Excelsior City Briefs: Business News, Parking Policy Updates and More

The of one Excelsior business has opened the way for another to expand.

will take over and renovate the building space that formerly occupied. The restaurant will seat 68, double the capacity of its current location at 28 Water Street.

At the first city council meeting of 2012, the council approved Yumi Kim’s designs for the building and the conditional use permit for six parking spaces in accordance with the parking impact fee.

“I’m excited about it,” Councilman John Olson said.

Parking

After a slew committe and commission appointments to committees, the city council dug into parking issues last week.

Scott Richards, city planner, gave a summary of a downtown parking capacity study carried out from May through December of 2011. Richards suggested that the data shows that there are about 200 to 400 parking spaces available through the parking impact fee. Currently there are 51 spaces available as determined from a 2002 study.

Mayor Nick Ruehl maintained that the city should not make so many parking spaces available that parking spills into residential areas. He wanted to look deeper into the data before making any decisions.

“My take away is that there are more than 51 parking spaces, which means more revenue potentially for the city,” Councilwoman  Jennifer Caron said.

Eventually the council agreed to make 70 parking spaces available for the next few months while the council studies the issue further. They plan to discuss it at a future work session.

The council then turned to the cost of the parking impact fee, which currently stands at $1,500 per space annually. As a parking impact fee applicant, Caron recused herself from the discussion.

“$,1500 is a lot to make off the businesses that we champion,” Olson argued.

Retail businesses appear to have greater difficulty affording the fee than restaurants, Miller noted. As an audience member, Caron spoke on the need for balance in Excelsior between restaurants and retailers.

The council agreed to ask city staff to look into the matter further. They plan to discuss the fee at the Jan. 17 city council meeting.

Kristi Luger, city manager, gave an update on the that occurred shortly before Christmas. She said that the fine portion of the ticket in question was $42, and she did not know how much of that amount went to the city.

The council felt they could do nothing more about the past. In the future, however, the city will instruct the police department to issue tickets to first time offenders—warnings cannot be tracked—and tow repeat offenders of the parking regulations. At present, the police department is issuing warnings until instructed otherwise. The council also plans to better notify residents of parking regulations, such as through the city website.

More council meeting notes:

• Water utility rates will increase 5 percent, surface water utility rates will increase 10 percent and residential dock rates will increase 2.3 percent.
• Mediacom has resolved the issues a resident brought to the council on Dec. 19, Miller said. A Mediacom representative would likely not come to a city council meeting, he added. Residents can report future serious problems with the company to the city manager.
• Miller thanked the for their hard work at the on Monday.
• Arctic Fever organizers will discuss what activities to offer in lieu of no snow. Updates will appear on Arcticfever.net.
• The mayor mentioned that he attended the at Lake Minnetonka. Though he did not jump in, he enjoyed the event. “Excelsior is the ice dive capital of the world,” he declared with a grin.