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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1994-12-22 (2)MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1994 CIVIC t_.rrr fret COUNCIL CHAMBER 2:30 P.M. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I. CALL TO ORDER Mayor/Chairman Crites convened the meeting at 2:30 p.m. H. ROLL CALL Present: Councilmember/Member Jean M. Benson Councilman/Member Richard S. Kelly Mayor Pro-Tempore/Vice Chairman Walter H. Snyder Councilman/Member S. Roy Wilson Mayor/Chairman Buford A. Crites Also Present: Bruce A. Altman, City Manager Carlos L. Ortega, ACM/Director of Redevelopment David J. Erwin, City Attorney Sheila R. Gilligan, City Clerk/Public Information Officer Ramon A. Diaz, ACM/Director of Community Development Richard J. Folkers, ACM/Director of Public Works Paul Shillcock, ACM//Director of Economic Development Catherine Sass, Community Arts Manager III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT 14.0.re. Y ii JG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * .* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * IV. OLD BUSINESS A. PROGRESS REPORT ON SECTION 4 AND GENERAL DIRECTION FOR FUTURE STEPS. THE FOLLOWING IS A VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT Kra LT Larry Thrall LR Lon Rubin RSK Councilman Richard S. Kelly BAC Mayor Buford A. Crites WHS Mayor Pro-Tempore Walter H. Snyder KR Ken Ryan SRW Councilman S. Roy Wilson MH Mike Hurdzan JH Jim Hogan KA Ken Allen JMB Councilmember Jean M. Benson CS Community Arts Manager Catherine Sass LT We wanted to give the Council an update on the status of our work on the North Sphere project. Portions of the Council are kept well apprised and that's because we have weekly meetings of the Council's Section 4 Committee. But it is appropriate that we give everybody an overview and that members of the public have a chance to hear about it too. As you're aware, we've been working on it for many months. We have here all of our planning team, which we'll introduce in a little while. They'll each give you a briefing on the aspects of the project they have responsibility for. With the certification of the EIR on November 16th, we really began to pick up a lot of momentum and we have been concentrating on getting the major pieces of the transaction together. The major ingredients on that are really the relationship with Marriott, because the things that you're seeing here today, particularly economic development, is really based on the portion of it that has to do with Marriott. There's a considerable amount of additional land left around the project, but the values or possibilities of that really haven't been analyzed or focused on at this point. We're really focused on what we can get accomplished with Marriott. In the past few weeks, well many months, but the past few weeks in particular, we've been in heavy negotiations with Marriott's in conjunction with the City Manager and with the RDA, and we're now scheduled to meet with them on the 6th of January. And we really hope we're at the 2 M ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF T'SE PALM DESERT CITY -COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * •* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * point...(unclear)...and that major element of it, we think, has made some very good progress. We've also had some other studies done that looked at things like the feasibility of the golf course, the City course, and we'll share a little of that with you and some of the overall fiscal impacts of it. I'm one of the partners of Palm Desert Golf Partners; Lon Rubin, who most of you have seen before, is another partner and George Ceithaml is one of the others. I'd like Lon to give you a little more of the detail on the current status of it. Then we'll walk through a little bit of the legal structuring and the economic facts of it. Those things can be fairly general because they're not done yet. But we can give you a picture of what it means and what we think the general thrust of it is. Then we'll introduce members of the planning team and ask them to give you highlights on where we are on the various aspects of the development itself. Please ask questions at any time during the process. We're all here to try and communicate to you what's going on, so we want to be sure that any question that comes to your mind, just interrupt the process and ask. We're going to try to organize it so there's time left over at the end also. LR Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council: I enclosed in today's information a letter that I received yesterday from Marriott which I would just like to read because it underscores the current situation. "Dear Lon, I would appreciate it if you would convey the thoughts expressed in this letter to Bruce Altman, Carlos Ortega and members of the Palm Desert City Council. Certainly, it has taken considerable effort by each of us to get into position to jointly develop the North Sphere Project. With the environmental impact report now completed, we can move forward with a great deal more speed than we have in the past. We are prepared to meet with PDGP right after the first of the year to resolve any outstanding issues and complete the contracts. Our intention would be to pursue a time table that would have the golf course construction in the summer of 1995 and our sales of Desert Springs III underway in late fall of 1995. This is an aggressive schedule, but one I am sure you agree we can achieve. A concern of the City's might be that Marriott is approaching the Desert Springs III Project primarily to block competition and that we might not attack the sales and marketing aggressively. Lon, you and I have discussed several ways to comfort the City on this issue. I can assure you from a financial and marketing prospective, MORI can only afford to put its best foot forward on any project in which is it involved. Palm Desert has been the site of our most successful project and our intention with the North Sphere Project is to aggressively expand on that success I am sorry that commitments here in Florida precluded my ability to attend your December 22, 1994 meeting. I am looking forward to getting together with you early in January to complete the contract and move forward into development." 3 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT 14it.,6tiiiG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * .* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * We have a meeting scheduled for the 4th of January and we expect that as a result of it, we will have negotiations that will be satisfactory to your City Manager and your staff, and we can then instruct the City's attorneys to begin preparing the DDA, which would be the disposition agreement for the sale of the property from the Redevelopment Agency to Marriott. Concurrently, we are working with your staff and with the City's attorneys on two other agreements. One would be an agreement between our organization, Palm Desert Golf Partners, and the City wherein we would be paying the City approximately 4.3 million for the development rights to the section; and the other agreement would be a co -development agreement whereby we and the Redevelopment Agency would enter into a co -development agreement with the City of Palm Desert. We expect that the first day after that agreement has been promised to us, to the City and to us,by New Years Eve, and we have set for ourselves a fairly aggressive schedule of being able to be in a position to come and request project approval first before the Planning Commission and then before the City Council, hopefully in late February or early March. The purpose of this study session is to expand the knowledge base, both at the City Council level and at the community level. We've been working very closely with members of the Section 4 Committee but we've been prohibited by State law from having more than 2 councilmembers on that committee. We have been working with various elements in the City staff - Public Works, Art in Public Places,etc., - but this will be the forum now that our development concept plan has been, not only submitted but Ray Diaz has indicated that it meets with his approval, and therefore we will be in a position to move forward with it. We want to get the community input on, not only the business aspects, but also on all the planning aspects. I just want to say one last thing on the business aspect, I've also put it in your packet, a replica of this blue chart. This blue chart is not meant to be exact with respect to the net dollar benefits to the City/RDA, but is really just to represent a trend line, an approximation, or what the agreement just with Marriott Corp would mean to the combined City/RDA if it proceeded along the fashion of the state that it's in now. We will be fine-tuning it. We will have more negotiations. There are things more we want to get for ourselves, and when I say ourselves I mean us and the City because we have a joint interest in that, but I did want to give some feeling of what the financial results are projected to be under the Marriott agreement. LT Let me just remind you what sort of the strategy is and the basic elements of how the deal has been put together. We looked at the situation with Marriott where they're enormously successful with their time share across the street, but they need more golf to continue that. We saw the opportunity to provide them with that but wanted to structure it in a way that accomplished a couple of economic goals. One is, the day the transaction closes, Marriott is going to make a significant financial commitment which we think is very important. They're going to write a check for 5 million dollars and buy some of the land. The way we've structured it is, there's a portion of the proceeds that are received by the City and by the entire partnership are the proceeds of sale of 600 pads for time share units. In addition to that, we have structured it so that the time share units each are obligated to continue to pay an annual use fee for the amenities being created here. So the income is in 4 MNUITS _ ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY —COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * *•* * * * * * * * * .* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * the form of cash for purchase of land, then an ongoing annuity which is a use fee that applies to each individual unit. That allows the City to create ongoing long term income, not just immediate recovery of the capital. The other major ingredient to what's being done here is that we're going to be selling, through Marriott, memberships in the golf course, the south golf course. This is all just related to the south golf course, which we sometimes call the resort course. By selling memberships in the golf course, we're able to recapture a substantial amount of the investment in that course over relatively a short period of time. In addition to that, there are annual dues paid to the golf course so it builds us a very strong base of operating income. We've spent a lot of time and effort on that issue with Marriott and we and Marriott feel very confident now that we have designed a golf course membership package which is very attractive and... RSK Are you taking questions as we go along? One of my questions would be when you say we're going to sell golf memberships to the time shares, does that mean they choose to buy the membership or not buy the golf membership? LT Optional RSK Optional. Then if they don't buy it then what are their playing privileges? LT They have none other than what any member of the public would have. RSK So, the time share...even though they own a time share, if they don't buy that membership, their rights are no different... LT That's right. And from a marketing standpoint, Marriott feels they want to offer this opportunity once, which is at the time they purchase the time share unit and so if they fail to exercise that privilege, it's not afforded to them again. RSK Why would they not want to offer it later? LT They're worried. They've run out of golf for their existing owners. So you come back and we can only offer a fraction of the number of memberships.... RSK Is it also the intention to sell them to the time shares on the south side of Country Club? LT That's correct. We'll allocate them throughout the entire project. RSK South side, north side, both? 5 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT Mt.�iuNTG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND Awj * r i .OPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *..* * * * * * * * * * * * *.* * * * * * LT Exactly, so it's a percentage and the percentage is probably going to be less than...(unclear)..the owners being able to buy golf memberships. RSK Less than how many? LT Less than 50. But we have to save them so we can still use them to help sales on each side of the street. Another key ingredient has been... RSK One more question I guess. If they sell one on the north side of Section 4, then it's more of a benefit to us than if they sell one on the south side. So therefore, since we're providing the golf course shouldn't there be something there to compensate us for selling one of those memberships, an incentive for them to sell on the south side of the street versus... LT That's why we're offering a limited number. And there's a blessing and a curse attached to it because by virtue of the fact they have been so successful on the south and that they're sold somewhere over 12,000-14,000 time share weeks, that we have the immediate ability to get a body of golfers and a body of members and their one-time initiation fees so that it will initially make the golf course successful. RSK What happened to...at one time we talked about as soon as we were ready to go on the north side that they stop selling on the south side and would sell on the north side first. LT That is the point that was mentioned in the letter that we're having some further negotiations with. RSK They haven't agreed to that yet? LT What they've agreed to is, initially they wanted to finish selling on their side before they came to our side and they have agreed, and now they want to, start selling the north side immediately. They wish to be in sales... RSK But they're not obligated to? LT No, they're obligating themselves to do that. They're going to put in their sales center. They're going to build the units and they're going to go into sales. What they're proposing at this point is that they will have a product on the north side of the street that is different from the south side of the street. It's going to be about 1200 square feet in size as opposed to 1400. RSK We might not want to offer a golf membership on the south side until we're sold out on the north side. 6 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT iVir z i its v OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s•s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s LT Well, as Lon was saying, it's certainly one of the things we have to continue to balance. But you have to remember, the cash flow aspects of it are very attractive. What we're trying to do is allocate a certain number to the south side and save the number we need to the north. But the south would sell out immediately and it's nice to get .a lot of money back in. But those are the issues that they're coming to town for us to try and resolve. But the current state is that they want to build and will commit to do so on the north side of the strut immetiiat4ly, which is a very positive thing compared to where they were. The product is going to be different in that it's going to be cheaper and smaller and we like that. We think that they believe, and we believe, that will be their stronger selling product. But, all of our economic analysis is based on what we think that will result in. RSK But you really didn't want to use the word cheaper, did you? LT No compromise in quality - a greater value....I stand corrected on that. So the Marriott thing remains the key economic force here and we've made lots of progress on a golf package we're very comfortable with. We're not done, but there's a real urgency on their part which never existed before because they truly want to have units for sale in November and December. RSK Well, you heard what my concern was..I don't know if my fellow Councilmembers have the same concern or not. LT Well, there's a balancing act that will take place here and certainly some of those are the issues. But we want to be sure we have enough golf memberships to generate sales on the north side and we'll watch over that carefully. Lon has outlined for you that the basic structure of the deal we're trying to do here is one that provides for our partnership and the redevelopment agency as co -developers. It's an unusual structure, one that staff feels provides important elements from their standpoint, so that's what we're proceeding with. We're trying to design it so that the City gets direct benefit, as opposed to just the RDA. One of the elements is that we pay, our partnership pays you, a development fee of 4.3 million as our consideration for moving forward. The basic economics of our deal are that the RDA puts in money and we put in money and you take the percentages that those represent of the total cost, and we share together in the proceeds of the project all through the proper legal structure until all that money has been returned, and an 8% priority return has been paid to us for our capital and the City for its capital. After that's been returned, then we are the developers receive an additional 20% of the profits as our incentive. So those are the major elements and we're in discussion with the RDA people for a long time and now we're getting down to the documentation of it, and of course it will all be subject to your final approval. Those are, I think, the major highlights and in the booklet you can get a little more feel of the detail of it, but I think it will come through to you that the keys are that the Marriott is 7 MINUTEST ADJOURNED JOINT Anr ziiidG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * very committed and put in a lot of money, and that we have a combination of money on the sale of land and money from an ongoing use fee which satisfies a lot of goals of the City, and the sale of the golf packages as an extra element where we're able to recover a lot of the costs of the golf packages and again, have a very unusually strong and reliable income stream for the golf course. Those are our economic outlines. LR I'd like to make one other comment before we turn our attention to the planning aspects; that is, we have engaged the firm of William Sherman Company who is a reputed golf course market research analyst company on the West Coast. They have just completed their market study of the City's championship course because we know that with the Marriott we have sufficient revenues to justify building the resort course. But we wanted to get an independent view of the viability of building the City's tournament championship course, either simultaneously or in tandem. I included in your packet a one -page excerpt from the report which has been in your packet which suggests that sufficient demand does exist to construct both the resort course and the City course simultaneously. A cost savings of somewhere between 15 % - 20% would be achieved by being able to contract out with an independent golf course contractor on the two portions at the same time. If you are a student of golf in the valley, and of what courses charge, we feel that if anything the report tends to be somewhat conservative in its view of comparing comparable courses to what can be achieved in the City's Section 4 course. BAC How will fees for members of the public differ between the two courses? LR The fees for the public course will be determined by the City. BAC What about on the other one? LR Because there will be always a certain number of tee times available even on the resort course for the public, because of the public nature of your financing. It would be our intention, but because it would be a very small number percentage of the total, we think from a marketing standpoint whereby one company is managing both facilities, that they would be comparable. That our pricing would be a tag -along to your pricing. BAC Is there something in the agreement that the number of public rounds on the Marriott course being very large. LR No, there's nothing in the agreement per se, but projections BAC I understand. There could be, though, if we wanted that. If Marriott doesn't sell this damn stuff, we've got two courses in competition with each other. LR I see what you mean. 8 MINUTES _ ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BAC I don't care if they take ....(unclear)..on it. LR The answer is, we would not tie ourselves up with that. We would not prohibit our flexibility of dealing with, of going out if Marriott ... (unclear)... the course. BAC I'm not sure we're on the same target yet. LR I think your question is a very good one. BAC It's one that we talked about yesterday for awhile. LR I think that first, in all cases, while they're selling their memberships we are going to be in a situation of trying to sell both golf courses. We're not going to lock up rounds which are not sold and can't be used. If there aren't members to play, we are entitled to go out and find other outside play. We've only done it in terms of estimated play that we think we can get on those courses from the public only, overflow from the• hotel and the time share owners. A little bit of it is we would have to show you our assumptions on rounds of play on the resort course and you'd have to look at assumptions and the way they are calculated on rounds of play on the City course. We started out with pretty modest assumptions. It really is one of °the other reasons we want to sell a fair number of memberships as quickly as we can to the south side owners to begin to build our stable base of income play. Those are all at this point in the form of assumptions in our program. BAC I'm just saying...be aware at some point we're going to look very carefully at the way this could come back and bite us. LR I think that is a very valid point. We will get that more clearly in mind. The way we've done it so far, is try to be very careful and conservative in our estimated rounds of play, but we'll reconsider that. BAC We have to be very careful. You're going to present this to us after Scrooge is gone and LR Mr. Supervisor, we'll come and present it to you too and make you sign off on it. Well, we will continue to...that's a point we will focus on more carefully. We have focused on it, but only in the sense that I just described. The only other comment I'd make is that with respect to the Southwest Museum, our discussions continue with Southwest and we are encouraged by those discussions in this sense. We've concluded that the great ambition we had initially is probably not doable. On the other hand, we and the museum have talked at some considerable length and they're going to come out again for one of our study sessions. It can be done if done in phases and they are very...I share their optimism about that....the real world of what money can be raised and what can't is something considerably smaller than what we originally dreamed of. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but it's going to be a long term project so we're going to be presenting first to the Section 4 Committee and then 9 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT Mr.x..autIG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * .* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * to the Council for all of your consideration that kind of approach. We think now we're in touch with reality, where before maybe it was a great idea but like a lot of great ideas, you can't get money for them. So that is still, in my opinion that is more alive than it was a few months ago. BAC Have you had any discussions with the Desert Museum in any way in terms of a arrangement within a facility with Southwest and also some presence for them that they would contribute to and so on. LR No, but we have had a discussion of the idea of trying to create around the Southwest Museum, an opportunity for other facilities out here to be able to have a little sample of what they have because we do have the highest tourist count in the valley right across the street. So we have though, maybe even with the Living Desert, we would try to solicit some cooperation. The Southwest Museum is sensitive to what some of the local Native American tribes are looking at doing, so they're trying to work in cooperation and help support them technically and that sort of thing. But, I think it can be a very good thing to have something there that offers the opportunity for people to see the other similar attractions. But, we're encouraged by that and will be reporting on that further. WHS Any further contact with the Bishop people? LR I talked to them within the last few weeks, Councilman Snyder. I asked Oswald Stender, who has just succeeded as Chairman of Bishop, that if he could find some time he's over here on a relatively regular schedule, to come visit that I thought it would be very important that we all sit down and look at the possibilities for that second half of their project. I know he's very receptive to trying to figure out someway to work together on this. Whether that means they'll write a big check for it or not... WHS I talked to them last week. LR Oh, did you? And how did that go? WHS Same story. LR I know he's very supportive and interested in it. I think that's encouraging. WHS I didn't feel exhilarated in talking to him. LR Well, I think they want to come to talk about it. But, let me not be facetious about it, no, I don't think they are likely to be putting in significant financial contribution to it. WHS Not like they originally talked about. 10 MINUTES _ ADJOURNED JOINT 1V,r r,iu�1G OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * « * * * * * * * * « * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * LR No, but they may, in my opinion, they may very well want to consider some joint planning effort on it; or they may want to consider something where there's a that they might consider donating the land on their side of the street, but I don't see them putting in substantial amounts of money. LT If there's no other discussion on the business plan, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce our bevy of consultants. It's like a Twelve Nights of Christmas. Joe (name unclear), Engineer; Fred Yoshimura is our Irrigation Consultant; Ken Allen, Architect; Mike Dody and Ken Ryan from PVR, our Planners; Mike Hurdzan, Golf Course Architect; Jim Hogan and Eric Johnson, our Landscape Architects. I'd like to turn the session over to Ken, who has been the master planner and will give you an overview and then let each one of the specialty consultants give you some information. Be free to interrupt at any time and ask any questions. KR Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council: First let me say and reiterate, this is a workshop kind of a forum today so if you do have any questions as we go through the presentations, please feel free to jump in and ask. We are certainly very pleased to be here and have an opportunity to present to you the progress that we've made on the plan to date. This is our seventh workshop in formulating the development concept plan document. What I thought we'd do, particularly recognizing and knowing we've got a lot of ground to cover in a fairly short period of time, what we thought we'd do is try to summarize the key elements of the development concept plan today, go through that and answer some questions; and receive any comment you might have relative to the document. We're intending to go through that. We've got our key consultants here that make up the project team to go through (break to change tape) with Ray Diaz, obviously, and the Planning Department have gone through and prepared the document with the intent this would be presented to the City for zoning and general plan amendment and entitlement approval in conjunction with the project. So that is a brief overview. What I thought we'd do is just move through. We do have an agenda today to highlight those key elements and go through the plan and highlight the various aspects of the project and the progress we've made to date. I am going to be kind of brief in terms of the key elements. I think most of us are probably familiar with that, but we'll highlight that and then come back with the various team members later in our presentation. It includes two golf courses, a north course and south course. The north course is laid out in design to provide for a tournament event type golf experience. You don't see a lot of product on it, you see open space and golf and that's essentially how it's laid out to date. The south course is more of a resort course. It involves the Marriott, which we've had some discussions here, Marriott time shares located in this location and then here. Both courses, and throughout the entire project, one of the key principles that we want to incorporate into 11 MENUTES ADJOURNED JOINT 111r461101G OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND rir .fr. v r.uOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * the thought process about laying out what we envision as a showcase resort master plan, is that relationship between the courses and the various development uses within the project is what we really wanted to key in on. We've focused on that in terms of all the elements we're going to talk about today; in terms of land planning, grading, community design, landscape architecture and architecture. Within the heart of the project we've got three primary usages - a shared clubhouse facility, a luxury hotel site, and our conference center. That the focal point of what we view is the heart of the project and the center of the site. I mentioned briefly the Marriott timeshare which is located in this location here for a number of reasons - proximity to the Marriott Desert Springs Resort Hotel just south of Country Club Drive, access both in terms of to the right and to the left of what we envision as the primary prominent entry to the project provides for convenient access and phasing of that project. There is also access on Portola and we've worked of course with the fire department to insure emergency access to the heart of the project in this location as well. So we feel that its been advantageous to maximize some of the existing infrastructure that's in place already and one of the key features of this project is our primary entry and prominent roadway that comes into the project. We've had a lot of fun in developing a grading concept that creates what we think is something extremely ..(unclear)..and adds some exclusivity in terms of entering the project surrounded by golf and undulating over, both horizontally and vertically, so that on arriving into the project, you view the golf, you view the heart of the project with the hotel and the clubhouse setting in the center of the project. This roadway is also...the concept takes advantage of the access to Cook as well. One of the other elements in the project is the theme retail site located in the proximity of Country Club Drive and again, our primary access point, this is a conceptual layout which blows that up and the intent is to provide for the Marriott sales pavilion building in a location here; and again, maximizing the relationship of development uses with the golf course in the project. The golf is located in this manner, flexibility relative to Southwest Museum but also focusing on specialty retail, upscale restaurant and specialty uses and our architect is going to talk about that flavor and what we envision for that site as well. Also located in the project, a 9 1/2 acre office and professional use that we think makes a lot of sense in this location because of the compatibility adjacent to the nursing home as well as the church and proximity to Country Club. We also have low rise hotel sites located primarily to take advantage of the access opportunity from Frank Sinatra Drive and Cook Street, and recognizing important landscape features and set back and character in terms of the architecture. We'll talk a little bit more later this afternoon about what we envision for that as well. One of the things we've incorporated in our thoughts also in terms of the project is to take advantage not only internally in maximizing the use of golf carts within the project, but also takes advantage of the opportunity to tie that in with the City in plans of golf cart access. All of these documents are included in the development concept. 12 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT brziuvv OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND g.r, ur, r r.OPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.* * * * * * * * * * * * * *• * * * * * This graphic here illustrates internally within the project...we envision a couple of opportunities. One, circulation - that's the little dotted line that you see here of golf carts in our street sections and the architect will go through that a little bit. Golf cart access routes will be used throughout the project, also tying into Portola in terms of the master plan. We also think we can add some whimsy to this project and provide by an additionalopportunity, something we think is worth thinking about and include it in the concept plans, perhaps develop a resort trolley system that ties together not only this project, and that's what these major red symbols illustrate, where you have primary stops at the heart of the project at the Marriott time shares, at the retail sites, cross over and tie that into the existing Marriott Desert Springs on the south side of Country Club. We'd have a major stop at the hotel with sales of the golf club and then tying that into the time share. We think that's another opportunity for additional access other than automobiles that can be incorporated into the project. To take that a step further, I refer you to this graphic, is what we're referring to as the President's Club. For a visitor that comes to this project, again to help emphasize the use of golf carts, would come up here to the primary entry off Country Club and turn into the Marriott entrance, what they refer to as their central facility - the check in location, and at the time the visitor checks in phone calls made to where the golf carts are stored, a golf cart gets delivered to the time share, so by the time the visitors drives to his unit there's a golf cart there waiting for him and then he's ready to recreate throughout his visit to the resort, utilizing the golf cart in his travel not only in the project, but tie in with the master plan as well. That's a very brief overview of the land plan. From the grading standpoint, I just want to make a couple of comments. In terms of developing the grading for the project, tying in and maximizing all the community design elements have been important. I mentioned briefly about the relationship of the development areas of the golf course. One of the things that's been real key that we've cognizant of also, is how the relationship from the user on the roadway not only internally but outside of the project views this project. And, again, one of the things that I'm passing off till later today, but we've got some other examples to illustrate that, and I think it's important to mention is in our overall concept and actually the City was encouraging this and we've incorporated it as a really good asset to the project is that along the perimeter of the project we have no structures within 50 feet of the roadway surrounding this project. What we didn't want to do is end up with a project that had a ten foot landscape and a wall around it. The intent and the concept that you see in the development concept plan has a view fence that undulates within that 50 feet, golfers can move in and out, open space landscaping so that not only when you're inside the project, but also surrounding the project you get great experience from the street side. We think that's an important element as well. Finally, most recently, we have gone through a refinement of the grading concept particularly in response to the site tours that we've recently taken. We went around the Coachella Valley and looked at a number of examples to bring in the elements we wanted to see in this project. There are probably four basic things that we think are significant elements that have gone into the refinement of grading concept. That is, #1 - particularly as it relates to the time share- we've refined that to the point where each pad in the time share moves up 13 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * « * * * * * « * * * * * * * * « «.« * * * * « * * * * * * « « * * * « « __ and down and responds to the golf. Not uniformly or all the time. One of the things we saw when we went and look at the examples around the valley is that sometimes a development becomes real stringent and hard and we don't want to have that kind of feeling in the golf community or the resort community. We've looked at that. We've also broken up straight edges as much as possible. So, again, you don't feel like you're in a channel kind of a feeling when you're playing golf, or within the resort. I think one of the more exciting things and Mike will talk more about that as well, is that where we can we pulled in what we saw at Mission Hills and some other places and here we're really excited about some of the native landscaping which we see envisioned as part of the golf course. What we want to do is bring some of that into the development as well so there's not a strong definition or edge between the development and between golf. You'll see that also as we talk further about landscaping and the golf design as well. Finally, we needed a hold true line. I know it's not quite as romantic, but Joe's the one that always kind of checks and balances and you have to hold true to your intersectional requirements, making sure that sewer, water and drainage and those things work in the project from an infrastructure standpoint. That's the last guide in terms of our grading requirements. Tying all this together, you hear the term a comprehensive master plan. It doesn't really become a comprehensive master plan unless you pull these kinds of experts together and tie this into golf design and landscape architecture. That's how you implement the "feel good" things we're talking about in terms of designing this project and I'm going to turn the first aspect of that over to Mike Hurdzan, our golf course architect. SRW Can I ask a question? If the sports complex would be built elsewhere, do you have a Plan B or what does that do to your master plan? KR Well, we certainly would want to think about what happens with that.... SRW You haven't studied that yet? KR We've only looked at it in general ways. But, until it really is...(unclear).. we've just left it there. We have the crew and the ability to do that, there's just a lot of options to look at. MH Mr. Mayor and City Council, thank you very much for having the confidence over the last year, year and a half in having me as your golf course architect..this is the most important job I've ever had and I hope that comes through. But I'm not in here alone. John Cook, who is a Coachella Valley resident, lives at Rancho Mirage and plays the PGA Tour is the co - designer on this project. John is with his family and unfortunately not here today. However, as many of you know, John will be deeply involved with this project and you'll probably see him as often or more often than you see me and that's a lot. Fred Yoshimora lives in the City of Palm Desert, is our irrigation designer. Fred was in the business of installing irrigation, became a designer, his first three projects were the Quarry, redo the Vintage and Cypress Point. So we felt he was amply qualified then to undertake this project. So, Fred is the other member of our team who is here today. 14 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT 112gx...iiiiG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * My task, given to me, was to design a golf course that would be of different character, that would be playable, profitable, and would be ecologically and environmentally sensitive and would be worthy of national recognition and ranking. We believe the plan we have now will accomplish that. The way we achieved it was that, and you've heard the different uses, was essentially to divide the site into a north course and a south course. That seemed to make the most sense because, until today when we heard Bill Sherman's report, we weren't sure about the phasing. Having divided that into a north and a south quarter, then it was a matter of starting to work with the other uses that were going to be on either the north or the south part of that quarter and start to fit in with the golf holes. Obviously, the time share was the major ,,..ent of that; the learning facility; and then we needed to develop a golf course that would fit the sort of scene that Marriott had developed on the south side of the street. We wanted to bring it across a little bit. And so, as we moved further north on that site, you'll notice that there's a change in the golf course plan, even shown there schematically. There's a lot more water on the south and as we move north there's less water and that's how we would see that plan sort of evolving over a period of time. As we talked about how it went together with first the work with the concept of the planners, we had this general concept that went to a higher and higher level of refinement and finally, we have a plan as shown right here. You have a smaller version of it in the materials I gave you today as well as a description. This plan represents a lot of variations of this plan. Originally, the boulevard went through the project and back in November of 1993, Council's decision was that's not the best way to approach it and we brought it to the center and that gave an entirely different look to the north side. It was a good decision. This plan shows a good bit of water. These in the south areas, in the south golf course. It also shows some of the brown areas, we envision the water with the traditional sort of Palm Desert traditional kind of a golf course; sort of your hallmark of what golf courses should be. But we wanted to introduce natural landscaping into the south golf course and as we move north to have more and more of that. So the idea was to produce a golf course that has a lot of the elements as expected, with the time share ...(unclear)...we can do things somewhat differently. Where we are today then is that this golf course has been routed in this fashion. We feel very comfortable that it is safe that it achieves the aims of being profitable and playable. We've laid that... it works very well with the time share units and accomplishes that kind of uniqueness that we wanted to have. It has been graded out, the calculations have been done, the drainage has been done, drafting plan has been taking through the first phase, we have a work session scheduled on the 6th of January where we hope to sit down with the other consultants and refine that. My goal is to have the first draft of the construction documents deliverable to the City for inspection by mid -January. The reason for that being, as was read in the letter from Marriott, they're thinking in terms of the golf course starting in mid-1995 and hope to sell produce at the end of 95. In order to meet that aggressive schedule, we need to be equally aggressive and we are on track to do that. 15 MIN LP Lg., ADJOURNED JOINT Nir r i idG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * We're going to tallc about infrastructure a bit later. Fred and I will review that. This golf course will be using effluent water as the primary source of irrigation. It will come from Cook Street and it will go to a holding reservoir here. In addition to that, you see a lot of other fresh water. There are two wells programmed. One for the north course, one for the south. All of this water will start here, will flow down to a lower pond. At this point, this pond will be tied to this pond and all this water will come down, tied by a pipe here. This becomes the irrigation pond so we'll be able to re -circulate the water from the high point clear through the golf course down to the lower point and then use that as part of that irrigation. The grading concept is that we tried to put the golf course low, to build the house pads up. This is going to do two things, it's going to get the golf course out of the wind, it's going to help make the golf course we believe easier to maintain and the fact that we're not having excessive evaporation because of the wind, we'll be able to put water where we want it, we're able to use grassing schemes. This shows it somewhat in the fact that we're showing fairway areas, we're showing rough areas, but there are some other areas that are a little more difficult to see on the plan for instance these areas, and Jim will talk about that, these areas near the water features are treated differently and the native areas are treated differently. That's an overview of the golf course. I'll be glad to answer specific questions. I could talk for hours about this, but I don't want to do that. KR One of the other key aspects in our community design plan is our landscape architecture for the overall project and I'm going to turn that over to Jim Hogan, to take us through some of those key elements. JH Mr. Mayor, Members of the City Council: It's a pleasure to be here and to be working on such a great project. We've gone through several presentations to the Section 4 Committee and I've had a long distance concept and ideas that have come through the process. What I'm about to present to you today are really graphics supported in the actual golf (unclear) attached. A lot of you have gone through that and you're going to hear more about it today. First, I'll talk about the team. Eric Johnson is helping us with the landscape for the plant (unclear) and Fred is working with us on irrigation. Of course, Mike Hurdzen, and doing these kinds of projects is really a team approach, PVR and the concept of grading all the way through, and of course City staff - we get a lot of input from City staff- and this is valuable in sort of crystallizing this program. The community really has a couple of key features. The primary one is what we term the (unclear). It is very thematic in character and will set the theme for the entire community. It unifies all the new uses that are being proposed on the project whether it be theme retail, existing marketplace, the sales facility of the Marriott, the check -in facility of the Marriott, the conference center, the clubhouse, the luxury hotel, everything is marketed off this off this theme - it's very, very important. We also have, another feature will be there the perimeter street scene and this is really what the community sees on a day to day basis and a very important part is the type of windows you see as you 16 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * .* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * drive around the project. Of course we have, as we've been discussing the south course which we're diming as a more lush desert landscape, the use of native materials but also exotic drought tolerant, very water efficient material,and that would be in this portion. Of course we're talking about what we're calling the north course, which more correct terming is the desert course and this will feature a lot of natural areas of desert plant material and native plant material to the area, and that's all this brown area. When we get into it, we'll focus a little more on that. On the spine road, this graphic shows a major opportunity for community marketization on Country Club Drive. The theme of the whole spine road is use of the theme of palms, and so it's a continuation of the Desert Springs and it is the (unclear) tree for the entire valley. We have to be sensitive to different land uses, so as you come up through this zone, there's a lot of marketing that's going on with visual access to the different commercial tie-ins as well as coming up to the intersection at Desert Springs. So we have low, more commercialized look in this zone and as you get further into the project, you see where we have this section here which is the golf course and it picks up more of the use of the golf course and (unclear). The (unclear) trees will be the same. We have a theme for (unclear) bridges to work along that spine road and really give the visitor a tremendous view of the water features as you come up to the terminus. We have a large, around the golf terminus island at the end, which is the focus of the entrance of the club house, conference center and luxury hotel. This section here describes what we're doing along the perimeter of the project and is very important as a window for the community. We have a 50 foot meandering sidewalk zone, we call it zone - a set back, and it has a sidewalk that meanders anywhere from 30 to 50 feet. It's a real informal, landscape concept and again, using all native and drought tolerant, very efficient landscape products. These windows through to the section, golf course....this particular plan here is the south course. It's the resort course. You can see the variations of the colors here, this is the desert plant materials and this would be the desert plant material on the north course. So, as you move from the resort course to the north course, the amount of desert and native plant material increases as the water in one comes down and is increased in the other. On the corner of Cook and Frank Sinatra, we have the hotel use and what we're trying to do here is screen the hotel use from the existing residential across the street. What we have is a parkway, a berm with a wall on top, which provides a nice buffer, and separates the existing community from the future golf site. Here's a section along what we term Page Street, the existing commercial center right through here. And again, what we're trying to do here is actually utilize some existing street theme landscape zones and carry the concept on both sides, actually a coordination planning process which we're having to coordinate. Today, we're involved with a plant count, research, we're doing an extensive cost analysis and the next go around will be a preliminary presentation when we'll be filling you in with more of the details of the project. That's about it unless you have any other questions. 17 Items ADJOURNED JOINT M * iiitity OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND rlr u� r .OPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s..* s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s KR Another key element in our concept and in particular the community design concept, is architecture and Ken Allen is going to go through our concepts for the major elements of the project. KA Since the landscape and planning parts took all the available wall space, architecture will have to will you do me a favor, Ken, I'm going to talk about one and if you'll point out where it is just to refresh everybody's memory. Well, it's been our challenge on the project to essentially put some form and character, if you will, to the architecture within the various uses on the property. It has been in our experience, and my partner and I do a lot of these types of projects, a very unique experience to be involved this early on in the process because we've been able to input on how some of these sites get used and have been with the team from the beginning, which has been a very, very good sense of design from our standpoint to understand where the project is going and why it's going there. So, with the exhibits here and also with the book which I believe you've all been supplied with at one time or another, so you may have probably seen these in smaller form. What this does...I'll go through them in the order they're in the actual book and briefly, just quickly, describe each of the uses and Ken will locate them on the site plans for you. This element, the board you have before you here is essentially a concept, a character at this point, and I should point out, there are no specific program or specific uses for each of these yet but again we are trying to set the direction for them. The hotel is located, as he's pointing out, on the site. It will be dominant for a number of reasons, not only it's location which is a very prominent location on the site, but it will probably be the largest building built on the site. It's proposed at this point somewhere between 400 and 500 rooms, probably in five to six stories in height, depending on final design and programming. The intent here was to show you an overall character of that, as to how it might look. In terms of the colors and use of materials, you will see reflected throughout all of the architectural elements on the site, it is our desire and our goal to implement the uses of desert colors - tans and even some mauves and some off colors other than a brilliant white. Also, various utilization of rooftop materials and so forth as far as colors go instead of just the standard red tile roof. So these are intended to reflect that type of thing. Also, we wanted to pick up the use of the some natural stone if we can, not indigenous particularly to the site, but to the area, which we think would be nice for low walls and those kinds of things. So, this then is the overall major hotel on the property. JMB Is that piece of property sunken in there or is that visible 5 stories from the street. KA The impact of this I'd had to refer to Ken to give me some specifics on the actual elevations. The impact of this hotel is intended not to be what the Desert Springs Hotel is - that height and that impact. That's something we want to diffuse a little bit here. You can tell from the 18 MINES ADJOURNED JOINT 1Vizz 1 u LTG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * direction in terms of again a concept level, character, design and color, we're trying to not become what Desert Springs is. KR One thing I would add to that to give you r:,.oY:,.,tive is how would that feel from Country Club? And that's one reason we've included in our Master Plan the Desert Springs Hotel. You can see that the proximity to Country Club from the Desert Springs Hotel located here probably in the neighborhood of 600-800 feet. This hotel site is really buried in the heart of the project. Not only from that concern I think I've heard there in terms of what it's going to look like from the street, but also to, and we've alluded to that a little bit, the exclusivity of arriving on this prominent entry roadway and arriving in the heart of the project where the hotel is located. I think that concern, you can kind of see that in terms of the relationship of how close this is versus where this hotel is located would be minimal. One of the other things I would just add to that while we're on the topic and I just mention it in the grading concept, we talk an awful lot about golf and development and how important that was. One of the thing we felt was extremely important in the overall project, no matter what uses you're talking about, and that's one of the reasons it's located and shaped the way it is, is that we've got a beautiful backdrop of the mountains here in Palm Desert and we want to make sure that all the locations in the use, not only the golf standpoint, but from time share and in particular from this hotel location, you can take advantage of those distant views over there and that's one reason why it's located here. The top character sketch here is that of the proposed club house. The club house itself at this point in time we projecting a program of anywhere from 12,000 to 25,000 feet, two stories in height, probably having the golf carts below it. You're playing with grades so the actual arrival of the (unclear) will be arriving at a one story building, but it will in fact be two stories high. We did the golf club up in Big Horn and it's not unlike that where you arrive at one side and its a one story building, but actually on the golf course side, it's two. In that case it's actually a sub -basement. It's located literally in the heart of the site - very, very critical in terms that it really probably will be the first physical piece of architecture on the r•oUi:..tf. It will set the tone and from that standpoint and again, as in a lot of these types of projects, it's very important that the care be taken to do this properly because it's going to be looked at and pointed at. The quality is going to be look at for the rest of the as well. We also happen to be the architects for Marriott's on the MORI Phase 2 project and obviously on this one, so those two elements you'll see some more sketches of them in a moment, those elements are very,very important as we look ahead to the future of when a hotel might come in or anything else. There's also been some discussion in our Section 4 Committee meeting about expanded the size of the club house to accommodate meetings of up to 200 people. There is no facility at present in Palm Desert to satisfy that need and so we're contemplating changing our criteria and our plan to incorporate our ability to do that and we'll be testing cost estimates to see what that does to our budget, but we are listening and hearing that there is a need out there in the community for such facilities. 19 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT r r. w G OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEIBER 22, 1994 * « * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It would be rather a unique location to have a community room or a divisible multi -use kind of space that could be used for many various functions. Especially, food service, kitchen and all that would be in the building already and with some slight expansion we could accommodate that kind of thing, which might be quite appropriate. The bottom sketch is that of a conference center, which is the third part of the heart of the site. In this case, and we've done many of these types of centers in different locations, what we're really projecting here is essentially a tall one-story building to allow for the state of the art audio-visual, those things that will probably be look at if one is going to do this type of facility and make it competitive in the market place today. With this board, we get into the Marriott or the MORI product. This is an indication of the time share villas. Obviously, they're a large piece of the site in terms of' the overall built -out capability, 600 villas. The thought right now with MORI, and we're working with them rather closely in terms of an idea, 600 villas is a lot and what we're really thinking about is they will all have similarities. Obviously, their relationship with the course, two stories in height, (Pause to change tapes)...not unlike what we did on Phase 1 and Phase 2 at Desert Springs today. We didn't do Phase 1 and we did do Phase 2, and they wanted a change, but it needs to relate and we think those do. They will be done in clusters, courtyard and parking kinds of things. MORI is very, very cognizant of the relationship to the course and to how it impacts the marketability of these, as well as these impact the course. One of the areas we've worked closely as a team in terms of the grading, which Ken mentioned earlier, where the pads are not built today and we have to go in a line them all up. We get to play with the grade a little bit, which makes it much, much easier and much nicer. This sketch on the bottom is what Marriott calls their central facilities building. It's located right there at the entry of the project from the time share standpoint. It essentially is check -in, registration, administrative functions, large lobby, there'll be a pool there - that kind of thing. Again, I relate to Phase I that's been built, not unlike the facility they have there. They have those administrative functions right on the property. A little larger in this case, most likely. This is the sales and marketing pavilion, which is essentially located on a piece, if you will, on what is called the retail - that's their commercial site. It's located very specifically to take maximum advantage of 1) visibility and access, so a guest or potential buyer will know where to come to; but also to look and show the course very well, the overall site very well so when I enter this I get a very good sense of what the character and quality of the overall project area. It has a lot to do with how I arrive, where I park, what I view when I come through the facility and the vistas - Ken mentioned before the mountain views here - phenomenal. The idea here that we can look across 2 or 3 fairways to the mountains in the distance is a very, very salient marketing point and really sets the tone for the character of what MORI wants to do here. 20 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s.s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s This sketch on the bottom is essentially the "specialty retail" and themed commercial area and that's been discussed today a number of times. It may or may not include the museum and phases of that. Our idea here is to give it a certain festive, a certain excitement and energy. The idea of this kind of thing, and it really does show up in the site plan as well, is that there really isn't a back to this kind of facility. .The idea is a village core and heartscape is important, landscape is important, restaurants, specialty use, museum, really adds an attraction as an amenity of the site . The population that we're going to have on this even through the buildout not to mention when it's finished and there's a resort hotel on it, and so forth, will easily support this kind of use. I've seen it before on many other projects of similar nature. It becomes a very, very critical component to the overall site and it's located so well at that adjunct to the property. The final two sketches in terms of architectural character, the top being what we call "specialty site" for the hotel or hotels at Cook and Frank Sinatra. The idea here is to indicate moderately scaled, which we think this is important in this location with residential adjacent, set back from the street rather significantly, probably two stories in height, but again, keeping it to minimums in terms of, we're making major architectural statements here. A good use for that site and we think can be very, very compatible with appropriate sensitivity to the surrounding area. This is an intent to indicate that. Not big walled blocks of buildings, but buildings that are broken up, and courtyards and so forth. Then on the bottom, the last exhibit from the architectural standpoint, is really one where we've tried to maximize. This is the office/commercial use directly on Country Club. Very unique from the standpoint that it has great commercial street access and visibility, but it also has a wonderful visibility and access to the course so that really, from the standpoint of utilization of this, a tenant in here would have views of the golf course which is very unusual. There are a few projects like this we've done in the Scottsdale area and so forth and they're very, very highly regarded and in fact, desirable, because you can lease the space and you get a golf course too, as well as street frontage. If anything here, we would probably depart a little bit from the character of the overall site that we have established, maybe a little more color, a little more vibrancy in this kind of a design. But, again, concept at this point without a specific program. But we're indicating a direction for you. KA One of the other aspects included in our concept plan within the community design component of that, is our Art in Public Places. One of the opportunities we have in this project is oftentimes you get involved with a project and there are things that are already there and you sort of have to retrofit. So one the key aspects is that we think is a great opportunity for the project is to incorporate the Art in Public Places and complement the project and integrate that and I know Catherine wanted (unclear) and that was one of the key things we went through in our workshop with the Art in Public Places folks is that there's an opportunity there to complement the project, not necessarily just to have a piece of art someplace that satisfies the criteria to have Art in Public Places but let's look at the opportunity of incorporating that into the project itself. 21 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT 111re,i,i+v OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEl133ER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * .* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * In your booklet, its the two pages before infrastructure and public facilities plan. It's kind of hard to see this from the back and I recognize that but its the key essence of how we've approached it is what I wanted to illustrate more than anything else today. In the graphic on the left here which is in your document is our Art in Public Places concept. We tried to focus on, and we spent some time talking about it today already, is to have that prominent roadway and the entry to the r..,r:..tI is really kind of the key to a lot of how you feel when you enter the project. What we tried to do is illustrate on a locational criteria basis, as well as a scale standpoint, and we're not designing artwork at this point yet, but in the concept plan let's set some directions and framework where as the project moves forward, it makes sense and incorporates and does complement the overall concept. There's really four symbols you see, the red, the blue, the yellow and the green. The red is what we're referring to as Scale 1 priority. Both in terms of locational and in terms of the magnitude of what that artwork is. We certainly see an opportunity of incorporating within the entry, and we don't know exactly where yet - right next to the street, or back a little bit - all of this needs to get fleshed out and the detail design of the project in terms of the signage, in terms of the the name of this project and how that can be incorporated. What we see is certainly an opportunity within the entry feature itself to incorporate what we refer to as Scale 1. We also see at the terminus, in terms of our entry point, where we have our luxury hotel, golf course club house and the conference center, an opportunity there to incorporate a Scale 1 level Art in Public Places as well. Scale 2 relates a little bit less to the experience as you come through the project and view golf, and we'll talk a little bit about how we undulate that roadway to take advantage of the views of the project, so that Scale 2 is located near features, the retail/commercial use here, located across from Marriotts, as well as we talked a little bit about incorporating some landscape elements of (unclear) bridges and water. Really, we are into it here because we think there's some opportunity through that, as you arrive where it's not really a bridge but looks like a bridge, we might have an opportunity to incorporate art again, complement the overall project perhaps incorporating that into the golf course itself. Scale 3 is located primarily to relate to how that roads been graded and our Scale 3 we think needs to be a little bit less. The level or intensity of the 1 we don't think really should happen at this location because you don't necessarily want to compete with the golf and vistas that you're creating, but certainly could complement. I know I use that term a lot, but that's how we envision the sort of framework that we've established through that. One of the other things we wanted to do and take advantage along the spine road, we do have golf cart access along our roadway in terms of right of way, not only just vehicular but also pedestrian use - one of the things we wanted to incorporate and we're including in the concept right now are illustrated under these three alternatives is to bring that into the pedestrian area so that under Alternative 1, basically this is a section that shows the 25 foot right of way outside of the street on both sides of the project, so the pedestrian user moves in and out along the spine road you've got an opportunity, and you can see in detail, we could have benches and a work of art that also has visibility from the car as well as from the cart path. One of the other options we've included in the concept is to pull that away from the street a little bit so that it even forces the pedestrian user to experience that art. So you've got an opportunity to relate to it in that regard. And the third option, and this really got fleshed out in our work with the Art in 22 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT Mr.r...tivity OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Public Places people, and we think this should be pursued and looked at very closely and fit into our detailed design as well, is again perhaps not necessarily having a work of art on a pedestal or something, and there's an opportunity there obviously for doing that, but also perhaps to take advantage of the fact that particularly along this location that has golf on both sides there might be an opportunity to use landscape architecture and incorporation that and make it feel like it works with the project and in the project. There is nothing cast in concrete here but the intent was that you would have an art zone that would allow for that to happen and we think there's some opportunities worth pursuing relative to that as well. That's where we're at with the overall concept of Art in Public Places. RSK We talked a little bit about using artistic street signs. Have you continued with that thought? KR We have, and it ties in a little bit with what Ken Allen was talking about. I know we said market but it's also whimsy and tying in with the overall theming of the project. Certainly, even in conjunction with on the same line with Marriott looking at perhaps doing different themes for the time shares within the project, we see a great opportunity of tying the sign program into that kind of a thing too where you'd have wherever that direction goes. The signs certainly you'd be able to tie in and we haven't gotten to that point yet. Either as a concept or.... RSK I hope we don't forget that because in Denver we saw some great street signs that don't look like street signs but they have the name of the street there; so this seems to me like a real opportunity for something different from a green and white sign. We've done something here at Civic Center in the way of signs and I think there's a real opportunity in Section 4 to have all the signs be something special that are artistic. KR We're rapidly approaching the day when we're going to have to give this project a name, rather than Section 4 North Sphere. RSK Well, I'm thinking of plain old street signs...something different. I realize the signs for the project are... KR The name and the overall theme for the project will lead us in that direction and the answer is absolutely yes. RSK The street signs need to be something different other than just plain old street signs. KR Yes, sir. RSK Somebody just say yes and then I'll shut up. BAC I don't see anything so far that seems to do anything with public art in any of the perimeter areas that simply are along Cook Street that are along Sinatra or anywhere else, and there 23 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT burr, i udG OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ought to be. This stuff ought not be crowded down "Pulpdoodle Lane" or whatever that's going to be called and look like, you know, something of you know, Arlington, or something or the other. And it should also be scattered out across some other parts interior to that and I really think you need to look very strongly at earthworks and all kinds of other things that are not traditional forms of in essence, stick art. Things that can be placed in places people will be surprised by and have some fun and some whimsy that occurs and we can do a lot of stuff. It's ours, nothing else is out there. This ought to be something that looks different than anything we've seen. So, I don't need to say anything more than that. CS I think one of the things that maybe wasn't made clear is that this is a minimum placement. It's not the only placement involved. This was the minimum siting for art and then as the structure is built, there would be art considered at that time. There would be a requirement for that. BAC I understand that. KR Mr. Mayor, I think one thing we were trying to do here is..we have been criticized before for going ahead with the project and not taking into consideration Art in Public Places and plan it while we're building it. That's what we've tried to do. BAC I understand that. It's a start. KR Yes, but I think there's an awful lot of land and there's a lot of opportunity along some of the major thoroughfares to do it. MAN How much art can we afford? KR Well, I think planning for it...and over some period of time you hope to afford it. We tend to forget how important Cook Street is going to be and because right now it's a quiet country lane but in a few years, it's going to be the major thoroughfare of our City. That frontage along Cook Street needs to be very specially thought of. JMB In the time share units, the 600 or how many you get there, are there tennis courts, pools and all that designed in that? KR There is a tennis court area planned for and there will be a series of pools throughout the final design. We really haven't located yet. The tennis will probably be located here and certainly the amenities Ken mentioned in terms of pools will be scattered around the r- ..r t!• JMB But there is a tennis complex? KA Yes, in this green section. Also, it's getting a little ahead of the curve, if you will, but the conversation here just a few minutes ago one of the things we've been working on with 24 MINUTES ADJOURNED JOINT MEETING OF THE PALM DESERT CITY COUNCIL AND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY DECEMBER 22, 1994 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s•s * * * * MORI as I said earlier, is the potential for theming the areas of development that they work on. None of this is final yet, but we see it and they see it as an opportunity not only —sort of an earth, wind, fire, water kind of thing, that may be a bit nebulous at the moment....but we're thinking of those four themes as an example of how you would reflect that in the landscaping, the architecture, the signage. Maybe that's an art focal point, maybe it's an earth element focal point, I'm not sure yet, but they're very keen on that —the specific themes because they see this as needing a destination character. You need to want to be here and stay here, and it's a destination. It's not just someplace to go and take off for someplace else. They're very, very cognizant of that. KR The last item on our agenda, and I don't mean to slight it. I know we're a little short on time and we apologize but it's not quite as romantic as everything else we've talked about. But, these are also included in the concept plan and obviously, very critical in making sure the project works. The circulation system is reflective of the criteria of establishment of the environmental process about where access should be located and what those turning movements should be like. That's reflected on this graphic and then our water and well plan, our waste water plan, the sewer plan and our drainage concept is also all included and Joe is making sure that we're tried and true relevant to the engineering side as well. With that, can we answer any more questions? BAC Anybody with anything? Thank you all. IX. ADJOURNMENT With Council/Agency Board concurrence, Mayor/Chairman Crites adjourned the meeting at 3:55 p.m. BUFORDA. CRITES, MAYOR/CHAIRMAN ATTEST: e4,1--- SHEE.A R. GILLIGAN, C CLERK/SECRETARY TO THE PALM DESERT OPMENT AGENCY 25