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• ?. <br />North Olmsted's ratio. Of all the comrmm;ties studied, North Olmsted had the most <br />housing units. The Comnercial/Industrial Market Analysis was explained by Ms. <br />Thayler. In the late 1960's North Olmsted had 1.2 million square feet of retail <br />commercial space (40 square feet per person); in the early 1970's that increased <br />to 1.7 million squa.re feet (46.5 square feet per person); North Olmsted now has <br />over 4.6 million square feet (137 square feet per person) which indicates that <br />the City is moving from local commercial to serve the needs of its residents and. <br />those nearby to a regional corrnnercial use. She presented slides illustrating <br />N.O.A.C.A. studies which indicated that with the construction of freeways, rGreat <br />Northern Shopping Center is now within a 30 minute drive time from Lorain County, <br />Parma, and Cleveland, another indication that the City has become a regional <br />shopping area. A bar graph indicated that in the furniture/ carpet /appliance <br />stores in North Olmsted are supported by 94,000 households (the most in all <br />categories); restaurants are supported by about 28,000 households. They used a <br />fornnala to determine these figures by taking the square footage being used for a <br />category, the sales per square foot and the figures presented by the Sales and <br />Marketing Magazine which indicate how much each household spends on that category <br />to determine how many families were needed to support that business. The members <br />believed that the 28,000 households shown that supported the restaurants in the <br />City seemed low considering the number of restaurantso Mr. Thomas questioned if <br />there are any other commurLities with a similar profile. Other than Cleveland, <br />they have done no studies on a similar community. In reference to the advantages <br />of being a regional shopping area: tax benefits, income taxes, and sales tax must <br />be considered, convenience for residents shopping and employment. Disadvantages <br />include traffic congestion, environmental concerns (air quality, litter) <br />aesthetics (parking lots, signs etc.), increased demands on public services and <br />infrastructure. Mr. Skoulis questioned if there were any studies showing if <br />commercial development, such as is in North Olmsted, would support itself; is the <br />City benefiting tax wise. They have done no specific studies. Mr:. Skoulis <br />questioned if tax rates have been compared between comrm,nities that have little <br />or no commercial development, with those that ha.ve such developmento Ms. Thayler <br />will try to have some figures by the next meeting. Mr. Thomas stated there is a <br />concern about where a line should be drawn (betNveen commercial and residential). <br />Ms. Thayler made several observations: the vacancy rate is unusually low in North <br />Olmsted considering the economy; since there is a trend for people to move <br />further out, away from the City, there are more potential shoppers for North <br />Olmsted, however, as residential increases in an area, commercial development <br />follows, so some customers might be lost; that when the economy improves there <br />could be a demand for more commercial development, especially on the western end <br />of Lorain Road. There are an estimated 1.3 million square feet of commercial <br />space tha.t could be built on the 123 acres of existing commercial land (either <br />vacant or underdeveloped) which would increase the 31,550 vehicles now using <br />Lorain Road to 53,000 cars when this vacant land is totally developed Under the <br />guidelines of set fortYi in the Zoni.ng Code. Mr. Gorris questioned these figures <br />since developing the 20% commercial property would increase the number of cars by <br />80%. Ms. Thayler stated that the discrepaney could be the result of dealing with <br />actual traffic counts on Lorain Road, and estimates from a traffic engineer based <br />on na.tionwide averagese HoWever, the point she'was trying to make is that does <br />the City want to develop the commercial property considering the increased <br />traffic it would create. These studies are to give an idea of what is to be <br />expected, that actual detailed studies of indivi.dual areas will give more <br />detailed answers when discussed under the focus areas. Ms. Thayler gave an <br />example of a land v.se compari.son wherein they studied a one acre parcel on Lorain <br />Road and various ways it could be developed: attached single family; a two story <br />2