2012-0119 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting January 19,2012 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida SF. Presentation on Gateway Park by 4M Investors, LLC. (Deferred from 12/15/11) Action: [City Clerk's Note: Joe Milton handed out a set of renderings.] Cliff Schulman, Esq., representing 4M Investors, LLC. reported in July 2011 this Commission approved the Design/Build Agreement for a parking garage and park at Gateway Park as well as a Ground Lease to allow the development of the eastern end ofthe Park for potential retail restaurants. Tonight they will brief you on where they are on that project, and their attempts to get a retail vendor to come in with a restaurant. They have been unsuccessful with that but would like to give the Commission some options to consider about the future use and development of the Park. They had six months to locate that vendor, otherwise they would lose their lease which they have lost but that doesn't mean that you are not going to get a Park. Public Speakers: Cliff Schulman, Esq.; Joe Milton; Eduardo Castifieira; Barry Miller; Joe Milton said what they thought would be a commercial oppOliunity proved to be a commercial improbability. They found Annette Klein O'Brady who specializes in bringing restaurant operators to locations. They showed her the location and the renderings, and she immediately brought up a concern of where to drop off people, dropping them in the rear doesn't work, they need to be dropped off in the front. Joe Milton told her that we can't do that, it is impossible with Sunny Isles Boulevard traffic. They suggested dropping them off or parking at the parking garage and then walk over but Ms. O'Brady did not like that idea, and that they are looking for mall foot traffic. They reached out to other restaurants such as Carrabas and Outback but their representatives did not like the location because there was no foot traffic. The location is too important to have a temporary status as it is a true gateway into the City and so they came up with a new proposal. Eduardo Castifieira, Architect President/CEO ofAxioma3Architects, presented renderings of the proposed project. He pointed out that they are now focusing on the parking garage in a much more refined way, now that the facility is not there and there is more park there, we have a challenging situation. When the facility was there, the park element or the great lawn as we called it, created a much smaller space between the building and the parking garage. When you do a building all the foundations needs to be buried, you are excavating that fill and using it in other areas ofthe site. Personnel are now running numbers and calculating all of these things, by eliminating the building we don't have those excavations any more because we don't have foundations. We are now left with a site that is two feet under, and we need to fill it up level with the sidewalk on either side of the park, otherwise you will start having problems with the drainage, flooding, etc. As they changed the design, they started to do a couple of things in two different areas. One area encompasses the parking garage, a plaza, and the beginnings of the park, and the second area is the balance of the park. Eduardo Castifieira showed several renderings of the project including a sculptural treatment, a sculptural wall, redesign of the restrooms and elevators, and noted that this wall will also create a line of vision for security. The best way for security is to make the parking garage open in the sense that you can see in, as you are getting offthe elevator you are overlooking the park and looking towards Collins Avenue. On the side that faces Sunny Isles Boulevard, there was a need to close off the parking structure from view so that the cars are not visible. One of the ideas of Landscape Architect Barry Miller was to berm the front lawn area ofthe parking garage so there is a linear strip of lawn to berm it up four (4) feet to a retaining wall 4