WORKSHOP ITEM Bryan Schafer, Community Development Director
Title
CROWN IRON BUILDING DESIGN (HEIGHT) DISCUSSION
Background
The City has been working with Crown Iron to find them a location in Blaine for approximately two years. They have chosen a site along Naples just north of the 95th Avenue Park n Ride lot and ramp. Mortenson Construction is the owner and would build the building and lease it back to Crown. Crown is a designer and builder of very large scale plant based oil extraction facilities placed around the world. Most of their 400 + facilities involve some aspect of food production.
This facility would be their corporate headquarters and house all of their research and design professionals (engineers of varying backgrounds), sales staff and all executive and administrative functions for the company. Crown currently employs over 100 people with 70% earning over $100K in salary. The City Council reviewed this project in December of 2017 and indicated support for providing financial assistance in the form of TIF and available EDA funds.
Recently a building design issue has been raised involving the height of a small portion of the building. Crown has determined that they need to install a piece of distilling equipment (a tower of sorts) attached or immediately adjacent to the rear of the building. The building tower that would enclose the equipment would top off at 100-feet above grade or approximately 70 feet above the elevation of the balance of the building. The floor area of the building is approximately 24-feet by 24-feet or the footprint of a standard two-stall garage. A CUP is required for a building above 50-feet. Because it is much taller than anything the City has dealt with, other than Infinite Campus, staff wanted the City Council to be aware of this before formal applications are made.
Crown/Mortenson has presented a couple design options for treating the exterior of the tower. MAC (Metropolitan Airports Commission) has indicated the tower height is not a problem but will require the top to be lit with red flashing lights.
Representatives from Crown and Mortenson will present their need for the tower and discuss the various architectural and material options for the design. They will also present a view of the facility from 35W.
…Attachments
Narrative
Building elevations (four options)
Recommendation
Provide any feedback on the tower design and materials that can be used by Crown as part of their pending zoning applications.