So I'm testing our closed caption is not on.

I need to go over there and okay.

Welcome everybody to the February 24th Heritage Preservation Commission meeting.

Before we call to order, we start each meeting with a 15-minute public open comment period.

This is an opportunity for the public to comment to the commission regarding items that do not have a public hearing on today's agenda.

Each speaker has up to four minutes.

The commission will not discuss or respond to any comments made at this time.

Please be concise and mindful of your time so that everyone wishing to speak has the opportunity to do so.

Will the first speaker please step forward and state your name clearly into the microphone?

Also please make sure if you haven't signed in on that sheet.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes.

I just want to make sure that we're recording.

There's maybe a question as to whether we are.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

It's just not seeing it.

Yeah.

Looks like it.

It's just, is it hearing us?

Right.

That's what I'm not sure if it's hearing us.

Well I um when I log on.

Because it's the wrong meeting.

We have this.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I think you should.

I think we're recording.

Let's continue.

Okay.

Take minutes, notes.

All right.

First speaker, go ahead.

Um you should push the button on there and you'll see the light turn green at the bottom.

Oh.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

So please state your name.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Barry Skolnick.

Uh I have uh unfortunately a lot to say.

I'll try to keep it to the four minutes.

Um I'll talk about the two things that are on the agenda agenda or should be uh before I talk about the main issue, which is the report.

Um there's nothing on the HBC agenda about a timetable to work on specific buildings in terms of landmarking.

Um so we really don't have a list of what the projects are, the priorities are gonna be for landmarking for the rest of the year.

And it's something I do think you should do to say because it's I didn't see anything on the agenda about what's going to happen in the future for the future months.

Okay, so that's one thing.

Um the awards program, I again I see there's something there, but I I suggest that you look at the historical preservation committee, the predecessor of the HPC, to get to get the specific names of the awards uh as just as a sample.

You could always vary that, but so hopefully you'll put that when you do that, you actually list the awards and and what the if you set up the committee, what the committee would work on so you could get something quickly because the heritage preservation month is May.

So you only have two months to get the whole program in place, which shouldn't be that hard to do if you actually set up something clear.

Okay.

So now on the uh the actual report that people have read.

Um first to comment on public participation.

I I was very disappointed in it.

I think it was good for the bus for the property owners and some of the business owners because they were allowed to participate in there with some staff selected people from the HPC and uh maybe one other one from the public or so that the main meetings where people could listen and learn and watch a conversation about it was not open to the public.

So I don't think this is the kind of public involvement I would like for the future.

It's more like the co-design is where basically people don't know what actually took place in the meetings.

And I would I so I was not happy with the public participation element in this at all.

They did have something on on the uh on the street fair, but that was minimal with just one person taking notes.

So that to me is not the same as being in the meetings, which and listening to what actually happens.

So I thought that was woefully inadequate.

Secondly, um, as far as the I agree with most of the signage uh and most of the stuff in the report about signage and and things of that nature.

They had a lot of good suggestions.

I'm not going to go through all of it because there's not enough time.

I know that uh Schubring, uh, who was the city council speaker, he a lot of the meeting uh which I listened to uh was about parking.

And um he was interested to know whether or not the end specifically asked at the HPC comment on the par on the parking.

Do you like the older version that we currently have, which has been in existence for many decades, or would you rather get rid of a lot of the parking and have a more modern version with some more trees and things like that?

So he wondered whether or not you cared about the what it looked like in terms of parking that was more older looking the way it is now.

So anyway, um, so that's that.

And uh, but some of the things that were not mentioned there, like who would pay for the enhancements?

The DMC, or is it going to come out of taxpayer dollars or some kind of combination?

Um will stores lose parking spots.

Again, that was most of a city council meeting.

More details on funding course would have been useful.

It had a very very general nature.

So it's hard to know exactly what and when they're going to spend any of the money, any money, and on what.

And so it was a very vague thing.

So the report probably should just be accepted, as Palmer has said, and not really approved, because what are we approving?

Because we have no idea which part of the report is going to be implemented and how.

More details on the funding costs.

10 seconds.

What?

10 seconds.

We don't have the light, but just letting you know.

10 seconds left?

Yep.

Oh, God.

Uh, are there any proposals for specifically to re-to um to help the st the property owners prepare uh for the buildings and the and how to repair them and how to maintain them?

There's nothing in there about that.

There's no models given.

There's no saying what goes on in other cities about that or on tax abasement.

Thank you, Mr.

Skolnik.

Your time is up.

Uh what?

Thank you.

Your time is up.

Okay.

Well, well, there's a lot of other things.

All right.

Okay.

Will the next speaker please step forward and state your name into the microphone?

Uh John Krisel.

Um try not to repeat some of the details that he brought up.

I hope that all of you had an opportunity to read what was in the post bulletin uh as a kind of a recap of yesterday's meeting with the city council.

Um I'm going to go a bit off script because of the uh meeting that yesterday at the meeting of the whole was supposed to be talking about downtown historic district and supposed to be talking about the business district.

How can they co-mingle?

How do we maintain charm?

Uh, what are the incentives?

Uh, how do we move this matter forward?

So the majority of that time spent was on parking.

Uh, very unfortunate.

I compliment uh Councilman Palmer for saying that we ought to receive this, not accept it.

Uh Andy Fredericks uh uh made a very sensible com comment as it relates to if you want to have a experience and you want to have vibrancy downtown, that's gonna happen with businesses.

And I don't mean to say that trees aren't wonderful or benches aren't wonderful, uh, but that charm and experience comes from the businesses which develop a relationship with the people that come here uh for health care and hopefully some of the citizens that might come in downtown Rochester.

So here again, it's a very important to have a uh symbiotic relationship that's healthy for the downtown business district as well as the historic district, and they are different, but must commingle.

Uh Randy uh uh stressed um that uh uh that there's a more of a charming main street feel in a historic district uh that uh has been lacking.

If we maintain parallel parking, or excuse me, diagonal parking, uh, slow the parking down, let's see, there's speed down, maybe 10, 15 miles an hour right turned lanes, but that's to be brought up and discussed on Monday by the city council.

Uh, and revert back at least into the historic district into the parallel parking that was there from the beginning of time, even down the middle of Broadway, uh until about uh mid middle 60s uh uh when it changed.

I will say if we want to have a safe and vibrant downtown, parallel parking is not safe.

I mean, I have no idea why people haven't been squashed like a bug next to a door when they open it up with the uh off-street uh parallel parking, taking their gear out, uh heaven forbid a bicycle.

You open a door running into that parallel uh diagonal parking will avoid that long as we slowed up parking down.

So councilman, uh our council president is hoping that this historic commission will uh make recommendations as to what they see in I'm gonna stress in two different areas, the historic district and the um uh other uh downtown district.

Um, um the reason I'm going off script, I got a variety of phone calls.

I'm just gonna point out as it relates to this in a half hour, last half hour, um, point out that there is a very um uh on third street.

Uh there is a uh Yanowitz attorney's office, uh Blue Sky Dental Office that need to be able to have the ability of somebody coming in, sign a document, leave, dropping a person off, leave.

I'm not sure whether are other dental offices in downtown Rochester or attorney offices.

Most of have left downtown Rochester and uh gone west.

So it is critical to those businesses uh to be able to have uh parking, and it is critical to have um uh areas for the handicapped at the same time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Crisel.

Will the next speaker please step forward and state your name into the microphone?

Hello, my name is Barb Hudson.

I'm gonna try to continue with two more of Barry's questions.

Good thing I'm a nurse because his writing looks like physician writing.

Um one of his questions is there needs to be the in the um dialogue with the study session yesterday, there needs to be a balance between preservation and modern needs, and he is wondering what that means exactly.

It wasn't really defined.

Um, so he thinks there needs to be more um uh details regarding that.

And the other question was changes to the district must balance historic preservation um and other city priorities.

And he's wondering what that means as well, with uh no more details on that.

He's wondering how that manages um with the historic details of this downtown historic district.

Um I'm wondering as far as the discussion about the historic uh preservation downtown.

It seems to me that all of the discussion um that's been had, very little of it is really regarding historic preservation.

It's really about what is bringing back the vitality to the downtown.

How are they going to financially make our downtown more inviting to the public and to visitors more than um historic preservation?

And that really bothers me because I thought all this money and time that's been invested in this was really to bring out what the history of Rochester is, and I just don't see it there.

Um I also notice that most of the discussion has been about parking and walking and open spaces downtown.

And I think that's very nice, but I think that we also have to consider we live in Minnesota, and so the seasonal aspect of this has to be really important because no matter how much walking there is in nice courtyards in open time, how often is that going to be used?

We live in Minnesota.

We only have construction and you know, winter.

So that I just wish there would be more time for um historic stuff.

And then um my last note is we need to continue with the progress on the historic report and designation of Indian Heights Park, and I hope that's not lost in the shuffle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Hudson.

Um, are there any other speakers?

Hearing none, we will move on.

Um so at this point, the meeting of the Rochester Heritage Preservation is called to order on February 24th, 2026 at 514 p.m.

I will now call the roll.

Um, Commissioner Bodaker is absent excused.

Commissioner Connelly.

Commissioner Gandhi?

Present.

Commissioner Kessler.

Present.

Commissioner Muchler.

Uh present.

Commissioner Poyer?

Here.

Commissioner Schable.

Here.

Commissioner Tater.

Here.

And Commissioner Wasmer is also absent excused.

Chair Zastro is present.

Okay.

The order of the agenda is in your packet and should be on our screens.

Are there any corrections or objections to the order of the agenda as presented in your packets?

Are there any corrections or objections to the order of the agenda as presented in your packets?

Hearing none, the order of the agenda is approved by unanimous consent.

Moving on to agenda item four, uh, specifically four A, the consent agenda.

This includes the minutes from January 27th, which were included in your packet.

Are there any corrections or objections to the minutes as included in your agenda packets?

Are there any objections or corrections to the minutes as included in the agenda packet?

Hearing none, the minutes are approved by unanimous consent.

Now moving on to item 5A, the downtown historic district vision plan for the public realm.

Coordinator Patterson Lungren, you have the floor.

Good evening, uh Chairs Astro, members of the Heritage Preservation Commission.

Um, it's nice to see you all here tonight.

And uh I again want to thank you for your patience as I got set up.

Um how there were some issues with the technology, but we are here and I think we're recording and um hopefully you're able to see uh the presentation um at your seats tonight.

So um are you able to see every other or is it every screen?

Looks like they're every screen.

Oh, wonderful.

Okay, that's even better then.

So that's good to hear.

Um, so tonight I'm gonna talk about um the downtown historic district vision plan um that has been developed over the past about year.

Um, and we've of course talked about it.

I've I've provided you updates since it started last summer.

Um I'm using the slides that were used last night for the city council study session.

I'm not gonna ask, but hopefully some of you either have had a chance to see that or review it, or um indeed if you want to go back and listen to their discussion and listen to the um perspective of the consultant that presented last night.

I think that would be a great thing for you to be able to do if you can.

Um, but I'm also gonna try and um give you the full information about the plan tonight, um, focused a little bit more on your viewpoint of the um the historic district and the public realm from where you sit, right, versus what council sees um and the decisions that they make.

So uh I'm gonna start with, you know, basing this um soundly with the designation of the historic district that happened January of 2024.

Uh so there would have been a lot of prep work and finally kind of that you know, first big meeting of the year after all of the regular annual stuff takes place.

Um, the city council adopted the historic district, designated it as a district.

And um, if you don't have access to that designation material or you don't know where to find it, you do have access through the city website.

I can help you find it if you're looking for that.

That's where the historic information on the buildings and on the district as a whole reside.

This plan really is looking at um, so this plan's really looking at the public realm within that district.

I'm gonna talk more about what that is and what that isn't, but it really starts with that designation study from 2024.

Now, this slide I've actually added from last night.

This is um this is taken from the designation study, and it identifies the historically significant features.

Now remember, when you're looking at properties that are designated, you might be looking at a site, a structure, a building.

In this case, you're looking at a district.

So we're looking at the district as a whole.

What is it that historically is significant?

Um, what are the contributing features to that historic district?

And we identified six of them in that designation study.

The lots and blocks, which are rectangular, right?

They're very um, we don't have circles, we don't have um uh, you know, uh a plaza that's kind of a radius in the center of it.

This these are um typical of the early midwestern era.

It's some of what we talked about when we talked about Central Park, this grid system that's established.

Um definitely the buildings are a huge part of what contribute to the historic district, and that's item number two.

So uh with their facades facing out towards the street.

That's the that's how they present themselves to that front.

Um, that's where the primary entrances are.

That's where windows are typically historically.

You've got large uh plate glass windows.

So there's some interplay between what's happening out on the street and what's happening inside the building, um, the materials, uh, different types of masonry, um, different types of designs that are um that had changed over time.

We've got a large period of time, 1870 to 1962.

Um, so you've got the different styles that were occurring over over time within the district, the public streets.

So those include um we talk about the public right of way, which is from property line to property line.

And within that right of way, um coming from the outside in, you have sidewalks, you have parking lanes, and then you have traffic lanes.

And um, those have changed over time, the configuration of where the parking is and how the parking is configurated, how many lanes of through traffic are happening, um, the sidewalks, what they're made of, the pavement.

Um, definitely through most of the history, we're talking about a concrete or other type of hard surface pavement.

Earlier on, it would have been wooden sidewalks or even gravel or mud when it's wet.

Um, but but the configuration of those of those linear streets um from property and aligned to property line, and typically the buildings are almost right up right up against the property line.

So that is um that is one of the contributing features to the historic district.

Um, four, I talked about the the paved sidewalks, street furnishings, um, infrastructure.

So, you know, you've got the infrastructure of um fire hydrants, once those become available, they're added to the district.

You've got stop signs, you've got lights, you've got um underneath the surface, you have water and sewer.

Sometimes you may have a public drinking fountain or other types of water featured uh that might be used for the public.

Um, but not any one particular style.

Again, the styles have changed over time.

Um then you've got number six is this idea of the unobstructed right-of-way.

So, you know, we do have one skyway in the system, but that is later, that's after the period of significance.

And really the character of the district has these open um very linear uh viewpoints of the city that you can see from you know up and down the street.

So when we talk about the types of changes and treatment for the historic property, which is the district, we're looking at these features and we're thinking about um applying the rehabilitation standards, right?

Which we can allow for change, but we keep we we keep these things in mind.

How much change and what are we trying to maintain as consistent to maintain the historic integrity of the designated property, which is the historic district.

Any questions on that at this point?

I do want to kind of allow for some um, you know, back and forth.

I think that'll help me.

I forgot to bring my my mug for water.

Um but again, this is this is more than what the council got last night.

This is bringing you back to from where you sit, how you review proposed alterations to the to the designated property.

Commissioners, any questions at this point?

It might come up again later.

So that's okay.

Go ahead.

Um, so after the historic district was designated in January, the council said yes, we want to do this, but um, we only want to do this, or along with designating the historic district, we want staff, community development staff, we want you to come back with um some areas of support for the downtown property owners, the downtown businesses and property owners.

So all along the recognition that um that yes, businesses make the district vibrant, that yes, property owners um will have to take on a burden um in terms of regulatory uh um activity that happens within a designated district.

And so in about May or June, um, we actually came to the commission that year, 2024, uh, and we had somebody from DMC come and talk about these eight different areas that had been identified as areas to support um the downtown stakeholders.

So that's business owners, property owners, some of those individuals are the same.

Some of them lease out to their business owners, um uh people who reside within the historic district, people that spend time down there, all of those are stakeholders to the district.

And if you look at this, you'll see where some of our primary partners are destination medical center.

They're helping us to support financially.

They're helping us support public realm projects.

They're helping businesses with recruitment and retention.

Rochester Downtown Association is one of our primary partners.

They're focused mostly on programming activation, branding and marketing for the district.

Business navigation, um, ready Rochester area economic development in, I think is is what that stands for.

So and then of course the city.

And I've circled, well, ovaled with the red hash mark, the areas that the city really is focused on.

Um, you know, we help with maybe programming like the parks department goes out and helps with that, but that's not really sort of our focus area.

Financial, financial, which is one of the programs that we established um in the summer of 2024.

Regulatory is um where you folks come in most often in terms of overseeing alterations to um to historic properties.

Um, and then of course, mobility.

Um, so in order to get people in order to keep those businesses activity going in the district, we need to be able to get people into um and through, right?

And around the district.

And then um the public realm.

And that's where we're really focused with this plan, this project is the vision for the public realm.

Questions on this slide.

I have one.

Give me a second here.

Um I've heard over the weekend at length uh from some business owners that there continues to be uh some distrust around the plan and the overall district.

And the concern is that city staff or RDA or some of these other partners you've listed will be directing the vision, potentially missing the mark from the standpoint of the long-term district stakeholders.

So as it pertains to this public realm versus some of the other areas of support, can you maybe break down ways that those stakeholders can be involved specifically with this public realm vision plan versus maybe getting involved with the other partners in the other areas?

Yeah, I think in terms of the public realm, we're going to get to um the storytelling aspect of it, um, which we've talked about, you know, with engaged public engagement and education.

Um, and this plan calls for um calls for bringing forward this idea of you know, how do we share the story both both historically like long past, right?

How did the district start?

Why is it historically significant?

And even sort of a more recent story, like why is it important to the people who I'm gonna use the term reside, right?

Not necessarily that they have, you know, their their home there, their beds, their place where they sleep at night, but spend a lot of time, right?

So um I would definitely say that that the stakeholders, the people who are there, um, I would want them to be involved in that storytelling.

Sometimes we refer to it more like, you know, interpretive information about, right?

That's kind of a museum term.

Um, so yeah, they definitely would be involved in that.

Follow-up question to that.

Uh so the idea that was floated was essentially a stakeholder liaison.

Um I don't really quite know how that would look.

It's just something that multiple emails and some phone calls came forward.

Um specifically with the art, the storytelling.

Um it could be broader as well.

Is there thought already around that, how that might fit this vision plan or the other areas of support beyond, I guess beyond say having RDA create a subcommittee or having DMC do uh, you know, have a consultant do a study or something, but specifically a liaison with that's from the community on behalf of that, similar to a last thought here, and then I'll let you answer.

Similar to, I think of almost like a neighborhood association, um, where there's somebody who can directly communicate with city staff or or people working in these areas directly from the group of businesses or properties there.

Yeah.

Um, so you asked if that was something that we were considering, and um, this is a new thing to me.

I hadn't thought of it.

I hadn't heard anybody else mention it.

So um, I think that's an exciting idea, which um I will bring back and share with with my community development teammates and and other um downtown teammates, RDA DMC.

So what would be the best answer I could give somebody like that to respond to some of these emails?

I think right now it's that's a really interesting idea, and we'll look at it.

Um, and I say that with all sincerity.

I will definitely push us to look at it because I think it's a great idea.

Great.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions from other commissioners?

Okay, you have the floor again.

So um again, men collaborative was our consultant on this.

Um they did subconsult with um two subconsultants.

One of them is on the screen here, um, and that's our new history uh consultant who we um who actually we have under uh retainer contract.

We go to them um when we have when we need some sort of deeper assistance with historic preservation planning or or projects.

Um they actually came in um with men collaborative as a subconsultant when um the the request for proposals was answered.

Um the one that's not mentioned on here is a consultant that um that came up with um the estimates for project numbers, and we'll talk about that towards at the end of the presentation because that's in the implementation section of the plan.

But I just wanted to um uh to mention that new history was a part of the team.

Um really focusing on the public realm um and kind of what that is.

So typically when you are looking at a project, in particular when you're looking at a certificate for appropriateness, um, you are looking at the buildings and those are private realm, right?

So um the insides at least are private realm.

Now, kind of from the skin of the building, right?

Outward, that helps to form the public realm.

So this slide kind of gives you a general idea of what we're talking about.

But this slide I've actually added as well.

This was not at council last night.

Um, and this is something that um I put together actually generically for just urban design.

It's not just about historic streets, but also kind of what we can learn from historic streets in terms of a public realm and urban design.

So if you look on the left hand side, you'll just see a corridor sidewalk.

Um, and you'll see that that wall of private buildings, um, which is really where the bulk of our historic material is downtown, right?

That's where it's those buildings that really contribute, right?

But then there are the other features that I mentioned as well.

Um, and we've got this very linear pathway.

We've got a very squared off this this community, um, which happens to be Grand Forks, uh pardon me, has a similar pattern, right?

And that's part of why um we call that out because that is that early downtown urban framework, that grid that is characteristic to um to most commercial districts in our area.

So if you think about um the walls, the outside walls of the building, and you think about things like street trees and cars, you're it's almost like you're walking down a hallway, right?

And that is kind of the primary area of public realm that you experience in our downtown historic district and many similar districts.

Um third image over those walls are not completely solid, right?

You've got a view into the buildings, you've got a view out into um the traffic area of the street.

We can talk about the street to include both the sidewalk and also the traffic lanes.

Um so you can see there's this uh um ability for activities to be experienced inside in, you know, out in the public um uh street lanes.

Um, and then you're also kind of looking ahead.

So as an individual who's walking through our historic district, this is really how you're experiencing that public realm.

The final image is of kind of those street furnishings and um it's almost like the jewelry.

It's the stuff that really gives the texture to the district.

Some of them are historic in nature.

There are things that are, you know, things like gargoyles or other sort of sculptural elements of buildings.

Um there are signs, um, some of them are more historic than others, some of them are maybe newer.

Um, and just the things that are kind of happening along that sidewalk and that walkway um that really sort of adds to um um it kind of makes your mind active as you're walking and you're experiencing it.

So when we talk about the public realm um and we talk about it in our downtown, this is primarily what we're talking about is we're talking about that sidewalk experience.

Any questions on this before I go on?

Okay.

Um if there is one.

Um so when men got started, um, they got into coming in downtown, they took some, you know, some tours, we walked them around.

Um, I think they got really excited with some of just the um the artwork that shows up in the alleys.

I think that's where the heart art was located.

Um, and just getting a sense of like, you know, what's going on here and sort of what's the mood of the downtown historic district.

I'm gonna go through some of these fast, and if um then I'll stop and if we need to go back, we can.

Um and then they created this engagement program where we had focus groups.

Um, I think several of or two of you up at the the dais were invited to that.

We had a focus group on local historians.

Um, we had a focus group on property owners, so they can talk more about sort of their view of the district from an owner standpoint, things like property taxes and kind of you know, managing a historic building.

Um, business owners.

So um, this is where we had actually a lot of the folks who are um in the local art scene downtown.

They lease their buildings, many of them.

Um, and you know, so they see sort of the historic district a little differently, maybe than who they're renting from.

Um, and then the final one was downtown organizations, and we had the University of Minnesota, um, we had um DMC, RDA, um, I think that's I think those were the main people involved from the the historic or from the district organizations.

Um did door knocking, so they actually approached individual properties, talked to folks out on the street, just you know, had a chance.

So if somebody hadn't been on our mailing list, we were able to find out about them and get them on the mailing list um and invite them then to both of the workshops that occurred.

Uh those workshops were open to the public, anybody who was interested to come in and talk um and join them.

They weren't widely advertised to the public, but they were open.

Um, and then there was a pop-up at uh downtown Thursdays to really get sort of um individuals who maybe spend time downtown and in the district, but also our visitors who um maybe are there for the first time.

And I spent some time down there that day.

I had a wide variety of people um uh who came by and stopped and talked and just you know, just getting different perspectives.

Some people like I had no idea there was a district here.

Um, some of them were already very in tune with the arts that are happening in the area.

And then the project website, which we had shared out with um with you folks, those who were on the commission at the time last summer, pardon me, and um city council also had access to that, as well as everybody who was on the master mailing list um involved um as we went through this process and um uh and continued to add to our list.

Thank you, Brent.

Um, so there were these six takeaways, and I'll stop here and you can kind of take a look at it.

Um some of the things that I'm just gonna say, like some of the things that maybe either surprise me or maybe didn't surprise me, but I think really kind of stuck with me.

Um, that number five, trust, the collaboration follow-through are critical.

There have been other efforts like this that have happened in the downtown over different eras.

Um I couldn't find any of them in city files.

And as we looked for them, we were able to find individuals out in the community who had participated or who had even led them and they shared them with us.

Um, but they weren't necessarily like city projects.

Um, they were definitely before it was a historic district, and there was many of them I think were part of this sort of tension of, you know, do we go towards um new redevelopment um with you know new modern buildings throughout the downtown?

Do we preserve this area as a historic district to what extent?

Um so they were all kind of in that time frame that led up to the creation of the HPC um or even the early years of the HPC and kind of this struggle for what are we going to do with this area?

Are we going to designate a district?

So they were all before before that.

But I think it's really important that the perception and the reality even is that people have gone through this process, these processes before and made that, you know, that statement so that we can understand that it's important for us to follow through on these things.

And I I definitely heard that.

I think the other thing is this idea of you know balance between preservation and modern needs.

Um, when we implement uh the historic um Secretary of Interior standards for historic rehabilitation, um, that's basically what number six is, right?

It's that that balance between preserving the historic details of a of a property, again, a district in this case, um, but also needing to um be open to modifying so that it can be used according to um today's needs and uses um as as things change over time.

Um this these things will kind of come up as we go through.

Um, but if there's any questions or anything specific that you're seeing that you want to talk about, sure.

I'll I'll just make a quick statement and then take a few questions here.

So I appreciate the um opportunities for the public to engage.

Uh I have heard from community members that they didn't believe there were enough engagement opportunities.

And unfortunately, some of those same community members were ones I had specifically talked to personally and made aware of the website and the events and was told at that time that they didn't trust the process and weren't going to participate.

So I just want to be on record saying there were ample opportunities to participate.

There was a website where people could put photos and stories.

Um do you have by chance how many responses the website actually got?

Um I can get that data.

I don't have it.

Okay.

I don't have it.

It might be in the plan in some of the details and the appendices, but um, I haven't gone through with the fine tooth comments.

Because I I pushed that hard with a lot of people that reached out to me.

Uh, I saw it posted on the old Rochester Facebook page, and it it didn't seem like many people took it seriously, and it's kind of hard now to be um almost a year, you know, nine months a year later, and people saying I never had the chance.

Um, I just I I want to say I don't think that was the case.

Yep.

Um, Commissioner at Poyer first, and then I saw another question down the line.

Uh thank you, Chair Zastro.

Um, I I liked I I watched the city council present.

I liked how they kept coming back to these six.

Um, so yeah, you indicated we see them more.

As I look at that, um, these six from our purview, to me, it just seems like one and six apply to us.

Um, you know, I especially in the report like the the focus on signage, which didn't get much emphasis in city council meeting at all.

But uh some of these other ones are, you know, we're not the the transportation commission or whatever, we're talking about multi, you know, I I think maybe in the spirit of one of the public commenters, people trying to to put other things on top of this historic thing.

And and I would say there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, we're gonna spend five, six million dollars, I think is what the estimate.

We should probably consider more than one things.

I guess my question for you would be how as the HPC are we supposed to consider the I mean, yeah, are we supposed to weigh in on parking?

I mean, maybe as it, I guess there is a connection to the historical look, but how how is the HPC are we supposed to factor all these things in?

So if we look at um what you know, the HPC has in terms of authorization under the UDC, um, and and most just um strictly speaking, a certificate of appropriateness, the first question is is it is a permit required, right?

So a lot of these things, a permit's not gonna be required.

So a lot of these things aren't gonna come through you for a certificate of appropriateness.

Um, but you're also um given the um uh my my mind is given the um job of you know community engagement and and history and education, right?

So not just preserving the bricks and mortar, the physical, but also helping people to understand its importance.

So when we think about that happening in the public realm, um, you know, I think there probably will be a stronger role for the HPC in that area, like I said, also for um the answer to Chairs Astro's question about members of the public and their their role.

Um as some of the public mentioned at the beginning, right?

It's people come down there for the businesses and also to spend time, they come down there for the events.

I mean, obviously, Thursdays is Thursdays downtown is you know, perfect example, right?

People are coming there to spend time.

Certainly we hope that they're spending time in the businesses while they're there.

Um this is where there are these kind of layers and sort of tentacles that weave together.

Um so having strong businesses, and I'm gonna say throw in strong local businesses, is symbiotic to having a strong historic district, right?

Because if those buildings are being used and used in a way that's financially profitable enough for the owner to be able to maintain the historic building, right?

That's that's part of the model that we follow in historic districts and historic preservations.

So will that area isn't necessarily something that you have to worry about or or that you're even um directly involved in.

Like those are really important parts of holding up this historic district and maintaining it and preserving it over time.

Does that yes?

Yep.

Okay.

Yes, that's and just a quick follow-up to that.

Yeah, what is what what are you expecting as an output from us today?

Is it just to hear our comments and that's it?

Yeah, really to make sure that you're um that you're having a chance to digest the information, understand it.

Um, it gives the public a chance to speak at the beginning of the meeting based on what they heard from from last night and reading the packets.

So that's um yet again another engagement opportunity for the public on the project.

Um, and then at the end, we'll have some discussion about you know what you what you're sort of thinking.

Are you ready to endorse it?

Do you need time?

Do you need more information?

Um, that's where we'll we'll end up tonight with this.

Thank you.

All right.

I might have a series of questions, so I apologize in advance.

Um, my first question is when I was looking at really quickly, just for the record.

So some people might not be able to see when they listen back.

Uh, Commissioner Kessler, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Um, so when I was looking back at some of the historic pictures included in there, and then also just kind of what I could find on the internet.

I saw that historically we had had diagonal parking.

And I know that, like again, parking isn't necessarily our realm, but when we're talking about that space and revitalizing downtown, I think it is something that we do need to weigh a little bit.

And so I just want to like do we know about what time we move to parallel parking, like specifically on Broadway?

Um, no, we don't, I don't have um that um kind of figured out or outlined.

I will say, and I thought about it as we were, you know, sitting here last night with the city council, you know, the photo of downtown here.

Um, it's a year, well, I guess it's a couple years, it's 64.

I thought it was 69.

I thought it was the year before the period of significance.

You know, with those wagons, right?

So certainly by 1870, you were gonna still have a very similar type of situation.

Um, and and then in the 1950s, they widened the roads in general, right?

Historic context-wise, they widen the roads for more through traffic.

So you're seeing through the period of significance this um uh this, you know, how do we use our public streets?

Um, is it for what modes of transportation?

And they of course they change over time.

Um, and you know, is the street used for people, individual people, humans gathering, or is it used for gathering of vehicles?

In this case, you've got both, you've got animals in there too, I think, which is really cool.

That's got to be a market day.

Um, you know, and and so it changes over time.

And then um, and again, going back to um our our features of the historic district that contribute, yes, we have a public right-of-way with uh a through traffic through area through street, um, and you've got parking that happened along the outside.

Some communities had a parking, you know, in the center, which would be very different from ours.

Yeah.

Um, some streets you might have like a central boulevard, if think like Paris, you know.

So that distinguishes between what we have, which is through traffic, parking, sidewalks, that parking arrangement changed over time.

And I don't have the exact that I appreciate that.

Um when I'm looking through these bullet points and talking about activating and getting people downtown, engaging with the community, you know, yes, it's kind of tangentially related to the historic preservation.

Um thing that I was very interested that didn't come up in last night's conversation with city council is the fact that there are a lot of people in the city of Rochester who may not need mobility aids, but are still disabled in some way, shape, or form.

For example, I have fibromyalgia and cold weather, like what we've had this last week, can make it very hard for me to walk two, three city blocks to get to a store.

And so I think when we're talking about accessibility and actually getting people downtown, we have to look at the big picture of we're just, you know, destination medical center.

We have a lot of people who live here for the medical care and accessibility, even though, yes, we do have bikers, things of that nature, we also need to be considering that if we want to get people downtown, we have to be able to meet them where they're at.

And parking ramps isn't necessarily always the answer.

Not a direct to you, because I, you know, but just something for us to consider.

And to bring up one of the points that one of our speakers brought up about diagonal parking versus parallel parking, the safest parking is actually back in parallel or back in um diagonal parking.

And I see ways that that could potentially be implemented in some of these designs, so we still keep that accessibility without necessarily you know completely scrapping the ideas.

Sure.

Thank you, Commissioner Kessler.

Um, I I would say with that, uh, it seems like the the concept of um the diagonal parking as a historic asset that was brought up last night has has been brought up by a number of uh people tonight.

Um maybe we can just briefly address that.

So when we're talking about this public realm vision plan, um, how how much purview would we have over something like that?

And there's there's some confusion now because I think council got to hear this before us, and they've introduced a lot of information that really isn't part of our discussion necessarily.

So can you help clarify some of that?

Um that that maybe was brought up at the council meeting when it pertains to parking and parking as an asset, historic asset.

I mean, all of these things are in balance with like, you know, bringing people downtown, right?

Bringing people to the historic district so they can experience it, so they can appreciate it so that they can um participate in the business activity there, um, and yet not bringing so many in that like you know, you never have a parking place because they're always full, right?

So it's always this balance.

Um that joke of like nobody goes there anymore because there's no parking because it's all full, right?

This idea that like you're balancing those things both within the district, but also within the community as a whole.

Um, and in Rochester, and this is, you know, I'm gonna call it maybe a little bit on lib.

This is why it took so long to get the district designated.

We have so much activity and such a high level economic engine that just churns out this change that just happens so quickly.

Um, that we're balancing as a community um and the city as your elected officials, right, are making these decisions.

Um, we're balancing the rapid change and the maintaining of the economic activity and the economic drivers and the changes that are happening in a larger society.

You know, people left Main Street in the 1960s and 70s and went to big box, first of all, strip malls and then big box, and now to the mail orders, right?

And now what you're seeing is many communities are using kind of entertainment um as a way to bring people back into these areas.

So that's part of when we talk about the public realm and supporting people coming downtown.

We're looking at creating spaces where people will spend time and actually linger.

Um last night there was a, you know, what about when they need to go to the post office or the bank?

Um, we do, as one of the speakers mentioned, we do have a dentist office, we do have an attorney, and that's more of a service-oriented um, but where many historic communities are finding the business is with people coming, things like restaurants, bars, because so many people are shopping in other places and not just physical, but mail order.

So those are the things that we're balancing when we talk about bringing people into the downtown and into the historic district.

Thank you.

I'll have a quick follow-up and then I'll get to Commissioner Poyer.

So I'm I think it's going to be difficult for us to have this conversation tonight, having council already kind of started before us.

And, you know, one of the council members stated, I really struggle with opening this packet up and saying, okay, we're just going to look at the public realm of the historic district.

Um, that's precisely what we do.

Yeah.

And they will say, and they have said in a few other study sessions that they look at the bigger picture and take multiple other plans and policies into consideration.

So I think we're in this situation now where they've already introduced a lot of other topics, and we haven't even gotten to weigh in on our purview.

So with that, um, can you I guess help us understand again specifically when we're talking about this public realm, um, things that the HPC has purview on?

For instance, will we be discussing um parking as any sort of historic asset at some point?

Um, or are those things that this plan should also be going to the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee, the um citizens uh what's the other one here I have down, the citizens advisory on transit.

Some of those seem like more things that are in their purview.

Is this plan going to them for that recommendation to council?

Are we recommending what sort of parking we think is pertinent to the district?

Yeah, yeah.

Can you help you?

I would say, yeah, you're probably not weighing in on parking, probably not tonight or or in the future, quite honestly.

That I would say is outside the purview.

Now, if you really believe and, you know, um right, are asking me to put together some documentation on how parking has changed over time, that could be part of the discussion in terms of you know, your support for for adopting it.

Um, but yeah, that really is um more in the area of city council and engineering um public works type of type of area.

Thank you.

And Commissioner Poyer said he retracts his question.

Does anyone else have any other questions at this point?

Commissioner Muchler.

Uh, thank you.

Um, coordinator Pennerson Lundgren.

So, based on this plan, what are the things that we should be looking at for things that we changing of like I'm thinking more of like the facades, as that's what we've focused on.

Um trying to think for the overall plan and how that affects for what we should be considering of it.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that um that when you look at, I'm just gonna go back again to this this image.

When you look at what's happening in the public right of way, the public realm, um, you know, when we're selecting things like lampposts or furnishings, right?

Not obstructing um, in particular the significant features of a building.

Um, you know, now when trees go up, it sort of obstructs them, right?

And so it's finding that balance, but it obstructs them for the vehicles, not for people who are walking next to the building.

So again, finding those balanced spots.

Um, I think that, and I probably need to just make this clear, like tonight is really about doing an overview and making sure you're all aware of the plan and what's, you know, what this is.

Um in terms of sort of your role in bringing this forward, I don't think we know yet.

And that's why I want to make sure that you're aware of it, that you know what the plan is, that you know what it says.

Um, we definitely want this feedback which we're getting tonight.

So that's really good.

I appreciate that.

Um, but in terms of how this is going to relate to specific projects and your decisions.

Um, I mean, I think that's that's that's an unknown at this point, right?

If if this gets adopted, um, then indeed this will this gives some some groundwork.

Um, sorry, some basis for making decisions.

So it may play a role in decisions you make in the future.

Sorry, that sounds really vague, and I apologize.

No, that's helpful.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions, Commissioners?

I guess at this point out I I had one for later, but I'll just say it now.

So this is a proposed city vision document for the public realm.

Page 21 of the document states the purpose of this document is to provide guidance and framework where there are not a standardized regulatory permit permitting process, as the city does not require a permit for work done in the city uh by or by the city in the public right of way.

Uh, it mentions other documents within this document, such as the 2022 Riverfront Small Area Plan, the 2017 City Design Guidelines for DMC.

Last night at the meeting, they mentioned all kinds of other documents and plans, uh, including the 2010 downtown master plan, the city's complete streets plan, uh, upcoming mobility study.

Can you for the commissioners, um, as well as those listening at home, the public, um, our council members, um, help us understand the difference between those various visioning documents, existing city policies, and other capital projects, as those pertain to this vision document and how we might interact with it in the future.

Sure.

Yeah.

So I I can at least answer part of that in terms of where this fits within a planning process.

Um, the city adopts a comprehensive plan, which is very broad overview.

It looks at the entire city.

It looks at how we're growing.

It looks at areas that maybe need to um have some emphasis for redevelopment, reinvigoration, rehabilitation.

It looks at outward growth, um, and it looks at transportation and connecting all of those, all of that development, right?

So that's the comprehensive plan.

Under that umbrella are um these kind of area-wide plans where we look again, fairly broadly, but we focus in either on a specific geography, um, or we spoke we focus in on something like a transit system, there's system plans, there's area plans.

This falls more along the lines of an area plan.

So again, it's establishing the vision.

Um, there isn't anything in here where I could say, like, okay, now I'm gonna go hire an artist to to do this, to do this artwork that we talk about.

Um, that's gonna take a little bit, probably at least another level.

Definitely when we talk about things like the streets, that's gonna take an another level, which is an engineering act, an engineer actually designing those streets, a civil engineer.

So um, so it falls within a project plan and the comprehensive plan in terms of its scope.

So again, this is just a very broad visioning plan that doesn't mean that this is a capital approved project that is being built.

We are still in an idea stage, not in a cement ready stage.

Right.

And I think unfortunately a narrative has already been put out there by the public and and by the council study session that this is going to happen or could happen, and therefore certain council members don't even want to receive it, um, so on and so forth.

What we are discussing is just a broad idea and sharing our thoughts and opinions and potentially saying we are ready to have that broad idea brought to council.

Right.

Right, right.

I would say that is accurate.

I think when you look at um, you know, this isn't a um uh a design plan, right?

Like we talk about the streets again.

We can't get to the point where we have a budget where we've figured out what the budget is if we haven't figured out what the vision is, right?

So this is the vision.

This is you know, breaking that down so that year two, three years out, we can look at our capital um uh CIP capital improvement plan, which is part of the annual budget process.

What is the council putting into that bucket for future capital expenses?

Um, and is it going to be a two-lane road with no lighting?

Is it going to be a two-lane road that also needs sewer and water if we're gonna, you know, pull up that pavement?

Those things have to be determined so that they can plug numbers in two, three years out when they set that capital improvement plan.

And that's what this is.

This is the what are we gonna do?

Like, is it gonna be new sidewalks too?

Is it going to be just our standard pavement?

Is it gonna be our standard light posts?

So there's still quite a bit of flexibility with this plan interacting with all of the other policies and plans.

And council will still have many opportunities to weigh in on such plans, correct?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Are there any other questions from commissioners?

Uh yes, Commissioner Kessler.

I know that we approved the specific historic district back in 2024.

Thinking forward at the potential signage and whatnot, are there additional buildings that we have on our backlog that we might be able to ask to be included as part of this project for evaluation?

Um, no, so all of the properties that are included in the historic district um have already been have already been researched and identified and designated.

Yep.

And talking like just outside of that historic district.

Like, let's say we go up a block or two outside of this district.

Yeah, you know, when we're talking about the whole comprehensive, you know, looking at signage, hey, this isn't necessarily part of the historic district, but a couple blocks up, we have this building that's been landmarked.

Yeah.

And actually, I'm gonna speak to that here in a couple slides.

So thank you.

I was gonna say that was included in um the packet.

There is some of that for other historic properties nearby.

Yep.

So I'm gonna go through some of these slides fairly quickly.

And, you know, by all means, this is not like to shut conversation down, but to just go through and talk a little bit more broadly about this.

I think, you know, I'm hoping to be done around seven.

I that was kind of the time that I thought this would take.

So different sections of the plan, um, vision and guiding principles.

Um, you know, this is sort of why we're doing it.

This is the background information.

The case for action summary is actually what they put together first.

And I think I shared that with the commission mid to late summer last year.

Um I'll go over that a little bit here with a couple slides to remind you.

Um, the public realm framework.

Um, and we'll just go through this and kind of briefly overview what what these different sections include.

So again, this is sort of those guiding principles.

Um, so with this type of broad plan, right?

What's what's our vision statement and goals?

This idea that if this work is done, um the downtown commercial district um would be thought of as a vibrant, welcoming place where people gather, connect, create new lasting memories among the core of Rochester's historic commercial spaces.

Um that's just that first part of that orange box.

I think, you know, that already is the case for some people.

Um, but there's a lot of people who aren't experiencing that.

Um, it's the case, it it certainly was in the past.

It was vibrant, it was active historically, right?

I'm putting the photo on the wall there.

Um, but again, it changed over time.

And as things change and um businesses close and people leave or stop coming downtown for one purpose, we try and reinvent and reinvigorate for um to bring people down for other reasons.

So um, so this is that vision of what we're trying to accomplish um with this planning document.

I'm gonna go forward unless somebody stops me.

Um, the case for action summary.

So um, this was that first work that the consultant did, and they looked at, you know, what's the history here?

What's the character and kind of the story that they were starting to uncover?

Um, certainly, you know, we had that already documented in the designation study.

People who live and work and own buildings in the district have, you know, immense knowledge about what that story is, but trying to bring it into the plan so that it informs our vision is the purpose here.

Um, the energy is really looking at um kind of the existing and and their um, in particular the local artists, um the art community that um that has formed in this in this district, um, and looking at how that is an asset um uh for preserving the district.

And then the context, right?

How do the regulations um that we deal with here um pertain?

Like how does that play a role in in the vision for the public realm?

So looking at things like existing conditions, um, different pavements, right?

Things have changed over time.

Some things are like woefully in need of updating, um, just acknowledging that and documenting that um in this section of the plan.

And again, really identifying some of the really unique things that are present and that are happening.

Um, some of this is kind of ephemeral.

It's um, you know, it's it's something that people maybe have gone out and painted or added things um to their own building.

Um because there's been this vacuum where, you know, we haven't had a sort of these official um, you know, community interpretive options, right?

So again, that's like, and do we save some of this because it sort of adds to this energy that's there?

Um, you know, and do we sort of build off of this when we talk about additional interpretive um activity that we do in terms of sharing the story?

Those are all things that um we wanted to make sure we documented and and took into consideration as um as we start talking about the next steps.

Um, and then the context.

So here we're is where we were talking last night at the city council meeting about all the plans that have happened and everything that's going on.

Uh, you know, Rochester is certainly unique in Minnesota and really unique in the United States compared to probably almost any community of this size.

The amount of activity that's happening here is just head spinning.

And that's what we're all trying to get sort of our head around and how do we preserve this one, you know, unique neighborhood in these specific unique places in town.

Um, as this other activity is happening.

Mobility and parking.

So our consultant did look at this, and there is information um in the planning document on that in terms of where parking is located in terms of of from a programming standpoint.

In terms of of a programming standpoint, it's not just where the parking spaces are and how they're configured, but how they're managed and how people, the communication to people as to where those parking spaces are and how to get from a parking space to the historic district.

So I'm going to stop there for a minute.

This again is that second chapter of pulling all this information together.

I don't know if there's anything additional that people have questions about.

But wanted to Commissioners, any questions?

I I don't hear any.

Go ahead.

You have the floor.

Yep.

From there, then we get into okay, what what kind of changes could the public realm sort of handle in terms of then trying to accomplish all of these things?

And this is a um an image that I wanted to stop on and talk about.

This um this map actually came about through discussions.

Um it actually happened to be with uh our historic group workshop that happened in June, I think of last year.

Um, and the this idea is brought up that yes, we've got this historic district, but we've also got you know, Chateau Theater, which is just right outside.

We've got um the castle, what's known as the Castle Community, which is um the uh um not Army Corps, but at the um sorry, uh it historically I'm thinking I'm forgetting what it was.

Um, but we've got these historic buildings, some of them are designated, some of them um just have been identified and you know are acknowledged as sort of resources, even if they're not designated as landmarks.

And so thinking about how um, you know, how this historic district interacts with these other properties, other historic properties, other places, the neighborhoods nearby, um, in particular, as we think about where um the old train depot is, just kind of kitty corner from us here, which is also another historic property that's on our inventory, and the plan for uh basically a whole new neighborhood where old Kmart used to be and the AMP site, um, you know, and how um how we get people who are eventually going to probably be living in that neighborhood, um, give them access to this and how we kind of weave that together, bold forward on bound, Mayo's project, um, bringing them into the district and giving them design cues to help them get there.

Um, all of those things um are being considered and looked at as we go through this process.

And then again, like what about the policies that we've adopted for historic landmarks, bringing us back to this is a designated landmark.

Um, so what do our preservation design guidelines say?

What do the Secretary of Interior Standards say?

The other plans that are adopted in particular that um that council and and that we look at as we're thinking about that larger area.

We've got design guidelines for the DMC district, um, which I oversee and implement as new projects happen.

Um, and then right, what are we hearing from the community um in terms of that balance between preserving the historic elements and going back to historic rehab?

What are the things that we need to do to make this more accessible, more inviting, more useful for us as a community as we move forward, given the changes that are happening around us.

So they broke it down into sort of these four different areas.

And um, I'm just gonna kind of go through them.

This idea of storytelling.

Again, we talk about historic interpretation and understanding not just the historic story, but also kind of how that's changed over time and doing it in a way that's interactive that really gets people involved.

Um, some people still like to read signs, other people are, you know, maybe want more activity.

We've talked about um aspects that the history center might be able to help us with, where there's more um, you know, like people there giving, you know, guided tours, that type of thing.

So trying to address sort of how these things can happen in the public realm, again, typically in that public right-of-way, which is already fairly narrow.

Um, and then each of these sections, may I very briefly comment on the storytelling.

Uh, so the new lit up photo displays on cruise lumber over at 8th Street Northeast and First Avenue Northeast, they do an incredible job at a storytelling um opportunity in the public realm.

Uh, I and a lot of other neighbors very much appreciate that.

Um, and so in this plan, it's uh storytellings noted throughout the plan.

I specifically wrote down page 25.

As it pertains to us, education is a huge part of our charge at HPC that we really are falling short of right now.

And I see this as an excellent opportunity to do that without additional professional expertise because we can help educate people with a simple volunteer who can point to signs, photos, things that are out in the public realm there.

And so I just want to voice my support for any storytelling that we can have throughout this district because I think that really helps us accomplish our core, one of our core goals without huge cost or expertise that's needed.

Is there any way that that could be noted in this report that that accomplishes one of HPC's core missions?

And that just, yeah, any note.

Is that something that we could have potentially added in the report?

Yeah, I think so.

Um and let's follow up mostly so that you can kind of give me your thoughts in a way that I'm I've written down education on my notes, but like I I think that's a great idea to actually mention that.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any other thoughts?

Okay.

You have the floor, Coordinator Patterson Longren.

Um, so then we get to actually these um these visuals of what could change in the right of way in the public realm um to accomplish these things that we're talking about.

And um, you know, again, these are conceptual, right?

So it could be this way.

Um there are other options too to look at.

And we and they could be left, right?

They could be left as is, and then we just have to find space within the existing sort of walkway for some of these things that we are talking about.

Um, I'm not gonna go over these in detail unless there's specific questions that folks want to address.

Um, I see you're looking at the screen, so I don't want to take it away from you if if you're looking at it, but um I'll just sort of go through these.

If there's anything that you've noted that you want to talk about in these kind of cutaways or these sort of angled views, um, let me know different ideas.

I'm just looking if you see something that you want to like just raise your hand so I'll stop and then I I can I have something for the very first one.

You don't need to go back though.

Um, it did show the long and the short-term approaches, I believe.

I saw that throughout the packet.

I thought that was great, especially for testing configurations.

Um, I think some of those might really help drive people to the district.

So I just want to voice some support for that.

Um, and then also uh prior, you mentioned, you know, balancing uh modern needs with the historic district.

Uh, you know, council again, they they had a lot to say, but people mentioning like auditory cues and things like that at the crossings, there are a lot of valuable things that can be added.

And I just want to voice again my support for those as the project moves forward.

That's great.

Thank you.

Um, I just I'm glad that we stopped on this image because Mr.

Crysal and I have been talking for years about his signs, and I I'm like trying to get a way to get support around this idea of, you know, assuming that he still wants to get them out in public and available and a resource that other people can experience.

Um, I feel really good that we got this image in the plan so that we can start to kind of give people this idea.

Like this is the type of space that we could create.

Um, and we can bring in things, um, historic items, artistic items, things that really help people connect with the history of the district and and with the community.

So hopefully this kind of sets that um good foot forward to to get that started, that that process started.

I'll chime in very briefly.

Um being vocal tonight, I just want to throw out my support for that as well.

We've been talking for years about how to utilize some of these historic objects.

I love that the report has shown a great example of how that can be done.

And I hope that um we consider those moving forward.

Definitely.

Yep.

Um, so you know, looking again at the streets, that was green on third.

This idea that um we're connecting the Mayo campus that's growing to the south and the river through the historic district.

Um really getting people to use that avenue, that third uh, well, it's third street, um, and and to use it to come into the district and experience it as they're either headed sort of north-south on the bike trail along the river as they're coming in from neighborhoods, and definitely the folks who are visiting downtown at the clinic.

Um, so Broadway is um it's kind of own set of issues, right?

This is where historically parking was removed.

We um, and not so long ago, right?

This idea that that's got to be this through through street, this thoroughfare, get traffic through the downtown, um, trying to pull back on that, trying to make it a more friendly place for people to spend some time, um, giving places like cafes the opportunity for outdoor seating where people can actually sit and appreciate the area.

Um, and yet also have um, you know, have that transit available um for bus traffic in particular right now.

The link BRT is planned to become second street and then down third.

Um, but future additions to it may change, may bring it on Broadway.

Um, other bus uh service lines are going to, sorry, other bus routes are going to change as we continue to grow and change.

Um, so Broadway could continue to be this thoroughfare and include more transit, um, but also include more amenity space or comfort items to um to allow people to really sort of spend time there.

And it could change during different times of the day.

And that's really part of what um what they wanted to make the point with with this is that you know, you can use it for transit in the evening.

You can use those extra lanes for parking.

This is where the parking configuration comes in.

If we use, if we keep two lanes open for traffic at some hours, um, you won't be able to have angled parking because there's just not enough width without really shrinking the sidewalks, right?

So it's figuring all those out.

Um, and it's looking across the district and across the downtown to accommodate these things on the different streets.

So these help to sort of see like what the change offs might be, the trade-offs might be.

Um, again, just images of Broadway Avenue, um, and then First Avenue.

And again, here um we know that we need to have uh um some reestablish some bike routes through downtown, north south, um, with bold forward on bound that is being dislocated, dislocated, I was gonna say relocated from where the bike route used to be on um, sorry, third and no fourth and fifth, um, and figuring out where those go.

First Avenue has been discussed as one route, and these images show how that could be accommodated, um, both as an interim sort of trial, um, and also eventually if that's the the location, the route that's selected permanently.

Um, and then again, just the different views of that.

So understanding some of those trade-offs.

Um and then looking at the alleyways.

And this is a concept that's been talked about for quite a few years and different projects have happened to kind of get this started.

Um, but this plan really, you know, picks this kind of football up and runs with it again.

This idea that we have these um, in particular north-south routes that come through the district, and you can have a sort of a whole different experience if you use these alleyways for small businesses, um, for you know, little pocket parks.

Um, people within the district have kind of came up with this and have started to do it.

And this plan really is um trying to uh adopt that and formalize it as something that um that the city is supporting, the community, you know, is supporting.

Quick question on that.

Um, it was also brought up at the council meeting uh that we don't have a city art department.

Um, so what I didn't hear though is who would likely be responsible for that portion of the vision under our current departmental configuration.

Would that be something that falls to you?

So I currently do some of that activity as part of my urban design and when it's in the historic area, if it's uh with the historic building, like with the chateau, we've done some projects.

Um city administration has folks who work on this.

Um, many of the DMC um people who are project managers um that work for both the city and DMC have worked on projects.

So it's been really project-based instead of sort of public art, one individual or person.

Um, DMC has um has kind of carried several projects um and carried the weight of several projects working with the city, other art organizations, um, the art center, um, Threshold Arch with Arts, which is a nonprofit downtown, um, have all played roles in this.

So it's been a little bit of piecemeal, but that's how that's how it's been happening.

The the reason I ask my concern would be uh we've also discussed at length that we would love to have more of your time here on the HPC.

And while this could be pertinent to the district, um, I would be disappointed to see more time potentially diverted towards that if we don't have a different departmental configuration or outside agency that would be lined up.

So at this point you're saying we don't know necessarily other than the current piecemeal.

Yeah.

At this point, we we look for a champion or a leader when we have a project and that can fall within any of those um departments or organizations that I mentioned.

Okay.

Any other questions, commissioners?

Okay, you have the floor again, coordinator Patterson Lungard.

Um, so the art alleyways, looking at some options and um, you know, how do we kind of continue to make these alleyways special and part of the district and uh an area that can help us meet some of our goals um with you know providing public spaces for people to spend time, um, some good images.

These are fun places if you, you know, for those of us who travel and have seen um have had the opportunity to see some of these um more locally, um, it's kind of ebbed and flowed, but City of Northfield, which isn't that far away, actually has done some of this along the river and some of the sort of walkways towards the river.

Unfortunately, when the Archer House, the Archer House, I think, um burned down a few years ago, like a lot of that sort of fell by the wayside.

But there are some more local um efforts, you know, that you can see in other communities and historic communities, Winona, Wabishha has done um some work on this.

So um, and then they started to really dig into okay, what are the actual elements that we're talking about?

And pretty careful not to pick a specific at this point.

This isn't a specific palette, like these, this is the bench that you have to use, right?

We're still not at that point.

We want to leave it open enough.

Um, but that these are the types of things that we're looking at, sort of, you know, and and if you look at um the top right, the lighting, are we looking at more of an auto-oriented lighting, right?

Where it's that kind of cobra head that provides lighting for traffic going through.

Are we looking at a pedestrian-oriented light?

Um, which is also shown probably all of it, but as we start to fill in that palette of what we're doing to keep those things in mind, and it's going to then pertain to how we're designing that those corridors.

Um, and then the implementation strategy, and um we don't have it here in the presentation, but you will see some numbers in the plan.

Um, one of the things that we wanted to be really careful not to do, right?

Because we don't know when these will get added to capital improvements or when grants or or maybe DMC money will be used.

We don't know how far out we are for that.

Um, those are today's numbers given the best estimate given a broad overview.

So as we get closer, right?

Assuming that city council, assuming that the community that you are embracing these ideas, we've got some numbers.

We start to plug those into the budget a couple years out.

And um, and then that's where we get the funding from, or at least some of the funding.

Um, and I'm not really prepared to dig into the numbers, although again, that is in your plan document that you got.

Um, and if there are specific questions, I can, you know, do research and get back to you.

But I have one very quick one.

So implementation, um, just to potentially alleviate some of the concerns in the community.

Uh, this again is a very broad overview vision document.

This isn't happening tomorrow.

What timeline would implementation look like should this be something that we choose to pass on?

Yep, yep.

So 2026, we're on the budget that was adopted last fall for 2026.

Um, I believe this is a midpoint year, right?

We do the budget in biannual.

I think it's biannual every other year, right?

Where we we set new priorities.

Um, so capital improvements probably won't be established until um, and I apologize.

I actually had this figured out and now I can't remember.

I think it wouldn't be decided on in 2027 and probably not implemented until 2028.

If it's right, and we're talking about the bigger street projects, um, the really sort of bigger projects.

That doesn't mean that we can't start to do some artwork interpretation um types of projects, test some things out, look for grants to do some of those things, um, some pilot programs, that type of thing sooner.

Thank you.

Okay, I don't hear any other questions or concerns.

So that is the end of the slides from last night and the end of what I was prepared to talk about with the vision plan.

If you do have additional questions that come up that you want to reach out to me, um, you know, if it's something that I think pertains to more than one commission member, I would do like a frequently asked questions kind of thing and get it out to all of you.

Um, but yeah, I think unless there's questions.

That's the end of that agenda item.

I'll give you just two more just so I can get them off.

I had a lot of phone calls and emails about this, so I'm trying to do justice to it all.

So uh page 17 mentions visit visitors to the district do not generally have access to public gathering spaces, uh, which I agree.

Um, but also uh public restrooms and water fountains.

Is that something that is being considered in this public realm visioning plan?

So we've had some discussion about it and it has come up.

Um, and I'm just gonna make a note because right, I don't think I have it.

Um we don't have like a good sort of public building, even a public like a resource for for restrooms.

Um water is another, right?

A what a drinking fountain is a possibility.

Um that actually starts to then sort of move into what we described as the private realm.

Maybe there's a building, maybe there's um, even if it's not like a city-owned building, maybe it's Rochester Downtown Alliance doing something.

Um, but yeah, that is something that oftentimes is considered in public realm.

I have to look into it, but I think I recall even the first public restroom was on that block.

I'm not sure, but it could be fitting.

Yeah.

Um, and then let's see.

Oh, yeah, another one uh kind of somebody threw this out as a hail mary here.

Uh, can the plan include the name of the district being changed?

It's really a lot to say Rochester's downtown commercial historic district every time we talk about it.

Um I think that would be very useful to have that in mind as we're thinking kind of still big picture.

That is where we started with the discussion back last summer.

Like what is what are we going to call this district?

And nothing stuck, which I I'm disappointed.

But we also wanted, we hoped that that would sort of organically happen.

And it didn't.

Um, and so we sort of moved on to other areas.

So if you have ideas, you know, let me know.

Um even ideas about how to kind of you know establish that.

Um, yeah, I I agree with that.

That's it's something that we actually really hoped we'd get through this and and didn't.

So thank you.

I don't have any other questions.

Commissioners.

Okay.

Thank you, coordinator Patterson Lunger.

That was a lot.

I appreciate it.

A lot.

Yep.

Um, this is 5B.

Sorry, I don't have B on there, but oh well, actually going back.

So I will say there was a recommendation for us to consider.

Um, go back here.

And I will just give opportunity to commissioners uh to consider recommending adoption um by the city council.

So do any commissioners have any motions they would like to make.

I'll make a motion that I'd recommend the city council receive the report.

Okay, we have a motion from Commissioner Poyer that City Council receive the report, seconded by Commissioner Tater.

Commissioner Poyer, uh anything you would like to add.

Commissioner Tater, anything to discuss.

Okay.

Uh any other council members.

Yes, Commissioner Schable.

Oh, I just wanted to make some comments generally about the plan.

I support passing this on to the city council.

This does cover a wide variety of uh city goals and public goals.

Uh I wonder if part of the confusion in the public, you know, not related to some of the reporting that's been done, but just the idea behind, well, public realm.

It's very easy to think about signage and sidewalks and art, but not necessarily we're gonna change the roads too.

So I'm wondering if that's where some of the public pushback is, is just not anticipating the scope of the project.

I agree with Commissioner Poyer that looking at those six takeaways of the public realm.

Our commission is to focus on the historic identity and the balance between preservation and modern needs.

And so something that's featured in here, and I would certainly like to see focused in the future is looking at that interpretive signage.

Yes, you're look up, yes, you're in the district right now.

Uh you know, having some affixed artwork or statues.

I love the portrait uh stands with the the signage, talking about here's what you're looking through.

Here's the history behind it.

I love the idea of having uh Mr.

Krieasel's signs out either in the district or in the waterfront district, might need to be a neat place for it too, but bringing that out into the public.

Uh so there's that's that's what makes this a historic district.

There's a lot of ideas about uh encouraging public spaces and vitality of the businesses, but to make this a historic district, we have to focus, or the city has to focus on celebrating these businesses and the history of Rochester.

And so you know, I hope that as this moves forward, we don't get so focused on the streets that we lose sight of why this was requested in the process is that we're celebrating a historic district.

Uh yeah when we're looking to find the balance between historic preservation and modern needs.

I think parking fits right in there.

So I know the city council apparently is very interested in our opinion on that.

At least my two cents is right.

A lot of that is outside of our view.

It's it's an engineering question, it's a safety question to the extent that it touches on the historic aspect.

Uh right, modern needs are very important to encourage a successful historic downtown requires people being able to be in those spaces, whether that's parking for uh you know, visiting some events or a business, we're having wider sidewalks so that you can you and your family can walk down the streets and go visit the shops without worrying that your child's going to fall up into the road.

Uh that's that's going to be a hard one.

And good luck to the council in figuring that piece out.

Uh, but I think there's some interesting ideas here.

I certainly think that um property owners should be involved and take advantage of any opportunities they have to make their voices heard.

Uh and I look forward to seeing what happens and commissioners, any other thoughts?

Um, I will just say so.

Specifically, the wording of this motion was that um you wanted city council to receive um the the um sorry to receive the downtown historic vision plan for the public realm um rather than recommending adoption.

Um I just want to be clear that that that was the wording.

Does anybody have any other questions concerning the motion before us?

And I will restate it again.

Um, Commissioner Poyer has motioned that city council receive uh the downtown his downtown historic district vision plan for the public realm.

Okay, with no further questions or discussion, we'll move on to a vote.

Um I think with this, I will call the role.

Give me one second here.

Commissioner Connell.

Oh sorry, we're gonna vote.

Uh aye, nay, or abstain.

Okay.

Uh I Commissioner Gandhi.

Hi.

Commissioner Kessler.

Aye.

Commissioner Mutchler.

Aye.

Commissioner Poyer.

Aye.

Commissioner Schable.

Aye.

Commissioner Tater.

I and Chair Votes I.

Unanimous.

Thank you.

Okay, now moving on to agenda item five B.

Which is committee formation, the annual award.

Coordinator Peterson Lungren, you have the floor.

Yes.

So um, Commissioners Astro, Chairs Astral, thank you for um reminding me after the packet got sent out that we specifically talked about this last month, and we did an update to make sure that we included this on the agenda.

So I did um I did provide you a drafted emotion.

I gave you kind of an overview of kind of how I was looking at it.

If you choose to, you know, re-establish or establish an awards program.

I think that you can do it in such a way where it really focuses on using that program for public engagement, right?

The award itself, asking for people nominations, however, you want to do that, um, I think could really fit strongly within the public engagement part of the the work that you do.

Um and that really again, that public engagement is intended to be, you know, recognizing history of different people and different um organizations and spaces within the community.

Um, and that kind of is all inclusive within when we talk about public engagement.

And then also the education aspect.

So once uh an awardee is identified and that information is sent out, um, provided outward to the public.

I think that that can be used as education as to whatever um, you know, the project or person is that's getting the award, project preservation or project person um organization, right?

So I think that it I think that you can do it in a way that fits um within that role that you have.

So I've drafted a motion.

Now I've underlined a couple words because I wasn't sure sort of exactly how you wanted to pursue this.

Um the motion that I've drafted for you is approving the formation of an ad hoc committee, um, which means that you know they may not meet every month or have a regular schedule, but um a committee.

And what I've said is to research and possibly re-establish an awards program.

I don't know if you want to sort of have the committee do that first step where they do some additional research, um, or if you want to have a committee that you know that's the intent, like just form the committee and get started.

Um so I think you can rephrase that if if you choose to.

Um, but I give that to you as a as a starting point.

Commissioners, any questions.

Okay.

At this point, um, I would invite a motion if anyone would like to make one.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the formation of an ad hoc committee to establish an awards program.

Oh psychic.

Okay.

We have a motion to approve the formation of an ad hoc committee to an to establish an awards program, second or made by Commissioner Poyer, seconded by Commissioner Connell.

Commissioner Poyer, any discussion?

Yeah, um the reason I chose uh establish was to kind of get to what the public commenter said of, you know, we're we're coming up on May that if we do want to do it for this year, we need to act um now essentially.

And I think our previous discussions, everyone was in favor of doing something.

So um, you know, I'd like the the ad hoc committee to to have the charge to do it and to come up with the right way to do that.

And we'll say I'm a little disappointed uh Commissioner Wasmer isn't here because I was going to nominate her to be a key part of that.

I think uh she has the kind of the best uh background to be a part of that committee, but uh I'll let that go for now.

So that's a lie.

Commissioner Connell.

Um nothing to add.

I just agree.

Any other discussion?

Um, I think uh I'll voice my thoughts here.

So we've been discussing this, and I I think it's a great idea at this point.

I've heard from one commissioner, uh, Commissioner Bodeker, who's not here tonight that he would uh love to be on a committee for me to support this after this many uh months of discussion.

I would really want to know that we have a second interested commissioner, um, especially because the way this would work is the chair is is to appoint uh committees, uh committee members.

So at this point, knowing um for sure only one commissioner, I would like to before voting for this know that there's at least a second person interested.

Otherwise, I'm going to have a very hard time um appointing one commissioner to a committee and then expecting them to do all that work.

So I guess I'll just share that before um we vote or move forward on this.

Okay, hearing none, we can move to a vote.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I I I guess I would back up your uh hesitation with without a second member um willing to volunteer for that, then that would probably change my vote as well.

So if we're if we're looking at a one-person committee, then then I think we're kind of at a standstill.

Commissioner Schable.

I'll say I'm I'm in support of the awards program.

Um unfortunately I I'm I'm spread it thin uh with personal and other uh obligations and wouldn't be able to volunteer.

Uh I think it might be appropriate to table this motion until the next meeting.

It other commissioners need time to think about uh whether they have sufficient time and interest in being involved to have uh Commissioner Wasmer here to see if she is able and willing to be part of this.

Uh so not something that oh, we're not forming it tonight.

We're never going to form it, but perhaps now is not the right time just uh based on current commission uh commissioners' abilities to take on the work.

Uh I do certainly like the idea and I think there's individuals and uh in the community certainly deserving uh recognition.

Thank you, Commissioner Shable.

Commissioner Poyer, thank you.

Uh Attorney Carlson, would it be um in order to amend my motion to say we want we'll establish this committee if X number of commissioners volunteer to do it?

Okay, yeah.

And then we the amendment vote on that amendment, and then we would remote.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

So what would you want your number to be?

Two members or three?

Um I couldn't support this without at least a second.

Uh-huh.

I mean, three would be great, but I I could be okay with two.

I yeah, with two, I would feel confident that it could be done.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'd like to offer an amendment to my motion that the committee only goes forward if two commissioners volunteer.

I'll uh go ahead and second that.

Okay, so we have a motion to amend.

Um forgive me if I uh don't recall the language exactly, but it was can you say in insert?

I guess can you tell me what language you want to insert where?

So the original motion is to approve the formation of an ad hoc committee to establish an awards program.

And at the end of that, the insertion is if at least two commissioners volunteer to serve on the ad hoc committee.

And commissioner Connell is your does your second stand?

Yes.

Okay.

So the motion before us is a motion to amend the original motion, approving the formation of an ad hoc committee to establish an awards program by inserting the language after that that says if at least two commissioners volunteer to be on the committee.

Do we have any other uh discussion or thoughts?

Okay, we'll move to a vote.

Um, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Nay.

Uh chair votes nay.

Uh any abstentions?

Okay, it passes uh with just one nay.

Um so now we are to the full motion being uh approving the formation of an ad hoc committee to establish an awards program if at least two commissioners volunteer on the ad hoc committee.

Any further discussion on the full motion before us.

Okay, we'll move to a vote.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Uh and chair votes aye.

Okay, passes unanimous.

All right.

Moving on.

We have no public hearings.

Um other business item seven.

Coordinator Patterson Lundgren.

Yeah, I don't have any um prepared updates for you, but certainly if there's some questions, we can um, you know, if I can answer them quickly, I will.

Otherwise, um I'll come back next month with some more updates.

Um, and then otherwise it's just looking at next month's meeting on the March 24th.

I have received two applications for certificates of appropriateness that I'm working um working on for you, and they came in sort of just right after the deadline.

I will just say Indian Heights we're looking at uh applying for the grant that is due in April um so you may see that actually come to the city council to make sure that they're okay with us applying for a grant haven't really been able to do anything more than that but that's all I've got for other business.

Thank you coordinator Patterson Lungren.

I have one and I know this week was kind of uh different because you had the council study session so I didn't get this to you in time but in update on our historic context committee I can provide that right now um you after I'm done feel free to add anything if you have um but we've had three brief monthly meetings uh slash digital touch points since the committee was formed we are trial running simple workflows that allow the intake of historic documents maps photos uh etc from volunteers to then be organized while basic information is noted and added to a running historic context document the goal is to create a working prototype uh uh yeah a working prototype of volunteer information gathering that will hopefully assist and add value to the work of coordinator Patterson Lundgren in the years to come while also enabling a more robust public engagement and education opportunity uh we're using a simple cloud-based folder system that's been set up for the file sharing uh we have begun uh by practicing the intake of files from the publicly available 2024 Lowertown Neighborhood Association history research project uh this project was done by neighborhood volunteers and offers a large amount of information and documentation to practice on that's already been gathered um so we chose this as a great low barrier to entry workflow uh trial run for the committee so uh in the future if if this is successful um what we're trying to figure out is how people can bring information in on a volunteer basis and have it be managed in a practical way um so most of the doc or okay roughly 100 documents have been added according to date most of the documents are from the 1800s or early 1900s including newspaper articles sandborne maps plat maps and aerial photographs of the streets and geographical area other documents include local authoritative historical publications scanned to PDF such as the 1866 history of Olmstead County by W.

H.

Mitchell the 1883 history of Olmsted and Winona counties the 1884 Olmstead the Garden County of Minnesota and Rochester uh by Edie String as well as the 1907 Book of Minnesota's 1910 history of Olmstead County by the honorable Joseph A Leonard and the 1924 souvenir of Rochester by Mrs.

J.R.

Willis we will continue testing our workflow and report back to the commission either in a few months uh as we've done now or if we have any substantial breakthroughs or progress before then we'll let you know.

But that's kind of the overview of what we are attempting to do on that committee and hopefully it's a fruitful endeavor in the the months and years to come.

Anything to add?

Nothing for me.

Okay it's great.

Commissioner Mutchler anything to add all right so with that we have um the history fact from Commissioner Kessler I apologize but I did not get it.

Okay we'll save it for next month.

I will have it for next month I apologize.

And then very last anything else from any uh commissioners all right all that's left would be uh I invite a motion to adjourn.

I move that we adjourn.

I second okay move to adjourn by Commissioner Poyer seconded by Commissioner Mutchler.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right we are adjourned.