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 Vice Mayor Thaler said adding that to the garage should absolutely be considered and put on whatever agenda we have to put it on to add to it. Whether it becomes a retail store or whether we here in City Hall have to expand and need areas to build additional offices, that would enhance the future of the City overall, and it would be a selling point in terms ofthe retail operation on top of the garage. On one of the other things mentioned, this park was designed for the south side of Sunny Isles Beach and he thinks the structure and the way it was laid out covers both sides of what has been said so far, and that was the initial thought of why we created the park where it is. It is a stand alone and it is for the people south of 16ih Street. He also believes that somewhere in there, and he knows you have the water park, or the additional area, there is so much space there that we can create an additional water park for the kids or for decorative purposes but he thinks on the far end we should put in something with water, he is looking at Heritage Park and it is the most used area in the park. Through the period of time that this has been on the agenda one of the things that did come up was a butterfly park, a small area creating certain types of foliage that the kids can go and look at it. There are different bushes and trees that will attract different butterflies and if we can put that in a corner, it would make it a more interesting park. Mr. Castifieira noted that we have a passive seating area here and that would be a beautiful area for it. Vice Mayor Thaler said we have to get people there, if you go on the far side of 167th Street there is almost no way for the people at the edge of the bridge to get to that park. We need a bridge from that area and it could hook right into the parking garage. He noted one of the renderings did have a bridge, and he remembers discussing it before for the front part ofthe park, he is now relating it to the back part of it, and he thinks it is more needed there to bring the people to the park to make it fully useful. Mr. Castifieira said they had already identified two points, at this corner and at the opposite side where there is an area, combination of a elevator tower and the stairs, and so that is something that they can look at. There are also some FPL power lines there and so we will have to look at that and restudy it. Vice Mayor Thaler said again if the Commission can look at that, he knows it wasn't discussed earlier, and know what the numbers are. He thinks it is something important to finish the Park and to make it useful to a large amount of individuals. Mr. Castifieira said they would do a cost study on that. Commissioner Gatto said that she had met earlier with Joe Milton and we have some wonderful parks in the City already in place, a lot ofthem are dedicated to children with play areas, as they should, but she was thinking that we have an opportunity here to do something more in line for adults. We were talking about some ideas like a facility if people want to do a over the top wedding, band shell there for concerts, maybe an event like wine tasting, really just save this area for a certain kind of event that the City wants to put on that appeals to young professionals. We talked about maybe an Art Basel or mini-Art Basel, and your signs are so beautiful, and that kind of aesthetics appeals to her. She thinks it could be something more sophisticated and elegant for adults. Mayor Edelcup said that one of the things you could consider, as they were discussing before, the garage has the ability to put on a top floor, there has been a prime need in this City for a catering hall or banquet hall. There have been people asking for a museum type of thing, and we talked about it with Cultural and Human Services Director Susan Simpson. A lot of times we try to have events outside and we get rained out, it would be nice to have an 7