39 Yeah. Absolutely. You're not shut down with anybody except this you're good.
14:45 And you can't tell them to go tell somebody. So you can't say, "Hey, go by the talk about this." Yep. Well, I I my wife and I went out to eat.
14:54 The owner sat down with me and I was like, uh oh. They're like, let's talk about this parking. And I'm like,
15:01 I'm not sure what I can say. So, has anyone heard from Evan? I have.
15:07 I hope not.
15:10 I don't know if I'm supposed to be sitting here or back there.
15:13 You're supposed to be out there. Thank you.
15:17 I'm not I'm not good about rules of order. No worries.
15:26 I'll talk to you later.
15:37 [snorts]
15:38 All right. So, Rocky, we are ready. We are ready.
15:44 Evan is not able to join us today. And it looks like Miss Anna and Anna cannot. So I will call the meeting to order and ask for a reading of the minutes and a motion to approve.
15:56 Motion to approve that. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed?
16:03 Motion passes.
16:07 Yeah. Then it looks like we have a review and discussion of the presidents that can inform the design of each site.
16:14 And I know we had a question, but I forget what the question was for the city attorney.
16:20 Yeah. So, essentially those are more staff and legal functions and should not impact the conversations that we have.
16:28 Okay, fair enough.
16:31 The question last week was around some of the clauses in the seven stream. I watched most of it. I I did speed
16:40 through some of it. Some of it Yeah. Okay. I can't go through the whole process.
16:47 So yeah, so the the intent as a reminder to everybody uh our consultants are not meeting with us until next week.
16:55 Yeah.
16:56 So that's when we'll provide more feedback to them. In the meantime, um we essentially thought it'd be helpful to talk through some of the just the detail
17:05 issues. And so what's open game really is uh to discuss any questions or concerns anybody has. so far about some of the design ideas that we discussed.
17:16 Um the other that can be helpful is to go through some of the examples of of ideas that um I know Evan and Anna
17:24 produced some imagery and those can be talked through by the committee or we can also have access to essentially the
17:33 screen and Zane has volunteered to go ahead and if you say well I saw the parking garage in Boulder Colorado
17:42 street and I really think we should look at that. We can look at it. So I just want to give you an idea.
17:50 So So these were provided by Anna.
17:53 Uh yeah, Anna provided the thick one and the less thick one.
18:00 Yeah.
18:02 Search online and it's like a rabbit hole. You just go down, right? But it but but the point of today is that we if there's something you saw
18:10 when you were doing that or you want to talk about then we can we can talk about it and I know a little bit about the stuff so I can also direct potential.
18:19 I think I was most impressed with the one in downtown Minneapolis because it had parking for the tour
18:27 buses and the taxis and EVs. I mean anything and everything. And it included parking for the shuttle to the airport
18:35 which is miles away. So it was just anything you could imagine they threw in one building.
18:41 Yeah, that would actually be fantastic to have a shuttle from here to the airport where you could pay to leave your vehicle here.
18:48 Yeah, I'm I'm sure the county would fund it.
18:52 But no, it was just just amazing everything they cra
19:02 I did have a question though. Um, as far as setback, are are we talking zero lot line where
19:09 this structure will come right up to the sidewalk? Are we talking about an impressive band of landscape?
19:18 Because if we're going to put an impressive landscape up, I'm talking trees and bushes.
19:25 Opaque, you know, that that's an impact on the building what it would look and I
19:33 didn't know just nobody's discussed lots I mean aren't there natural buffers that are already
19:42 like decided on it seemed like when I was looking at the seventh street that
19:50 there was talk about where it would like interact with the businesses
19:57 there was a pretty wide swap between those the parking garage and the
20:03 front of like the Romeo. So there's 18 ft between those for sure. So that's for sure 18 ft with a 10 foot walk.
20:14 Okay, 10 foot walk. Four foot of whatever you want on each side.
20:18 South side, but what about the north side?
20:21 So the north side was having a conversation and there was something that you had brought up
20:28 with the parades and such. And then as I was going more through my mind about having that,
20:38 thinking about what Patrick's doing down there with the U with the design of his and going towards
20:45 that kind of Louisiana French Quarter look and whether other businesses are going
20:54 to kind of take queue off of that because if he's doing that completely on H Street, if that's their thing that they're going to that entire block. It's
21:03 not bad to pull that off of there. And then when you talk about having a place to stand up, well, now all of a sudden
21:09 we do have the ability to have some kind of seating standing area, whatever the
21:16 case may be there. Um, would small restaurant, cafe have that up top? So, it kind of tied into what you were
21:24 thinking, but I don't I don't think I heard an answer on last week's meeting as to how far out and what you could do.
21:33 Well, it all to me from I'll talk about the seventh amendment.
21:43 It's going to be if a parking spot is so big and an aisle is so big and if you have a box, how do you divvy it up? Is
21:52 there 5t left over for a balcony? If not, but there would be if they did it on the front where those parking spots are diagonal.
22:02 Well, and that's it.
22:04 If there's no high enough, it would be it could theoretically could be the roof
22:11 of those buildings. So if you did 25 40 buildings with a walkable
22:21 balcony, roof, whatever, not necessarily a balcony, but a walkway with like a But if or if on a layer with cars,
22:28 normally there's a a tire bumper and then there's a concrete wall. Okay, that has to be and what if there was a tire bumper and
22:37 six feet of space that that operated as a balcony and that's we're talking about if you have those buildings there then that's
22:46 there because you can have a [clears throat] zero lot line you have to make walkthroughs where they can come through as well. It's all a matter of, you know, because you got to have so
22:54 much for the diagonal or straight. You have to wait. There's so many feet, so many feet for the driving. Another row of cars.
23:02 We're talking about I'm talking about the diagonals that are in the street already. Okay.
23:09 So, now seeing a in part of the conversation, I almost got the feeling somebody was going to eliminate those.
23:18 There was never a conversation about what they were going to do. But as I was sitting there listening to it, I think there was a talk there was a mention of
23:25 could those become shops.
23:28 There was a mention of but that was outside the scope of what we're doing. Yeah.
23:34 So it all really depends upon how much room they have.
23:38 That's part of if we're going to wrap it. If we're going to if we end up doing the garage as big as we can, that allows the wrap.
23:47 So I still think it's part of our discussion.
23:50 Well, I think so only because it's it is clear that everybody does care about the aesthetic of it. And so if seventh in
23:59 Minnola, if it ends up being that there can't be businesses, what could we do that?
24:06 Because I I honestly don't see an ugly one here. I wouldn't constitute any of these as being ugly. And
24:15 something like a walkway that doubles as a balcony can also be artistic in nature without probably increasing the cost.
24:24 I mean everything's in you know subjective hence saying it can pull off that southern coastal style.
24:32 Yes. just make it a beautiful site which I think the second page of Evans submission kind of lines up with that
24:41 kind of style of what we were talking about. It would be easy to tie in with what Patrick is doing on a I don't think
24:48 it's a I don't think it is either and I think it would be smart.
24:52 It was just more of as my mind was going through and I was thinking about what you were talking about. See, even at
24:58 this picture, if the card did not come all the way to the wall, right, that that could be a viewing area in the
25:06 shade, right, designated for that.
25:10 I just think before we tried to build any kind of aesthetic to match Patrick's renderings, we need to be assured of
25:18 what the final Yeah. So, my only thought on that was that piece of property in front of the garage, whether that that's the easy
25:27 because then the council can say, "Okay, we're building the garage and we want to be landlords or we don't, but it doesn't affect the ability to build the garage."
25:37 I did print out um remember that I bought up if we were to make it beautiful by using local artists to do
25:47 murals. I came across a couple things that I like, but I didn't send early enough to print a copy. So I just wanted to
25:54 Can we enter it into the record and put it up here?
25:57 Yeah. And then he can keep this copy just ideas. This is uh one of the local artists actually that has couple murals
26:05 and I went on the computer and plug it in just you know hypothetically.
26:09 Amazing to me looking at these. What? So if you incorporate murals on the bottom floor and then some
26:18 brick and then leave the concrete for the top parts. how much better that type of garage would look than if it was just pure concrete all the way down.
26:28 There was a study and the amount that people look up past like 20 ft is like almost negligible.
26:35 Yeah. And then if they did and there was some sort of walkway or balcony, then I think we're hitting it on all, you know, we're going less expensive murals,
26:45 expensive brick, and then up to concrete with some sort of walkway or ornament that is tying into Patrick's is
26:54 going right on the corner basically in front of the west side. Correct. Does it
27:01 go around? It's going to be the entire corner. Okay. So then what is there's four different buildings
27:08 but all right there in that corner all in that corner. Okay.
27:12 Yeah. The existing building stays doesn't feel big enough. Um they're small very small buildings.
27:19 Okay. So that's that's the disconnect in my mind.
27:22 The bottom retail of those buildings I believe was like 800 which is exactly what you were mentioning about.
27:30 Yeah. They're basically about 32 by 50.
27:36 So buildings that size.
27:40 Yeah. So I had some of the Alfredo art that I just plug in on the back of a design just to show okay if we were to
27:47 have the exposed stairs or open areas like that where the walls are painted.
27:52 It would probably be one of the most affordable ways of trying to break that gray the concrete you know. I mean that
28:01 looks as attractive as anything that we're see the let me interrupt real quick and talk about there's three different techniques
28:09 generally speaking on how people deal with beautifification of garages. All right. Um one is what you just mentioned
28:18 is you cover it up with art. Okay. What we say usually say paint but it includes
28:26 art. It's not art but it's you do it through paint. The other thing we've got some good examples in Miami is an
28:32 example one which is called the chia pet is you cover it up with landscape. Okay.
28:38 And so landscape is more beautiful to humans because of its complexity it natural complexity. Um and so that's
28:45 another way to do it is if you don't do it with art and paint do it with landscape. Um you're going to see on the
28:52 on our uh packet if you just jump to let's say the second page on the bottom you see the third thing which it's
29:00 camouflaged as a building essential and the camouflage typically when you do
29:07 that the differentiation between it and the build uh and as an example the second one that Adam submitted
29:16 um is a difference in vertical vertical proportions and horizontal proportions.
29:23 And vertical proportions uh reflect the human body for whatever reason. Most humans, not all humans, um have an
29:31 affinity for things that are more vertically boring like this. And so you can cover that up either just to to
29:38 mimic the the vertical proportions of most buildings or you can get more ser some people get it real serious and they
29:46 make it so you can't even tell if it's building or not. Okay, which is not generally necessary but that's the the lengths to which some people use just
29:55 the architectural camouflage to uh to eliminate that. Now at the same time there's aesthetic preferences and
30:02 there's also preferences having to do with um um uh sort of the uh the
30:10 activation um of the the space. So instead we can talk about each of those three things
30:18 and each of the three things that you can do. But there's also this this need in a downtown which is you have to recognize humans have two key
30:26 characteristics. One we bore very easily and others we adapt to our circumstances better than other species. The boredom
30:34 is what the people generally will uh say this is why I don't prefer this one over that. They'll say that's kind of boring.
30:44 Looks like one big solid facade. Whereas if I go down Montro Street, one of the great things about Montro Street is the
30:51 building facades change very frequently, often times at 25 foot increments. Um and that makes it more interesting. And
30:59 so when we get those long expanses of it looks like the same building changing, people tend to be less bored.
31:06 There's less violence here. So, um, so getting back to those just I'll I'll make a couple comments about each of those three things. So, on the building
31:14 front, it's like make it look more like a building. That doesn't mean, by the way, it means in our case, we can incorporate any three of these techniques in the same parking garage.
31:24 There's nothing that says you can't incorporate art, you can't incorporate landscape, and you can't incorporate.
31:30 Um, we know that the um the images that Finnf produced as an example
31:45 proportions then you had the art and then you had some of the horizontal. So it was a sort of mixture because obviously I think that cost was a big
31:54 concern. How do you how do you how do you reduce the overall cost because initial ideas I think on the parking garage back here were
32:02 really high. Do you remember Todd with the 16 million?
32:06 16 million for that. And then over on seventh it was less than 16 million.
32:10 Ben fros came in at 13 for their full maximum which was five something they came in at like 132,
32:18 right? So that's that's second but becomes a complex balance. So I want to just those are the three things that can
32:25 be employed. Um the other thing to say is uh building upon uh you were talking about
32:33 on what the setbacks are. A lot of the ones that you're going to see that are the examples here if you look up online are going to be in urban locations.
32:42 Okay. The core of the downtown there's not an expectation that you're going to set back. Your building is not set back from the sidewalk crisis,
32:51 right? The urban is uh where they you can find them well done and not um this one is an example. The second one's more
32:59 this is probably more for a suburban location as opposed to urban suburban. You're going to want to settle back.
33:06 You're going to want landscaping of a certain sort like turf as opposed to other
33:14 for safety. We wanted visibility at the entrance and exit zero line there's no
33:23 we don't have to worry about that on the entrance and exit because that bike path goes through there. So, it's going to be set back from there no matter what.
33:31 And we were going to angle it as well. Isn't that better?
33:34 Yeah. So, it can still be like zero lot line, but you have it. So, it's like a funnel essentially. It'll give those drivers a lot better visibility.
33:44 Like in downtown Orlando, you're in a dark parking ramp and you come up to a gate and a stop thing because there's six to a pedestal. Yeah.
33:55 We want better side.
33:59 That's you're going to you can ask the uh the designer next week how how are we going to manage that and he may say oh
34:07 I've already thought of how we're going to do it here's a great one downtown or what so I I like Keith said he's looking at a
34:16 thousand parking garages they all start to look the same but I like the ones that she included in here I only found
34:23 one that for maybe the seventh and many site could possibly work that incorporates a
34:31 lot of what everybody was saying. It's a little bit else. Is there any way he can pull it up? I started the document, but I didn't attach it to my email.
34:40 Can you Can you pull up something online?
34:42 Uh, you're having We're having some technical difficulties right now. Uh, the mouse is not working.
34:49 So, let me um write it down and we can revisit this uh as soon as the mouse is up. It's a It's called the California
34:56 Avenue parking garage in Palato, California. California.
35:02 But until we get it up, it it sort of had it sort of reminiscent of the Dr.
35:07 Phillips Center. It has a glass facade on the front of it. Um, and I believe it's hard to tell from the pictures, but it might be actually open air. But
35:16 instead of I know we're talking about going back and forth with retail and whether the city wants to be landlords.
35:21 I think there's a way possibly around that in the creating an open air facade in the front that will
35:42 do you have any idea like on the scale this when you're talking about painting landscape camouflage
35:51 which is the most affordable beautifification.
35:57 Um, that's a great question. U I think it can vary a little bit. Typically paint and landscape are the least expensive
36:04 and then landscape depending on what you plan and the maintenance, right? But at the same time, the way that you can configure the parking lot itself and it has to do with these bays.
36:15 For example, you know, when um Waldo Waldo the designer comes back to us next Thursday. Um he was talking about
36:24 actually last week when it's like okay well we can do certain things because we know we've got to have our support.
36:29 There's the structural support that goes on. And as you look at this, you can see a structural support here and here. And so you could do something with that that
36:38 [snorts]
36:38 so you build off of that, you know, but that that's sort of that would be something like what was already going
36:46 through Finn Fox mind was what's the most efficient way we can set that up, right?
36:50 And so then you say, okay, well, I can use the structure itself just without even trying to sort of identify where
36:59 certainly be already going to be uh natural structural spaces where I'm getting some verticality. Then the question happens is what do you do in
37:07 between? If we uh then you say oh well I'm going to put essentially an artificial support for visual purposes in between this big span up here and
37:16 then I can go a step further and I can say I I want to make it look like it's a window of some of those.
37:23 And so it's just a gradual menu of options. what you I I I think
37:28 what you were saying uh Jordan about the you at a certain point we don't really
37:36 have to worry about what it looks like from certain places you know because people aren't going to be able to see right right and so that would decrease
37:45 the need for it in some places but it increases the need at the lower levels of how you're going to deal with it and that's a potential design thing
37:53 to run by wall that's what From what I understand, it's uh low hanging fruit to do vines from
38:01 the top to for beautifification. It's low cost and it adds something up there that's not very expensive or cost
38:10 prohibitive and longlasting drought resist because I know like Orlando International Airport, I'm in and out of
38:17 there all the time because of my consulting. They have tons of planters.
38:22 all of them are dead or in various like they're always either replanting so there's something that's not quite
38:30 working with their landscape I think when it is full it can be really beautiful well the Miami beach example
38:38 which they call the chia parking lot that's the one where you know they physically attach to the parking garage
38:45 the mesh wiring or whatever that everything is going to grow on even doesn't sound cheap to But I don't know, you know, but even the mesh becomes artistic.
38:56 It breaks up something and you know, so there's different.
39:01 So this one up here on the screen, it's I have a side view of that and that's scrolling through pictures, but it has a
39:08 it's it has a glass facade and seating underneath of it for like the people to sit as if they're watching stuff coming down the street. Probably want to stop that.
39:18 Um, but I know uh some have worries about a um I guess this is getting from all four sides.
39:31 The front view is really what I want to talk about. Yeah, that's the side that would be like that if this was ours.
39:36 This would be like that would be seventh street. That side where cars coming in and out. The front side would be on the the right side.
39:45 That gives a real Dr. Phillips. Yeah.
39:47 And it it kind Yeah, it does. It looks like Dr. Bill Center a little bit, but the the key part of it I saw that I know we talked about having combining retail and whether the city wanted to be
39:55 landlords or not. I have a feeling they don't, but instead of maybe incubator businesses with full-blown stalls, what
40:02 about just like uh kiosks that you see in the in the in the airport that are still incubators? People can have either
40:10 food food carts or something like that, but not necessarily, you know, they're renting basically an There's no utilities involved. It's a lot simpler.
40:20 Um, and on the front side, I have a better picture on my phone, which I'll send. But on the front side there, it's all seating going down. That would be
40:27 mini. That would be the right side of the picture. Um, where you could actually, you know, sit down and it's we
40:35 could put shade there. It's a way to kind of blend the ideas together that everybody was talking about. I I like the idea of maybe a bike a bike room or something like that that could be in
40:43 that front area there. As long as it's, you know, engineered right, you wouldn't be getting giving up a lot of retail space uh and losing parking spots as a
40:52 result of it. It's more about just not making it look like a parking garage, making it multi-use to aspect,
41:00 but also not being committed to so much to multi-use, meaning 800 to which could require bathrooms and two exits in and
41:08 out. you're going to do one exit out the front, one exit out the back, and all the things you'd have to do for a proper storefront. This would actually, you
41:14 know, just have carts in there. They could be food, they could be retail, and that gives a little bit more interest to
41:22 the place than just a a uh just like a row of stores on the front picture, which can I email yourself a little bit?
41:32 Uh yeah, I like the idea of the seating because there's so many
41:39 restaurants that people are flowing out of because they they can't hold the number of people that they serve.
41:55 So that's the
42:19 from Colorado, right?
42:26 Yeah. Looks like they're in downtown.
42:34 And that's the hard part for me is that I don't mind that a parking garage looks like a parking garage. I like how the um
42:44 the one that has the craftsman um
42:51 craftsman pieces on it. I don't know. Um I think that's neat. It dresses it up a little bit, which was this one.
43:00 Um so, you know, tying it in and making it look like the rest of the architecture makes sense. I think going
43:09 I mean, I think this is super nice, but I think there also has to be a reasonable budget. Otherwise,
43:18 and I've heard you say this before, you know, you get paralysis from analysis and it just gets into
43:26 the spot where there's got to be this.
43:30 Yeah. To be clear, I'm not actually advocating we built this.
43:34 It's it's more about the the fact that this garage, especially the front of it, which I think he's going to pull up here. So, has a lot of the things that
43:42 we were talking about where it wouldn't be really feasible at the city hall site because retail up here wouldn't be that
43:49 practical, but it would allow some retail down there and it makes it more than just a garage. Um,
43:57 and it's more interesting going back to that walkability comment that people are throwing around. Well, I like the the stall or because like for instance,
44:06 Jordan might he might really want a another space to sell coffee and be able to do small
44:15 transactions, especially on but maybe only open out, you know, open a certain if you have a storefr you're kind of you want to be open from, you know, seven days a week in this town.
44:24 But if you have a cart that opens up in the afternoon or if it opens up for every major event.
44:29 Yeah. And now he's got two points of sale on the busiest of days.
44:34 And depending on how much is dedicated to the front of it, it could just be an open area where the carts can come in with some sort of some sort of Yeah,
44:43 that actually be neat for popups and for folks who are doing um what's the one where they can do their food from home?
44:53 Yeah, I know. Set aside for cottage.
44:56 There it is. for cottage industries to be able to come in, you know, because Thursday, Friday, Thursdays are pretty
45:03 busy, too. I mean, Saturdays are crazy busy.
45:06 I mean, from noon on it's busy on those days. So, um, you know, I get they're not going to be here, you know, Monday,
45:13 Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, but you can find people who want to do those console spreads, those those little pieces.
45:22 I'll make an argument, too, that Monday is because so many businesses are not open%
45:30 and I can tell you that in the exchange as many times I've walked in there and half the businesses are closed on those
45:38 days and I get it but you know it's still one of those that if you walk in you expect everything to be open but if
45:46 you have an area that isn't dedicated to shops if you see one that's not full
45:53 you're like okay it's in part of the art walk going down the sides.
46:04 There was an allowance to have 10 by 10 spots along that. I think that was the
46:11 original tent all the way down because he he was hoping to combine it with
46:19 which property the property so that it goes down.
46:24 But I think having those long-term vision where we're where there's enough foot traffic every single
46:33 weekend that you could support that um you know eventually maybe you're shutting these roads down and there's just enough foot traffic that's moving
46:42 through eight from camp Montro that I mean that would be kind of neat
46:49 to have a lot of that walkability with with walkability. I I drove out 12th
46:56 Street to Lake to the Hayawa the other day as I'm going along saying they've got the trees on one side of the
47:04 trail and the benches on the other side sitting in the sun.
47:08 I want to bench in the sun. And my wife said, "No, no, no. When you go to the lake, you want to sit on the bench and look at the lake." So my wife and I
47:17 obviously will be sitting on two different benches.
47:21 So I think need seating, you know, shady and Sunday seating scattered around this facility.
47:31 But but I do like the idea and you know, I'm not sure of the evolution of your business, like how you started and when you went to the storefront. But you're
47:40 seeing it more and more where they're starting at home, they're going into cottage, they're looking for a stall, which breaks up. People are walking,
47:49 they're like, "Oh, wow. There's something new." And then at some point they're going into a small storefront and then maybe then they're going to
47:57 expand. I know uh the exchange is going to be all one restaurant. I'm here understanding. That's what that's what I'm understand.
48:05 Yeah. So like the evolution of it gives you a little bit of everything which I think is healthy. And that's neat. They started off in a little
48:12 sit right next to they started off in that little strip over there in West Market, you know.
48:20 when some of the downtown merchants started the farmers market. That's where we started. Is that where you started?
48:26 Yeah. I I had thought that but I didn't want to miss but but I love that evolution where you know it's it's scary
48:34 to jump right into a lease especially at the square footage rates right now. But if you're able to kind of like small
48:42 step it and then you move out of here like you were a surgical nurse running an entire wing and look at you now.
48:50 And that's where you have to prove your concept sometimes, too. So, I really wish we had popups here, but we've gone down South Florida and had fresh. You
48:59 don't know what you're even getting when you go in there. You're like, okay, we're going to have wine and dinner and here's my $200 and I hope it's good that
49:07 night. Um, but a lot of that's neat because you get to see those things that, oh wow, that's really good. And,
49:14 you know, if it is really good, then they'll keep coming. Uh, and then if it's not, you know, so I bought a $25 loaf of bread that I won't be buying
49:22 anymore. It was one of those that I was like, "This has got to be good bread." And then I had it and I'm like, "Okay, that's not good bread." So, he's got he's got the picture up.
49:33 This is the one the picture kind of made me like it. So, it's they have it stairs going up to a covered area inside there.
49:40 That's I'm not sure. I think that's glass and and panels, but doesn't have to be that way for us. It's covered is the point, I guess, right?
49:47 But along the street, it's all seating.
49:49 Um, bicycle racks could go there, that kind of thing. Uh, it I to be clear, I like Pat. I like Jason's design as he
49:57 designed it. I like it as a garage. It's just a great garage. You know, it looks like a great garage anyway. Was that the Finn Finn frog?
50:04 Fin, but if you if they did want to go a little bit more multi-function without dipping too far into that whole we need
50:11 a row of storefronts to make this more attractable attractive to people who are coming downtown. Having something where
50:18 people can both use it as just pedestrian seating, watch parades if we're going to run them down Minnola.
50:24 Again, we they haven't done that in three or four years now for the Christmas parade. They go around me.
50:30 But no, they don't go down mini. They go around.
50:33 So, but if you want to do something like that or you wanted some interesting, you could do those uh carts or whatever on
50:41 that elevated section there or I'm sure Pinproc would have a million ideas how to achieve something similar to this.
50:46 But it's just a way to have a it's a covered area for the most part and it's a little more interesting than just a front of a garage. But that said, I'm okay with just a garage.
50:55 Could we bring up Benro's plan?
50:58 For those of us who are old, when you have your music really loud, we go across the street and sit down. We got bigger screens.
51:07 We just turned them on a couple weeks ago.
51:09 I was in there for the um Yeah, for the wakeboard competition one. Yeah.
51:16 Holy It was going that day. I was like, "Oh my gosh, it was loud." I I'm had I asked him to pull up the
51:25 Fend truck so I could get a better idea of what Yeah, because on his I believe Minnola is basically just facade and the exit and entrance is on seven.
51:36 But I like I mean to play devil's advocate. Let's say that the city attorney does decide. I don't think we can do a mixed use on
51:46 But that is the best site to have a garage, then we could still do some of what you're talking about.
51:54 Yeah, it's it's an option. It's not, like I said, if the city only wants to put up a garage, that's fine with me.
51:59 But if they if they do want to incorporate something a little more has a little more curb appeal, then something like that. It doesn't have to look like that. Like I
52:07 said, it does look like it's right out of Dr. Phillips, but and we could put our own uh Clermont spin on it.
52:14 something like that in those spaces. Be nice to like maybe utilize the CRA to create some kind of like small business entrepreneurship where the owners of
52:23 those small businesses like attend a business class sponsored by the city to kind of almost apply to get those spots.
52:31 Well, what I like about that idea is there's so many great small business owners that have evolved like years and years to where you guys could probably
52:40 teach a pretty darn good course. You know, some of maybe what not to do, but a lot of here's our journey. you
52:49 know, does a city like
52:59 and and maybe you can the the council have they mentioned a bike room as being something
53:07 because I because I look at that it's it looks awesome. All I see is liability. Yeah.
53:13 And maybe that going to law school enough taught me to look at everything as a possible lawsuit, but I'm thinking I think it would require an attendant.
53:23 It would have to be somebody working there.
53:26 And I'm trying to figure out I like bike racks and then it's your choice to lock up or not.
53:33 Yeah. What what I can say is that um if I were in the shoes of being the designer and listening to you, I would
53:40 be going and thinking about not doing a bike rack right now and designing it so that it could be incorporated in a later Where would that be?
53:49 Right? And so there's the now and there's also because we don't have enough let's say people using bikes right now where that maybe we can see
53:58 through the evolution of places like Copenhagen and new Amsterdam where they started off in one position with bikes
54:06 and now they're so ubiquitous they've got retrofit other spaces and so this being a civic space it would be good if
54:14 we ask Waldo can this be retrofitted at some point for that.
54:19 If if the ground floor if the north side ground floor of Mola
54:27 was just a big concrete pad with an overhead.
54:32 You can put a tent, you can put a food trailer, you can put a golf cart, you can put a bicycle rack.
54:39 It be what do we need today? and it evolved to whatever it was and you're not tied to any one thing.
54:47 So, it's and as as trends change, my fear right now is I was down I don't know if it was
54:56 food truck or it was the farmers market and I I watched several kids almost get
55:02 hit on those motorized bikes. So I was like, do we I mean do we want it like you know it's almost do you want to
55:11 encourage it or do you not want I guess I'm thinking bicycle and I see fewer of those than I see at the moment.
55:19 That's really cute.
55:21 These bikes have really changed. I've seen them riding through um riding through the u
55:29 where the bar is over there on that where the artwalk is.
55:34 Yeah. I've seen them come through there at 30 full thing. I mean just as fast as they I was leaving leaving the brewery turning on 50 the other night.
55:41 The skateboarders were Yeah, I was going down that you know the dip in 50 there where it turns at 40 miles an hour. Kid
55:48 blew past me like he was going 60. I was going 41 and yeah, we're starting to
55:55 we're starting to have to serve them in drive-thru. But the issue is it doesn't like when we have people outside, no issue. we can see them.
56:04 Doesn't trigger the sensors.
56:05 Yeah. They don't trigger the scent. And I'm like, okay, this is a thing like people are starting to
56:12 But with what the state's doing, I think everybody's recognizing that these things are problematic. And, you know, hopefully they're going to put some
56:20 pieces in place to eliminate it. I mean, I'm all for bicycles, but these aren't bicycles anymore. They're motorcycles that parents are letting their kids ride.
56:29 Oh, it's a bicycle. It's not. It's a motorcycle. I mean, yes, it's battery powered still. But being being able to
56:37 have a space where you can incorporate anything based on what is either now or what's developing and even could be an
56:45 incubator for who is the gentleman who had the bikes and boards over Yeah. Daddy. He always says Daddy O.
56:54 I know who you're talking about. I can't remember. Good guy. Longtime Clermont person.
56:59 Even like you could do some sort of you could do bike rentals or scooter rentals or all that.
57:07 What's her name? She trying to do that.
57:09 That's where she was working towards Yeah.
57:13 Yeah. Wasn't she looking at it at one point at the historic village?
57:19 She was technically looking at Victory Point at the time, but there's also some newer ideas that she's working
57:26 and I think has Yes, they have bikes there. And so the, you know, going
57:34 back to what we talked about in the first meeting, parking is something that needs to be managed over time. It's not static. So this is an example of one of
57:42 those things where right now the greater demand for vehicles that can change.
57:48 If it got to where there were that many bikes, it's not that hard to put a building inside there. I mean, putting walls inside of a garage isn't going to
57:56 be rocket science. chain off an area for ebikes or glass windows a little bit. Check it in,
58:03 check it out, whatever. But I'm with with y'all that that's a liability issue. I mean, you know, who's washing
58:10 that and then you're going to have because these bikes are 1500 plus. I mean, now all of a sudden you've got and
58:18 other people I mean, shocks me, but there's $10,000 bicycles out there.
58:24 Well, let me I mean real bicycles that Yeah, they try to bring him in my Okay, we provide a place for you to park your car.
58:32 If there is a place for you to park your bike and something to chain it to block it,
58:41 why is there more liability on the bike than there is?
58:44 I don't think there I'm I'm not talking about chaining things up. I'm talking about No, just Oh, we're going to give you a bike room where you can go in and put your bike
58:51 and hang it up. parking has to be able to be secured and and not by a staff person by the person with the bike needs
58:59 to bring a chain and a lock and what the city will provide is a place to lift it up. I just like scattered bike areas
59:07 where you can have bikes scattered throughout. Well, I'm not a bicyclist.
59:15 I think this is an evolution as you're saying. I think you build the greatest need and then you
59:23 allow yourself to be fluid enough to incorporate things that the community tells us they want. So on
59:31 they've got this picture up. For me, I'm not upset with this. I mean, I think it looks good. It's got the brick on it.
59:39 It almost looks like an apartment building.
59:41 I think some of what you were saying, and I think that if we're able to bring that walkway out far enough, I think that kills multiple birds with one
59:49 stones. It's not going to kill, you know, With what's coming on in amendment three, I can tell you right now the council members are not going to be able
59:57 to vote to build a multi-million dollar property. I mean, they're just not that's not going to be where they're at. I don't know how they get there.
1:00:06 Would you vote for it if you were on council? I mean, I would, you know, we're a year away from the money going away. Spend it while you got it.
1:00:14 But yeah, if you're able to bring that out. Yeah, for me that would be the left side of that picture and it could there
1:00:23 could be a facade put on there where there it is covered and maybe even a closed area inside. I don't know.
1:00:28 But it's a it's a balance between what I've heard so far is from those who don't want a garage downtown because it's going to
1:00:36 look ugly and those who want a garage downtown because it's going to hold a lot of parking spaces close to what people want to be.
1:00:44 I just don't think that looks ugly. No, I think it looks, like I said, even I'd be I'd be perfectly happy with that. Is it It looks fine to me.
1:00:52 Where you've got those little openings. I can't see if they're window.
1:00:56 Oh, okay. What if those were balconies like her place that jutt it out instead of just a flat piece?
1:01:04 Yeah, probably more even if they're not even functional balcony because that to me from a distance almost looks like it's a residential structure.
1:01:14 But I think this is a good base because you've got the brick which gives it somewhat of that building the camouflage. Yeah.
1:01:21 And then I think if you incorporated a mural on the side facing the one Yeah. The one facing the artwalk that is a I believe a big mural. It's
1:01:28 hard to tell in the picture but it's on the right side in the center. That's a mural there.
1:01:33 Okay. So is the front right here to the left side. Right there. That's another one. Yeah. Yeah.
1:01:41 Right there. Yeah. I I agree. I wouldn't be upset about this at all. Our challenge is, you know, look at our
1:01:50 community, look at Clermont in a very objective way. How can we make this very local, very Clermont? We seen the
1:01:58 success of the mural on seven at Montros by the ladies and the the great feedback we had is just a minute away from making
1:02:07 this very clear. I wouldn't be opposed at all to create what he's suggesting he's suggesting like an area such as the
1:02:15 art wall where now you have events. What when we say okay the city's planning an event and they refer to the west end as
1:02:23 a site. This would just be another site for events, for popups, for you create that. It doesn't take much to create
1:02:31 that covert area space for people to be able to function without having to have a lease zone spaces, you know, a functional space, covert area.
1:02:40 If if they plan ahead, like if if one sign of this building, let's say, had had a spot for popups,
1:02:48 there should be an electrical outlet every 12t. Oh, yeah.
1:02:51 You know, when they redid the They forgot some of that.
1:02:56 But so so this is more built for the seventh and then the old.
1:03:01 If it was behind city hall, we're really looking Seventh Street could be an area where there could be popup locations and
1:03:10 all that. The side facing what what road is that?
1:03:17 So we don't feel like that could be necessarily it's just out of the pocket where people they be they'd be parking their cars and
1:03:24 then walking away from it not and not walking toward and I don't even know if on the seventh side on this if you would work you know
1:03:33 it's more like a parking structure altogether. Yeah, they were talking about doing brownstones and all of that.
1:03:38 I just don't I mean I don't get it over here.
1:03:42 The ph the phrase that I heard that really affected how I look at all this now is walkability begins where you park your car. So if if it does go behind the
1:03:49 city hall, which I would be happy with to get anything if it does go there, what's between city hall and downtown becomes super critical.
1:03:57 And not just a mural is not going to do it. It's going to be there's going to be a re has to be a pole to get people to walk from here as far as the post office
1:04:04 really because that's where the the new center of of downtown is going to be one day in that area. Um it just has to be
1:04:14 I don't think people will have a problem walking.
1:04:17 If you look at Winter Gardens garage, it is centrally located and like I said last week or the week before it was planned for that location before the
1:04:26 crooked can was known about. It just happened to open up after camp. Having having it in a place where people are
1:04:34 once they park then they can go e either way. And that's that to me is personally is more more critical than necessarily
1:04:43 retail. But they made a good point about having you know just a parking garage.
1:04:47 You could probably do a little more with it. So a popup or a food food things on weekends or something like that is it
1:04:54 could possibly be incorporated even into the farmers market too. Farmers market could have a lot more stickiness down on
1:05:01 Minnola and going down Mola to towards the lumber yard one day.
1:05:06 And that's what I was going to say that too is that you could probably change the configuration of the farmers market to include the artwalk across back.
1:05:15 Well, I think what's the artwalk has originally as originally conceived I think the artwalk was supposed to contain the farmers market one day and it wouldn't
1:05:23 close down streets. So, it would just be between uh Montros and the lakefront and that would be one long I like closing the streets and giving
1:05:31 the Oh, I do too. I like the ability for because if you go down to the Costa Nostra and I'm glad they're doing well,
1:05:40 but those little benches where they're tying them out there and then everybody's got their little sign that they put out there and you're if you've
1:05:47 got a lot of people out there, you're trying to jog through signs and trying to make it it it just makes it difficult. Whereas if you have the street closed down,
1:05:56 gives a little bit of room for the restaurants and vendors to spread out a little bit and just makes it a little easier. But yeah, when when Jim had
1:06:03 proposed the art walk that went, as I recall, between what is now the School of Rock,
1:06:13 that's where the art, the original art walk went through that piece of property and it was supposed to be a little artist studios.
1:06:21 That's why it was called the art walk. Yeah.
1:06:24 And then when they put it in the parking lot instead, it turned into restaurants.
1:06:29 But the art I know that there's a we just went to in off of like Mills Avenue and it's an old
1:06:37 hotel and it's run by a church. Have you been there? I've seen it. It looks very cool.
1:06:44 It Yeah, it's incredibly cool.
1:06:46 Basically, it's a studio for artists in each room and then once every I don't
1:06:53 know how what the frequency then it becomes an art exhibit where the artists are actually showing their stuff and
1:07:01 you're able to kind of walk and it was off. It was h I mean I felt very hip being in my 50s. I felt incredibly hip.
1:07:08 I think I was in one of those in Savannah down the river. Has uh Clon changed its uh objection to food trucks
1:07:16 or food carts like in front of Lowe's or Home Depot? I heard that.
1:07:20 Well, Home Depot just opened up water bers. Water bers out there now. Wall bers. Not there's an ordinance coming up soon uh
1:07:29 regarding food trucks and food carts. They could potentially I think that the state mandated some
1:07:38 stuff to change Again, I think that's the only thing that I
1:07:46 think we're missing is how to make it Clermont, how to make it us and what we need and what is our culture, what are we all in for. They're so um athletic.
1:07:57 There's so many groups running downtown.
1:07:59 This this week alone, I probably seen eight different groups that are meeting for 5Ks and short runs, you know. So,
1:08:07 how do we and they all meet in downtown literally and you know, how do we convert this into I think the council
1:08:15 will really be on board if we can identify what makes us us and make it very personalized to something innovative that makes everyone feels hip
1:08:24 and clom not just giving a project just like a garage. It can be little little things that makes us very unique to us.
1:08:33 Just look at mantra. You've got the road building. You got that that building from the 50s where
1:08:41 I'm not sure who's in there now.
1:08:46 Just just the other side of 40 between 40 and that building just doesn't seem
1:08:54 to fit. You got the Hanks building bubbles.
1:08:58 Well, yeah. But that architecture compared to the road building, you know, compared to
1:09:05 Orange Blossom Bell, you know, we have a you can't say we're Spanish, you can't say we're French, we're not we're building of the week.
1:09:15 And you go back far enough like I do to, you know, when Western was upstairs and Bishop Paint was downstairs and then you
1:09:24 had the pharmacy. I mean, as a kid, it was very different, but nothing looked and and the smarts lived above the
1:09:32 locksmith, the old projection room.
1:09:37 See, I don't remember that part. So, I'm not far enough.
1:09:42 Yeah, but I don't I don't go far enough back to know the cinema part.
1:09:46 Well, no, it was a locksmith when I came down, but they lived upstairs. And what was the projection?
1:09:53 Yeah, because Ace Hardware Well, True Value or Well, Clermont Hardware was in that building.
1:10:00 Yeah. On the far end where off of eight on H.
1:10:09 So to make um any progress with the go I think we need to wait to see what they give us and then we'll go through the likes and dislikes and make adjustments that fit this conversation, I guess.
1:10:19 Right. Because to me that's just the skin.
1:10:24 the the real thing is in the the skeleton and the structure and we we can skin it any way we want to.
1:10:31 Well, and I think what you know I I know last week it was close but number one
1:10:37 being maximize parking spots but from talking being asked questions I know I
1:10:45 uh we were at the bell and the bell the owners mentioned parking parking parking and I'm like but I think they get
1:10:54 the push backs because several of us has said I don't have an issue with this you
1:11:00 are more opposed to this so is there anything on this design issue would say hey you know this would help or would
1:11:08 not help or what could we do is this just a no for you to me this is just a shoe box it's it could be in any city
1:11:17 we need to clear about it even just the draped mural looking thing that's
1:11:24 It's nice, but it's just it lacks character to me.
1:11:28 So the car so character define character as you see it. So like what would you what would make this pop for you?
1:11:36 Not any particular style but this is very corporate like uh you go to your
1:11:44 doctor's office and you're parking in a parking garage whereas anything packets is better in my opinion.
1:11:52 regardless of the style. Um they're just more interesting.
1:11:58 So more interesting on this one to you is the tower the um
1:12:06 white Yeah.
1:12:07 overhang interesting to look at. Yeah.
1:12:12 I think does have a picture of the oyide.
1:12:21 Because the side we're looking at mean the Yeah. West side. Um the side
1:12:31 really doesn't matter because if whatever Jason decides to do with that piece of
1:12:39 that strip of land that's there. Is that it?
1:12:42 That would be the artwork. That's the if you were standing on it that you know same thing. Go one below that. That's the same one.
1:12:51 Yeah, it's still on the left side is facing.
1:12:55 Yeah. I just didn't know if we had a I just didn't know if we had a I think that's
1:13:03 that's seven. Okay. So, that's Manola to the right. To the right. That's correct.
1:13:11 Yeah. I mean, I think like to your point, we do have to figure out a way to skin that to make it look more
1:13:18 interesting. because that is you know but if we were able to bring so what is that so this is very
1:13:26 to me I I I love this that's between looking toward mantras but you have buildings in the north just looking south
1:13:34 that's where like the orthod is yeah to the right and it also allows
1:13:40 transit between seventh and eth that path is supposed to go all the way over so they don't have to go down walk around the garage and come that many they can go straight.
1:13:50 Yeah. And I know they were hating the bell and go to seven.
1:13:54 I know some people don't like that but you have a captive audience when you come down the elevator or down the stairs. You have three businesses right
1:14:02 there that you have to look at. I mean I I think that there's things you can do.
1:14:08 So we would want people to walk instead of walking on the street. We want them
1:14:15 to walk between. But I think there are you can do to push them that way. 100.
1:14:22 Yeah, we want them to pull them through there and what Mullets is going to do.
1:14:25 And then there's that empty piece of property there. How they're going to do that. I mean, I think there's things that are going to pull people through there. Um, but on this piece to the
1:14:35 right, I think if we were to put an overhang there and create that area, does that help you get there?
1:14:45 This is just a No, I would have to see.
1:14:50 from Bill's sake. I I I don't think that's a super hard thing to do. I don't think it is a budget breaker to be able
1:14:58 to put some kind of awning area multi-use
1:15:05 if you're able to skin it with like the southern coastal style of like Patrick's project and create some kind of liner on the mini side.
1:15:15 And that's what I'm talking about. right there because if it's got an overhang, you're not looking at the top of the overhang.
1:15:21 Well, that's that's not going to be the biggest cost is that type of skinning.
1:15:26 That's actually honestly typically fairly affordable.
1:15:30 It's the concrete work and all that. So, I think we can accomplish and I don't think anybody wants an ugly parking
1:15:38 garage. But I will say this, when I'm driving to a sports event, take an ugly parking garage over no parking.
1:15:46 You'll say, "I'm not going to park." Every time I'll never have my car seeming there because it's not aesthetically pleasing. I'm just like,
1:15:54 "Thank you, God." Has anybody parked at the orange? Not the orange, but what's the one that's right there off of 429? Citrus Bowl.
1:16:03 Yes. Anybody ever parked there before?
1:16:05 Because I can promise you that that parking is as sketchy as it gets.
1:16:12 That is going to be sitting on the sidewalk.
1:16:17 And you're right. I mean, it's obvious that Whoever put this one together put a lot into how it's going to look and whether I can't see the rest of the
1:16:25 community around it, but I would imagine the rest of the community looks a lot like this. Well, but I don't think that is off the table for this.
1:16:33 No, it's not. It's this is changing, you know, facade materials basically.
1:16:38 The great thing is extra lighting.
1:16:40 The higher you go, the separate the rail yard, I bet you is an excuse.
1:16:48 Possibly.
1:16:49 There's a lot of parking there, but there's It almost looks like there's apartments on the outside. But I do agree like
1:16:57 today I kind of feel like we're kicking the can down the curve until we get to next week to see what they're presenting
1:17:05 to us. But I think that that the option that Bill put out there to have more flex I guess you could call it flex
1:17:14 space to have that flex space where you could do whatever you want with it. You could rent it out. You could
1:17:21 have events. You could do small events. There have been times in years past when we had music at the clock tower.
1:17:30 Yeah. Two guys with guitar, some people sitting on the victory, right?
1:17:35 If there were a shady spot on one end of this, you could have music the parking lot, you know? So, there's not
1:17:42 everything has to be a street closing 6,000 people. You can have charm downtown with just a street musician and
1:17:50 just cute little things going on. And this building is adjacent to the trail.
1:17:56 And the city spent a lot of time and effort bringing the trail up to Mola to get people away from the lake. Well,
1:18:04 once they're up there, let's give them something to do.
1:18:08 Let's help them empty their pockets so it'll be lighter on their way home. Is this the one you were talking about?
1:18:15 The one in Carmel, Indiana.
1:18:19 What this what what she was saying is this is fully wrapped. We're just build.
1:18:23 We're not seeing any parking parking garage behind the brick.
1:18:26 Well, and I think like this picture right here, they're using every section has a different color brick so that it
1:18:34 even pulls it up to where it's almost like a brownstone street where it looks like they're all separate.
1:18:40 Also breaks the sight lines, right? Even though this is all one construction this like old town, the architect who designed that, George
1:18:49 Wood, copied downtown Clermont. design old town. I did not do that.
1:18:54 That's really just one building with a whole bunch of different facades.
1:18:57 Yeah, I do think that there are things we can do to make it part of charm instead of just
1:19:05 it looks like it's and I kind of think that's the goal of this is to no one person's going to walk out of here and be like, I got, you
1:19:13 know, the perfect one. It's going to end up being that collaboration that you found like okay that's cool and Nobody
1:19:22 else in the community is going to know what effort went into it.
1:19:28 But I don't I don't do we have anything else you want to discuss today?
1:19:32 I don't think so. The only question I would have based upon the discussion was really there was that discussion about
1:19:40 that you raised about Clermont should be what does that what is that's what Waldo is going to ask. What do you mean it's going to be
1:19:49 public identity sports? sports sports activities, right? That's the
1:19:58 But I also think you could build each wall could be Clermont almost through
1:20:04 history. So like what was Clermont compared to what right now it's choice of champions active lifestyle but at one
1:20:12 point it was orange fields and strawberries and blueberries and of the hills. But 100 years ago when they built
1:20:19 the school on second street it was Spanish and you look the houses just across 50 a lot of Spanish a little Spanish style.
1:20:29 So at that that developer thought Clermont was Spanish was going to be that. Yeah.
1:20:35 So somebody said well Clermont's name in France we must have French architecture.
1:20:42 We're never going to get to where tower.
1:20:45 So Patrick's going to do New Orleans, at least for 8 Street. Yeah. We have no idea what um Dr.
1:20:54 Kasavant's going to do with the police station.
1:20:59 Whoever ends up with the post office is going to do their thing. Are they going to tie to that? Are they going to kind of create their own?
1:21:06 We don't know what's going on. the deo.
1:21:08 Yeah. And you know, so I don't I don't know that we need to recreate.
1:21:12 Yeah. If we went all like, you know, maybe what we we went French quarter and then we were the only Yeah. Somebody builds something Miami,
1:21:20 but Bill's never going to be French Quarter. I mean, the way his building is, it's not I can paint those bricks.
1:21:28 Well, and to your point, I think if because you know, we're working on a timeline. Well, we have a wall I can't stand in our restaurant.
1:21:38 And so we're trying to create a 3D timeline of the history of Chick-fil-A, but we just ask the same question. Can
1:21:46 we make it Clermont? So, can we have
1:21:53 water instead of like a rope, you know, can we intersperse the different historical aspects where it started as
1:22:01 agricultural then became, you know, Olympians and all that and each section.
1:22:07 So I think you could do that very easily.
1:22:12 One of the things I don't know is and you talked about the drape art.
1:22:17 Is it drape art or is that permanent to me?
1:22:22 So there's two nice things about that. One, murals are expensive and they have to be
1:22:31 done fairly regularly to keep them looking good. So I like the ability But I also like the ability depending on how
1:22:38 that's done to change your art out for seasons or for it could be a metal frame with squares
1:22:44 mounted into it propagated on the ground and put up and they could change seasonally if this city wants to go that.
1:22:50 Yeah, I think you'll change quarterly or you know periodically would be and you can do interesting things with
1:22:57 lights but it would be the same. Yeah, we change out our like billboards depending on this. So we have back
1:23:06 summer, Christmas, fall, and then a generic.
1:23:10 That would be quite innovative actually to have panels that you could change out to make up that that big.
1:23:17 Yeah. Metal metal panels that one, they're secured in with bolts and not flapping there like a a tarp or something like that that you know gets quite windy down there sometimes.
1:23:26 Anybody want to push for Times Square type of TV screens? Yeah.
1:23:32 You know, you guys on like, you know, I was on council, got it passed, and they still haven't done the digital
1:23:39 billboards downtown instead. So, I don't know what's wrong with our technology side.
1:23:46 There's an element to where like if you had a section where it was constantly changing, being able to advertise what was fresh and new in the city, I could
1:23:54 make a case for that. You can also project it too. You put a So that's approved. That's already approved and it was budgeted to change
1:24:01 out those those little sections for digital signs because it changes so much. And so they
1:24:10 were supposed to change the one at 8 Street, but all the little digit all the little signs that we're using for posting up stuff was supposed to change
1:24:18 too. And it would be so much better because then we'd know who's playing here. We know who's playing mullets. you know, hey, we've got a thing coming to
1:24:27 they're opening up the garage door for um for School of Rock. I don't know if anybody's been to that, but that's actually kind of a cool little deal to
1:24:35 watch those kids. Some of them are good and some of them are like, "Oh, that's
1:24:38 [laughter]
1:24:40 four months." So, don't know how to capture, but I can tell you this. We getting a lot of visitors from out of town every day.
1:24:48 Yes. And a lot of them.
1:24:50 So, the feedback is always they do get the wow factor from the moms and pops.
1:24:57 They love the walkability. They like the view. They walk into the brewery, there is that wow factory. It's very
1:25:04 impressive. And they love how everybody knows everybody and it feels a very tight community, the coziness of
1:25:11 downtown Clermont. And that's what we strive not to lose and be pretty united.
1:25:17 How to capture that into making something that is Clermont? I don't think anybody cares really. I I think
1:25:25 this is a fantastic project that is presented by Jason. In my opinion, it would fulfill the needs, but I think,
1:25:33 you know, it would be I don't want to go into what I think really, but you know, I I really think that we can we're not
1:25:41 very far from converting this to what we downtown needs to make it all thinking.
1:25:47 Why we all thinking? You see the majority of us say, you know, this is pretty acceptable. If he had came from this council, it would be very
1:25:55 acceptable except he came from Jason and we got to work our way through, you know, how to get to something that
1:26:02 provides what the cities needed. So Jordan's concern is very valid and it's very easy to get there from that. We can get there. I think we can get there easily.
1:26:11 And that's when we talk about trying to capture Clermont, you just hit the nail on the head is that so for my relatives who come from
1:26:19 wherever else, they're always amazed at how friendly people are here. It across the board and even from Florida, they're
1:26:26 like, "Your town is so friendly." And I think that's just that's part of Clermont. And I don't know that you get
1:26:34 that everywhere. I mean, I'm certain there are other, but I can tell you that when I'm in Fitzgerald, which is a small southern
1:26:42 town because that's where hunting camp is, people are not near as friendly as they are in Clermont. Well, and I think
1:26:49 Winter Garden, which started as Mom and Pops, is quickly becoming more corporate.
1:26:56 You know, they're pricing themselves out. So, I do think like when people think of Clermont, they think of true mom and pops.
1:27:04 They think It is more eclectic and I don't know that that's bad.
1:27:08 No, like I don't think you have to all look the same. I think it the Key West it all looks different.
1:27:13 It's fantastic. I mean, walking into Bas is fantastic. Walking into Living Bo is fantastic in in GC. It's very is all a
1:27:22 very unique experience. You know, the murals everybody wants to do landscape smiling faces.
1:27:30 I think we just we're very close of capturing what we about like providing the parking that is needed with something innovative you know that it
1:27:39 could become popup area but I don't think we very far I don't see this being very far from I think if city council decides to build
1:27:48 something like this then they'd also have to commit to the extra stuff like the possibly replacing those panels
1:27:55 every quarter or every half a year or something like that or six months and putting a into the aesthetics around the garage because it is just a box, right?
1:28:04 It's how you skin it. I assume there's going to be some limitations there. You can't put up a mural on the entire one side of it because every three or four
1:28:11 years that mural is going to require to be painted on the sun side anyway.
1:28:16 Do you remember the mural on the side of Bishop's paint? Yes. It peeled constantly.
1:28:22 Well, I got a quote for the side of my building back during CO. It was $29,000 and every five years have to be done again. But if we're going to do a mural,
1:28:30 it should be on the shady side. And the other side, think of it as a blank can.
1:28:35 How many times have they repainted city hall already? I mean, I'm across the street from you.
1:28:41 I mean, you've got what I thought were stone blocks. They keep painting them.
1:28:46 Well, and that's what I think that we can change the color of the picture on this thing every year if we want to.
1:28:51 That's what I like about but the professional good murals you would want protected and long term. But I
1:28:59 if we can find a way to move away from the drape because I agree the drape looks a little bit funky. But if we can get somewhere that we have
1:29:08 metal panels, whatever that we can pull down, clean, put some type of UV protectant on each, you know, whether you know you got to
1:29:16 spray it or do whatever. There's some upkeep with it and it's done on the ground instead of in the air.
1:29:24 with you when they come here to pressure wash. They were here for how long?
1:29:27 Pressure washing and that was just it's on the side away from the sun facing the artwalk. Well, get the afternoon sun, but that's not quite so
1:29:36 bad. But it would tie in with the artwalk if that if the side facing west, the west side was more dedicated towards
1:29:43 art. It faces the art walk. Then that all comes down to what Jason does with that piece of property. Well, this
1:29:52 isn't this is I mean Jason doesn't he proposed an idea, but it's not his project. He I'm talking about the piece of property
1:29:59 that's by the he could extend his roof line over top of the artwalk and put buildings on
1:30:07 there just like it is. You won't even Well, he has to get it permanent though, right? But it's behind the airream.
1:30:15 So, what's wrong with walk through our Yeah, I think not get rained on. That'd be great.
1:30:21 And I'm not I'm just saying that that side isn't Disney did a great thing with if you've been to Disney Springs, they're not
1:30:28 quite functional because they didn't extend it, but they have those trelluses that are above and they look like old like a New York City train above ground train track that was cut
1:30:37 off, right?
1:30:38 That kind of thing I think would look excellent down over the artwork and it has all that greenery above it and it sucks up some of that heat and it's a
1:30:46 it's a great visual thing. It's just a and and some girders, but I'm sure it costs a lot of money. It's still that
1:30:54 that kind of stuff instead of just a roof with tied in with art on that side would make this thing look really attractive for a garage. You know, it's
1:31:02 not going to it's not going to be the Dr. Phillips Center, but it it could look a little better than just the garage.
1:31:08 But the Dr. Phillips Center doesn't fit with downtown anyway. I mean, yeah.
1:31:13 And I like all that glass. I mean, you saw that one that was all wood and glass. I was like, "Oh, look at this cool thing." Yeah, Dr. Phillips is absolutely stunning to
1:31:22 me. And if you look at because they're actually going through the new they're going to add more and kind of create a whole front porch where the grass area
1:31:32 is. Um, but you're right, it doesn't quite fit. It doesn't look like the Grand Bohemian right next door, but I
1:31:40 don't know that it always has to. And I think I've seen I've seen some uh preliminary ideas of what they might want to do at the De Hoya property too.
1:31:50 And it's not all buildings. So they [snorts] talked about a park. Maybe there's the artwalk extending down. That whole area could be like the tea. I say
1:31:58 Montro Montros is the top of the tea and the artwalk is the is the lake, the main lake. So if all that was focused on art,
1:32:05 Clermont, however we define that, then that would be a really good tie to the center of the city, center of downtown
1:32:13 that makes the garage less important for what its function is, and you could still have an aesthetically pleasing
1:32:21 garage that doesn't offend too many people, but still ties in with all the stuff that the artwalk was supposed to
1:32:28 be. when they spent all that money, they spent a ton of money on that and it was supposed to be something else going back when I was being pitched to come down here by by city council.
1:32:40 So, it that kind of that kind of completes that circle for me at least in in getting a an area down here where it is tied in into the original plan.
1:32:52 Menus in the middle was never supposed to look like this. Yeah. Yeah.
1:32:56 that's been drum mastery that they've come up with.
1:32:58 I mean, I've meant no words on that. Project ever, but you know, being able to tie that
1:33:06 into some type of interactive art was what I pushed for was to be able Well, that's what happens when projects languish, right? They they devolve based
1:33:14 on who's sitting in those seats up there. So, it's it's a until when the when the garage is built, it's going to be what the people on council and and
1:33:22 and and the uh the mayor what they want or what they approve to be built at that time. Now, future city
1:33:30 council may say, "All right, we need to reskin the outside of this garage because we want something else." But I don't think that's our that's not our job. We can't look too far in the future.
1:33:39 I I guess another concern needs to be how do we move this past where it has been for the past few years to get this
1:33:46 thing done. you know, be smart about what do you need from this group that got, you know, asked to do this. What
1:33:53 are the best chances that we can get this thing moving?
1:33:57 That really comes down to council saying yes. And they lost the parking lot over
1:34:04 here. So, so there's been political arguments over it. So, um, Mayor Murray said we just
1:34:12 didn't need it. Um, previous council members said, "We have a walking problem, not a parking problem." Well,
1:34:18 you have a walking problem up until up until you've got people who are, you
1:34:25 know, 40 years old, 30 years old bringing their parents out here who are 65, 70 years old trying to walk up these
1:34:32 hills. You know, it's it's the demographic is difficult. And well, I think it's the demographic is a
1:34:40 lot like Clermont. When you're saying, "What is Clermont?" I don't know of another quaint downtown that has so many things going for it,
1:34:49 which is inherently a blessing and a curse because you got the Olympians and the healthy lifestyle. You got the
1:34:57 eclectic mom and pop and then you also have this ginormous lake. So, it's like you're three communities in one. And
1:35:05 then you have this history of like agriculture and I think that's kind of you know you're right we're a community but we also have two of the largest
1:35:14 senior citizen centers real close they it's a walking it's not a walking problem it's a parking problem right
1:35:22 100% yeah I mean they need to be on the flat ground and they're going to be able to get around this one block
1:35:28 and that's it and you know it's so it's we're many things and I think we have to kind of lean into that and kind
1:35:36 celebrate it again, but I do think we need to f and it's not up to us. It's probably up to
1:35:43 you guys more than us to push. I mean, we need to build this. That That's the one thing everybody in the city has
1:35:50 said. You got to have more. You know, we hear that loud and clear.
1:35:54 But at the end of the day, I think there was that argument because they had the parking over here. They had the de Hoya Hoya is going to sell. It's getting
1:36:02 closer and closer. Whether the city ends up with it or somebody else, you know, it's going to sell. That changes everything. And losing this church
1:36:09 parking, um, that's another hundred. And when you read the the parking study,
1:36:17 which is old enough now to where it's outdated. That was what it said was that if you lose either one of these parking spots, we're in a pickle. Well, and then
1:36:26 you've got waterfront which has tons of parking, but again, that's like a whole different user than downtown park.
1:36:34 Yeah. Well, the parking right there and the problem that we ran into garbage is it east where it dead ends.
1:36:45 He's talking about the larger east side.
1:36:52 But the problem with that is that It's a way it is so hard to get security
1:37:00 and I was here for the girl who got an axe put into her. Um I was sitting up there and that became a problem. And
1:37:08 when you start stretching our police department over a mile and a half, that's a good point. Two miles.
1:37:16 That's a good point.
1:37:17 It is it is a dangerous for individual police officers because they're on bikes. There's people everywhere. You
1:37:25 know, I get that they brought in much more, but you know, I just I don't like putting those folks in that type of
1:37:33 jeopardy. I like having corral parking because it's there and we can secure that. If something happens, they can be
1:37:41 there that quick. I think there's a lot of I mean, I get that we have parking over there. That parking for me has
1:37:48 never been good. No, because it's a different end user to me. That's the people that are running on the trail or or boating or whatever. Like it doesn't feel like that's downtown.
1:37:57 Also a hike if you're depending on your physical condition. It's going to be a hike.
1:38:01 Yeah. 220 lb Todd was not walking from over there. Not [laughter] going to happen.
1:38:06 We're getting increased conflicts between events at Waterfront Park and things going on downtown.
1:38:13 And if you look at anyone singular, well, they can park over there. Well, you got it can be for parking spaces and trash cans.
1:38:21 the city's short on.
1:38:22 Well, there's when there's a anything at waterfront my the the pit fills up the Hoy property that fills up and that's with everybody there. That's their overflow because stuff is closed.
1:38:33 Yeah.
1:38:34 And then they walk down. So now there's nothing for the employees and the regular customers who have no interest in what's going on down there. There's
1:38:42 no place to park. So that's when it starts spreading further this way. I brought this up.
1:38:49 I think we ought to give them good parking garages because they're going to build two. That's what I think. It's not going to be this council.
1:38:56 They're going to build one three or four councils from now. They're going to be looking at another
1:39:03 because when De Hoya is gone, 75,000 square feet. Is that what's
1:39:10 I don't know what the Yeah. Does the city have an like do you have any idea if the council has an appetite if that were if they were able
1:39:19 to be able to purchase it? I know there's been some back and forth with the owners like to buy that.
1:39:27 So the the conversation so my conversation on that and how they go I don't know.
1:39:33 Purchase it, split off your art block and then go ahead and put in your utilities.
1:39:40 put it into purchasable blocks and sell those blocks.
1:39:44 And then the city has the ability to say, "We've already designed this. If you like this square, your design's done. We've already
1:39:52 permitted. All you have to do is all your il.
1:39:57 It's really that. And then the city has some say in control. It looks like and what it's going to go." And I think that's really the smart way to do it.
1:40:05 Um, is there any like homegrown cooking from the owners where they would love it to go to the city or do you think there
1:40:15 just there have been discussions where artists thought there were agreements in place?
1:40:23 The wife was there, the son was not. Yeah, that's what I've heard.
1:40:28 And the son last I last information I got the son was not replying to his attorney or to us. Are you talking about just the one partial or both?
1:40:37 Um both. What the offer was made on. Um she wanted to sell both and so they made a
1:40:45 The only thing we can count on is one day whether it's next month but they give a 30-day notice or two years from now that parking lot will be gone
1:40:53 100%. So, we have to plan on like it doesn't exist any and that's 200 spots that are lost.
1:40:59 And and I'm beat this horse. The parking lot at Victory Point is a temporary parking lot.
1:41:07 The one next to the salt shack, that's p it's a temporary pave parking lot that was put in as a temporary space to
1:41:14 solve the parking issue downtown so they could get the parking structured in the meetings. It was never intended
1:41:23 to make to make lakefront property into parking lots that was supposed to be sold.
1:41:29 Yeah. I mean, we got RFPs on it before, but that that parking 5 10 years from now, that should go away
1:41:38 and that should be turned into nice waterfront amenities, be it city, be it private.
1:41:45 But that was that was not supposed to be a park.
1:41:48 As long as there's a park garage, that's the only way it's going to work.
1:41:52 It's like the Hoya property. That's at the end of just to be clear for everybody, there is the downtown action plan that's being developed now.
1:42:03 Yeah.
1:42:03 They need to put a a fully wrapped parking garage at um the post office,
1:42:10 but that's not either, right? That's He won't sell. He won't sell yet either.
1:42:16 I mean, yeah. So, it's like it's like consider the the Hoya property. I just know one day there won't be parking there. I don't know what else is going to replace it. The part the post office one day something else will be there.
1:42:25 Don't have no any idea. I can't you know if I could look that far in the future.
1:42:29 I would be a genius. But it's well and I don't think like running the numbers it doesn't make sense. Even a paid parking lot doesn't pay for the
1:42:38 cost to build it unless you include well possibly the cost to run it though is the city parking and you know I would
1:42:48 encourage and I I have in past if they are going to charge for it needs to be affordable parking like almost token uh
1:42:56 charges you know so that people it's more like just controlling how if you someone pays for it you know who park
1:43:04 there control you control and you can pay for the city staff to to empty the trash cans. It's not a it's not an upfront cost to build the thing and then an ongoing cost.
1:43:14 Well, there will be an ongoing cost, but it will be mitigated a little bit by parking. Maybe during the weekends or or I think uh Winter Garden is looking at a
1:43:23 tiered system where if you park on the first floor, you're going to pay more than if you park on the top one. So, it's they have the ability to do it just like they do with Uber where it's based on
1:43:32 volume. Well, I was in uh Italy recently and I avoided parking in the in the city parking garage in a very old town that's
1:43:38 been there a thousand years and it was I Airbnb was right on the edge of this like it's a big hill called Cortona and
1:43:48 uh I drove around looking for a free parking spot for 15 minutes. I found one and I left my car there for three days.
1:43:56 We had to move the car one day and came back, no parking. So, I had to go park in that for uh for pay parking lot. I
1:44:04 had to be there for 20 hours until we went went to the airport and I thought this is going to cost a fortune. It cost me €6 for 20 hours and that's reasonable to me.
1:44:15 Yeah, it was it was I was like I had to download an app on international down there doing all this [snorts] stuff and then it was six seven American dollars
1:44:24 or something like that the park. So, and I mentioned it to the person that where we had dinner. He go all the parking around here is affordable. They don't
1:44:31 overcharge and that encourages people to use it.
1:44:35 Oh, so I don't think that they should be, you know, $5 on a on a, you know, busy Saturday night,
1:44:43 especially when you're talking about having 500 spots, creates a little bit of revenue, especially if you can get one or two.
1:44:50 Nice thing about doing it's tiered and it's uh it's also timely. So during the day, it may not be anything, but you
1:44:59 know, when you hit five o'clock or something like that or six o'clock on a Friday night, you're going to start paying and you pay more on that than you will
1:45:06 on another day where it's nobody wants to be down, but you still want to encourage people to park there.
1:45:11 Did you want though? Um, and I'm sorry to interrupt you on that, but just wanted to make sure we answered your question. You were saying Walden want to
1:45:19 know when we say Clermont, what do we mean? Should we go around and each of us say what we think? Clermont.
1:45:28 Well, no. You you can choose to do, you know, provide the feedback how you like. He may want to hear from everyone. Okay.
1:45:34 What I heard, for whatever it's worth, is cozy and quaint. So, we're good.
1:45:40 So, it'd be helpful if you would say, "Hey, missed you last week. This week, we just want to let you know.
1:45:46 We think it should uh feel like Clermont." To us, Clermont is represented by these adjectives.
1:45:53 I think I think we have friendly active lifestyle active lifestyle outgoing about the outside.
1:46:03 I'm always amused at the Orlando airport. I normally use the terminal top and there's a cute little display on
1:46:11 each floor the elevator the rack I remember where I parked my car. That makes it save me a lot.
1:46:18 And I will tell you something that I'm more concerned typically at a parking garage on what the inside looks like rather than the outside. I mean, you know, we haven't looked at anything. We start talking about, oh, is it friendly?
1:46:28 Is it you know, well, do you keep ducking every time you come to support?
1:46:33 Yeah. Does um, you know, does it make you feel safe? You know, when we were at Winnie Palmer with Sebastian,
1:46:42 um, you didn't necessarily feel safe inside of Winnie Palmer just because there was a lot of weird stuff going on.
1:46:50 Well, I actually enjoyed seeing the open air stairwells because I've never been in an enclosed
1:46:57 stairwell that didn't smell like and was in dark like a cave. And I'm like, well, you know, and the pro we've
1:47:05 had problems at Victory Point. They've destroyed those those uh elevators. I can't tell you how many times. Um just
1:47:15 doing whatever at night. So now they have to close all that down. But um you know, you just got people who are going to be punks.
1:47:25 So like I don't want to keep us here longer than than we need to be. Is there anything else we want to enter into the
1:47:32 record for Waldo or I mean I love talking to you guys so I can I think
1:47:40 I think we're keeping these guys here and probably from the real work council means some concepts on what you believe
1:47:47 would be the best for both those sites and hope you know the hope is is that through our collaboration with Waldo and
1:47:54 his team come up we'll come closer than we've been in the past to getting something that can be discussed and
1:48:02 seriously cons I I don't see designing building A for a
1:48:13 site building B for B site it's like green like the attractiveness of a building except maybe the maybe the retail
1:48:21 component if you want to consider that at all I think what let me just try to play mediator because it's not they don't
1:48:28 care what I think at the council the but you know if if I asked Jordan and some of his customers does this look quaint
1:48:36 and cozy to you no and then I'd ask the other question is I just put the image up and say what
1:48:43 is what is this building and well you say it's a shoe box but that's your porative for saying I don't
1:48:50 know if it's a medical office building I don't know if it's a this or that and so that's and so Keith just so you're
1:48:58 you're sensitive to that's going to be, you know, different people are going to react differently to the aesthetics. We can say aesthetics
1:49:05 don't matter except that time and time again.
1:49:08 But I guess what I'm saying is the difference between the two sides I don't see a different aesthetic from one to the other.
1:49:16 And that's fair. That's completely fair.
1:49:18 And that may be what what comes from the committee is that Waldo goes ahead and creates the same aesthetic for both of them. The only aesthetic, my only issue
1:49:26 with that would be that the aesthetic for this one needs to match this building because it is tied to this building. So,
1:49:33 it has to compliment, you know, it it just has to be it's not necessarily white and brick. It
1:49:41 I think the city hall site could be just be a parking garage because I think that's all.
1:49:45 Yeah. Parking garage. It looks like it belongs to city hall. It has belonged with city hall for many years, but the seventh of May site needs greater
1:49:54 consideration because it is in the middle of downtown and is much more viewable and will probably be used more too.
1:50:01 I think the quaint side comes though from figuring out how to make it usable and making those, you know, if we can
1:50:08 put that awning out there with a flex space out front. Now it becomes quaint because of the people who are there,
1:50:17 you know. At the end of the day, a parking garage is going to be a parking garage. And there's nothing we can do about all of the aesthetics.
1:50:24 But if you can tie it and make it work and make it friendly and make it, you know, make it less about the garage and more about the people who are by the garage, then I think you have a win.
1:50:36 Jordan, would you this building the exterior cozy and quaint or do you see Yeah. Or do you see it very corporate?
1:50:48 And it was the detail garage so we could see.
1:50:53 I mean I don't know all these in the packet but I'm sure they fit the aesthetic of the
1:51:01 Yeah. I'm just trying to conceptualize what a cozy garage looks like because cozy in real estate terms means small
1:51:08 like uh the ground floor if it looked similar to your brewery as I was walking by. That would be Yeah, it ties in.
1:51:18 I wonder if so for the awnings they could match because you have awnings out in front of yours now that I'm thinking about it. Don't you have metal?
1:51:26 Where's your metal awning at?
1:51:29 The patio itself is a metal is all metal. That's that corugated. I mean, there's no reason you couldn't. It's also the cheapest roof.
1:51:38 This fits into zero watt line.
1:51:41 Yes. Is there room between the sidewalk and the structure for meeting space in the shade
1:51:48 window in the parking spot? So, we can do whatever we want. Yeah.
1:51:52 Who would argue about covered park? I mean, like if that's the case, if we incorporated the awnings of your design
1:51:59 with the brick on the bottom floor, some sort of like walking underneath shade. I don't think anybody.
1:52:06 No. And you make it 15. How tall are your ceilings out there? 12 feet. 15 ft.
1:52:11 It slopes, but at the at the front, I believe it's 8 foot, six, something like that. Looks taller. Feels taller.
1:52:19 Yeah, it feels taller. But yeah, so you're talking about 12 feet on the inside. It's 10 foot.
1:52:27 So yeah, so 12 foot sloping out however far you want to go, flexible space underneath, and um you know, then
1:52:36 you can incorporate those pieces and, you know, Why don't we extend it further and make
1:52:43 that part of Molo one way get rid of parking spots increase the amount of sidewalks and
1:52:52 created a real walk area. That's what I'm saying is that it would be a flex space with a big walk area and
1:53:00 you know I mean I'm just not for getting rid of the park at all like when I hear that
1:53:07 I it like my spider senses tingle where I'm like wait wait wait studies have told us time and time again
1:53:15 you don't want I don't care about any of that stuff but I just care about like the thing I keep
1:53:22 hearing We don't have enough parking. We We don't come downtown because there's not enough. And I hate hearing that. Yeah, I hear it all the time.
1:53:30 So, the place that I'm going to disagree with that is we don't have enough parking when we shut those streets down.
1:53:37 So, we're losing those parking spaces anyway. So, I think there's a I think there's a double conversation. It's a
1:53:43 double-edged sword. And for me, I would love to see everything from here to west, you know,
1:53:52 this entire two blocks closed off completely, people out walking.
1:53:58 You got to have enough people to do it to make it to where all of a sudden you have people there. But you know, part of
1:54:05 the key is why malls worked for a while rather downtown is because once you entered the first store of the mall,
1:54:14 it's like you never you could go from was it Bel to JC Penney to whatever and you never had to go outside again.
1:54:22 So it's it's getting them in that first door and keeping it connected.
1:54:27 And I think that's what the the structure and the connected shade and the between seven and 8 is they don't feel like they've left downtown.
1:54:38 So, I think once you get them in the lot and then and they come out the elevator, they're into the mall of downtown.
1:54:50 And let me just comment on that because that's the cheat sheet for how you design a downtown is look at how they did the malls.
1:54:56 Okay? Because when you talk about the JC penny, how wide is the the entrance to the JC penny, it's very narrow in a ball, relatively speaking, because they
1:55:05 was they're always trying to follow the 8 second rule, which is if you don't get a new storefront 1080 seconds, somebody's likely to get up and leave.
1:55:14 Now the other things that are going on there just to be because I think this is actually excellent way to to measure it
1:55:21 is not only are facade widths important but it's also you're seeing into the stores they generally don't allow you to
1:55:29 make it difficult to see in because the retailers make more money if they can see in the walkways are geared toward
1:55:36 what how many teenage girls can walk side by side so you're at least going to
1:55:44 walkways, a minimum of each way, at least eight feet. You're going to have places for the the older people, you know, who don't want to go walking all
1:55:52 the way around maybe to just sit and so they have seating areas. People like nature, so they always have plants in there. The railings are expensive. They
1:56:01 may it's a second floor, they make them transparent with glass because we want to be able to see up there. We're more likely to go up there, see things. The
1:56:09 lighting is all different than it normally would be. The signage is geared what? It's geared toward the speed of their customers. The customers are going
1:56:17 between two and three miles an hour. So when they do the signs are small like you see on mantras gigant.
1:56:25 So all those design details are some of the things that we can you know ask for when we're talking about
1:56:31 well and I think some of the camouflage you're talking ultimately is
1:56:40 camouflage. I I'm gonna ask this knowing the answer. I'm sure none of you have ever been to Cleveland.
1:56:48 Okay.
1:56:49 Downtown Cleveland, what they've done is they've resurrected all of their districts. And so when there is a
1:56:56 parking garage, in fact, there's a huge one in an area called Playhouse Square.
1:57:02 People don't realize this, but Cleveland has more Broadway theaters than any city outside of New York. But what they've
1:57:09 done is they've put um it's a huge four square block and at the beginning of
1:57:16 each one is an arch that introduces the playhouse district and all of them
1:57:23 connect to a giant chandelier that crosses the streets and lights up and has become one of the most photographed
1:57:32 parts of the city. But what it's really doing is camouflaging an incredibly generic vanilla garage. Um, and so you
1:57:41 almost never have parking issues downtown and you're so busy looking at these arches and these um, you know,
1:57:49 lighting features that you miss it. And so like I do think that there are other things we can do whether it's connecting
1:57:57 covering the entire walkways, adding features. I know at Longorn Patrick was talking about outdoor pianos,
1:58:05 you know, but I think that there are things we can do that are uniquely Clermont that almost at the very least
1:58:13 mask the fact that there's a big corporate structure here, you know, and you might get those are the sorts of things you can
1:58:21 think about this week is what are some of those elements or what are the places and then Waldo will love hearing from you on all those
1:58:29 things and I can send pictures everybody, but to me, I think you might even get local business people or
1:58:36 longtime residents to put some money into some of these things if it's always
1:58:43 going to be the, you know, Todd Howard, you know, picture spot, whatever it is.
1:58:49 I mean like you could find, you know, creative ways to mask it too.
1:58:59 No, I'm just saying all the different cities like, you know, there's the bean in downtown Chicago.
1:59:05 Yeah. You know, it's I mean, they're huge sunny spots, but just that statement sculpture and people come
1:59:14 and you know, with with the parking, you know, that that could be like the the seed that starts the whole thing. Think
1:59:23 about the art walk and one of the neat things about it was when Jason split it up into what, eight different panels, you know, had different organizations
1:59:32 that are now, you know, he essentially gave them to say, "Okay, well, you've got this one, you got this one, and then you get
1:59:39 the variety, which makes it more interesting." What if we just the city had it the city did one big mural
1:59:46 and then that's taking a picture of it and it's so some of the buildings around
1:59:55 are kind of like they need to be redone when you really look, but you're never looking because you're all the same.
2:00:00 See, I was in Cleveland many years ago and it wasn't that nice. It has gotten a lot a lot nicer.
2:00:07 I'm surprised how many people can like Omaha. There's some cities with big budgets have done amazing things.
2:00:16 Louisville, which was not good. Um, I was thoroughly impressed. I mean, I went there and I'm
2:00:25 like, "Oh, wow. Okay, it's cleaned up its sack. You know, you felt safe everywhere you went there." I mean, a
2:00:31 lot of that's urban life, but um no no shame or judgment there. No, I mean it was it was nice though.
2:00:39 You went there, you that's what brought that money in there for sure. Um but there was a lot of you
2:00:47 know, it was nice. Well, in Indianapolis has a ton of features that kind of draw
2:00:54 your attention away from some of the crank station area.
2:01:01 It's time and money. You can do amazing things.
2:01:05 There's so much money that's going to come into Clermont. It's going to It's going to Well, you somebody mentioned a lot of
2:01:12 people from out of town coming sometimes during the food truck rallies and stuff. I wish I spoke Portuguese.
2:01:20 There's a Yeah, there's a large gese population in the area, too.
2:01:27 You wouldn't believe how and and they spend money more than the people on the electric bic [laughter]
2:01:34 when I was when I was on school board dealing with four corners. Um you know
2:01:42 you think oh it's all going to be Mexican Hispanic and it's not. It is
2:01:50 Portuguese Hispanic. I mean, and when as I talked to them thinking that Spanish was this
2:01:58 easy track, she's like, "No, you have to understand that it's they're all different and they they're not the
2:02:04 same." And I was like, "Oh, okay." Um because down there, more than 50% of the
2:02:12 kids that are in for that were in Srass Bay were English language learners.
2:02:19 And so figuring out that homogeneous group. It's very very split.
2:02:26 So we need you saw part.
2:02:29 No, but it was neat that you know you talk about all the different languages and the different folks and you just realize how many there are. You know I
2:02:36 shook you just get those aha moments. shook 750 kids hands at Eastridge and there's
2:02:45 no there's no power Smiths and spottles.
2:02:54 It is it's becoming a military everything else but I asked the lady after you know all those names of
2:03:04 her but when we opened our store in 2004 people say why why do you have no
2:03:11 Spanish people? like there's hardly any in Clermont like you know Clermont was pretty you know and
2:03:18 now you look and it's it is very diverse which I think is another aspect of Clermont you know Chinese population
2:03:26 it's like the third largest I didn't know this but I have a lot of Chinese working like we're the third largest population
2:03:33 for Clermont in Orlando I'm like I had no idea when we moved here in the 80s the employee for housewives.
2:03:46 All the kids had left town. There were no jobs. There used to be the problem.
2:03:52 There was that age gap gap from 18 to 40. There was just nothing. They're gone.
2:03:59 Here's your month of You guys want a journ or you guys want
2:04:07 to keep going? I think so for next week we're getting just the concepts from and then we're going to
2:04:16 have more inputs on the more finer details.
2:04:20 Yeah. What what Waldo is going to do is he's going to show the different concepts for the different sites and he's going to want you to provide input
2:04:28 so that he can narrow down. Okay, for the next step I got to narrow down and and and you know out of those let's say he comes up with three concepts and he's
2:04:37 going to Okay, which is the one that I need to pursue further and do the visualizations on. So, so that's that's really where his head's going.
2:04:47 And for everyone's awareness, next week there is a budget meeting in this building. So, we'll be meeting at the city center in the smaller room.