Historic Preservation Commission Agenda and Packet 2016 03 21

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Historic Preservation Commission Meeting Minutes February 8, 2016 Page 3 of 13 assistant City Manager to run through three locations being considered as appropriate places to locate the casino. 1. One is at 1517 Main Street and we have a Letter of Intent with the landowner. The location is a 3/4 acre lot located to the northwest of the Tesone property off Main Street. It splits between the school district and the private property resident. I met with the residents at the Tesone property and they are supportive of the idea of placing the casino there. We are doing some due diligence with local support to find out how they feel about this repurposing of the casino. I met with the school district, Leslie Stafford, Chief Operations Officer, BVSD, and presented the idea of trying to integrate the casino with the school district so it could become an active museum. It would also serve as an office facility for the nonprofit I run called Social Equity Economic Development for Sustainability LLC (SEEDS). It is intended to teach young students, both at elementary, middle, high school, and post- secondary education level on how to have a career more in the path of sustainability. We presented 1517 Main Street as a placeholder. 2. The second location would be a site in partnership with the school, and place the building on school grounds. BVSD is looking at that option internally and have discussions about it. I presented the idea in some detail to school administration. It would be located on the north side of Louisville Middle School (LMS) and front out towards Main Street. Feedback from city staff and the mayor is that they support the idea of repurposing the building on school grounds. 3. The third location on the north side of town is at 1655 Main Street. A conceptual idea is the building could be repurposed with a collection of other buildings serving as a potential "pocket park" with economic variables that would drive eco- tourism. It is a 2 acre site for the benefit of creating green pocket park with a roundabout running through the center of it. It would have architectural features on the perimeter of the radius. The progression would go from coal to oil to agriculture to railroad with component pieces populating around the perimeter. It would serve as an interplay between the north side of South Boulder Road and the south side of Downtown Business District and bring people through the medium of the pocket park. It announces itself as a strong gateway to the City of Louisville and a place where you have arrived. You can imagine the Hecla Casino representing the coal industry, maybe an agricultural structure representing the agriculture, the railroad cars (slated for demolition), and a a zero -net energy house representing a Visitor Center. I know the City has a Visitor Center on the books already. Why not have two visitor centers? Balfour and my company continue to move forward in trying to explore how this will work so it meets with their timeline to get the Hecla Casino removed from their site. We have a Letter of Agreement that stipulates six months and we are already one month past the six months. We are trying to move as quickly as we can. I am open to a joint meeting as a study session that might help to explore these options and get support from the HPC. It would be helpful for Simkus Development to get an endorsement from the HPC and bring it forward to CC. Koertje says we talked years ago about this when you were in a different capacity. I appreciate your continued interest in this structure and trying to save it, move it, and give it a useful life. Simkus says thank you. It is a personal thing for me as my grandfather was a coal miner. He came from Lithuania and worked in the coal mines.