12/20/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/20/2005 The building area is 1,491,197 sq. ft. The total site area is 3,584,583 sq. ft. The lot is actually covered by 25.9% of structures. Mr. Miller expressed concern with respect to the parking, and he has expressed this concern m the past. He calculated that there would be somewhere on the order of 2,000 more parking spaces if the mall were required to comply with the code that was previously in existence before the variances were granted. He felt parking at the mall was wanting. He did compliment the mall on their continuing improvements with respect to landscaping and other site improvements. Mr. Orlowski expressed concern about egress onto Brookpark Road. He suggested that a more appropriate solution would be to utilize arrows to avoid traffic conflict with people coming from the Office Max complex on the north side of Brookpark Road into the mall. Both Mr. Orlowski and Mr. Miller took exception with the architecture of the building. Mr. Orlowski felt the shade of red was garish, and he believed it did not blend well with the overall mall environment. Both Mr. Orlowski and Mr. Miller felt a more subtle approach should be used. The committee voted 2-1 to approve the Red Lobster proposal for 25615 Brookpark Road, subject to the recommendations of the various boards and commissions. Councilman Gareau moved that Council approve the proposed Red Lobster restaurant at 25618 Brookpark Road, subject to the recommendations of the various boards and commissions. The motion was seconded by Councilman Barker. Roll call: Gareau, yes; Barker, yes; Miller, no with comment that he is concerned about the parking situation at the Great Northern Mall area. Had this building been required to conform to previous standards, they would not have been granted the 2,000+ parking spot variance that they currently work with at this time. He thinks that is excessive. Also, he does believe the barn red color of the building conforms with the rest of the area. In the past, we have tried to have each building that comes into that area granted some ability to have its own character and stand out a little bit, i.e. Dillard's and the Dick's Sporting Goods stores, but this goes beyond that. He thinks that a big, barn red building will be an eyesore. It will not be consistent with the surroundings, and he finds it objectionable to our community. He does congratulate the management of that property, particularly along Brookpark Road, with the enhanced landscaping they have put in. He has to vote his conscience. Roll call continued: Nashar, yes; Orlowski, no with comment that he believes the color scheme of the restaurant is inappropriate in relation to the earth tone colors of the surrounding buildings. The need to stand out was presented as a justification of location and color scheme. The restaurant location is an island in a sea of parking spaces and is located in close proximity to Brookpark Road for good visibility. The corporate color scheme was also presented. If you view the color of the current restaurant on Lorain Road, a different, less bright set of colors is currently being used. Red Lobster restaurants provide good seafood, fair prices and prompt service, which he believes are more important to most customers than the bright color scheme. A representative of the Westfield companies which own the Great Northern Mall stated that they are interested in keeping ownership of the mall and expanding their investment in the mall, possibly a movie theater 7 complex. Since we are a regional shopping district, he is glad that they are investing and plan to invest in our area in the future. With the recent changes in 6