City Council Agenda and Packet 2015 09 01

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City Council Meeting Minutes August 18, 2015 Page 9 of 18 Mr. DeJong stated Sam's Club closed January 2010. It is a 13 acre property containing a 128,000 sf vacant building. A new owner purchased the property in January 2014. Several concerns arise from the vacancy: Reduces the viability of adjacent properties that could contribute to neighborhood decline and weaken the McCaslin Corridor. Mr. DeJong reviewed the conditions survey finding the following blight factors are present: 1) The existence of health, safety, or welfare factors requiring high levels of municipal services or substantial physical underutilization or vacancy of sites, buildings, or other improvements. 2) Defective or unusual conditions of title rendering the title non - marketable. 3) Faulty Lot Layout 4) Deterioration of site or other improvements. Blight Factor 1): Substantial Physical Underutilization or Vacancy of Buildings or Sites: Underutilized property; parking lot sits mostly empty during normal business hours; community church uses property during only a small portion of the week; high profile location at gateway into Louisville from US 36 and one of the main anchor retail properties in the shopping area. Blight Factor 2): Defective or unusual conditions of title rendering the title non - marketable: Developed in 1990s as part of a retail center; restrictive covenants put in place at time of development to limit competition between tenants and sharply limit entertainment uses and limits several other uses. Restrictive Covenants: No general merchandise discount department store other than on Lot 2; No supermarkets other than on Lot 1; Other lots can have less than 5,000 sf devoted to retail sale of food for off - premise consumption; Only Lot 2 may have an optical center; Pharmacy only on Lots 1 and 2; No more than 2 banks, unless banking is incidental to the primary use; Only one fuel station and only one drive -thru restaurant selling hamburgers or ground beef products. More broad restrictions were put in place during sale from Sam's Club to current owners after the store closed (owner can buy out restriction): No stores selling a range of merchandise "at a discount" allowed, the use for which the site was originally developed thus viable tenants who would fully utilize the property would likely be prevented from doing so. Blight Factor 3) Faulty Lot Layout: Lot configuration results in former Sam's Club building being narrow and deep with respect to the front entrance, rather than shallow and wide; The building orientation makes it difficult to partition effectively; resulting spaces would be too narrow and deep for adequate retail layout and other non - retail uses that might be compatible with a deep, narrow layout are prohibited. Blight Factor 4): Deterioration of Site and Other Improvements: Facility is 127,000 square feet with a 600+ car parking lot, requiring significant upkeep expenses; currently only used during a small portion of the time by a community church, which does not 26