Planning issues: 

Marshall Ridge Subdivision:  We have issued a final order for this 37 lot single family dwelling subdivision located at 19525 and 19545 Bornstedt Road.

Sandy Bluff Annex 6:  This was heard and approved by Planning Commission on May 29^th, but the final order is not complete at this time.

Sandy Bluff Community Campus Parkland Annexation: Presented to City Council on May 21st.  Council approved to go forward to November ballot.

Ten Eyck Rim: minor revised plat was approved, and approved a variance to not require a bike/ped access on the property between Hood and Pleasant.

Other large reviews being conducted:

• Jewelberry Ridge: Will go to Planning Commission on June 25^th.
• US Metal Works: Went to Planning Commission June 14^th; both deviations and variances were approved.  We anticipate them moving forward with building permits soon.
• Tractor Supply Company:
  • Partition almost finished
  • Design review submittal was deemed complete and currently under review
  • Tentatively scheduled to go before Planning Commission on July 30^th.

Other large reviews being submitted soon:

• McDonald’s: pre-application meeting is complete; we expect this $250K exterior remodel to go forward soon.
• Knapp property annexation; 130 lot subdivision: came in for a pre-application for this development; have not heard back from them since.
• Regional coffee retailer: Pre-application meeting complete – we have yet to receive a formal application.

Internal projects:

• Pleasant Street Master Plan: A progress report on this master plan to date was delivered to the City Council at the June 12 work session.  While some contention over the plans for the plaza space section of the master plan was expressed, we are confident that this point of contention can be worked through to most people’s satisfaction.  Public hearing delayed until Fall 2018.
• Downtown Walkability Assessment: An assessment report will be presented to City Council at the July 2^nd regular Council meeting by our RARE.  Porricolo’s term of service will end next month, at which point the project will be handed off to staff to continue project work.

Economic Development issues:

Commercial Properties (vacancies, new businesses, etc.):

• Mount Hood Cigar Co.: So far so good.  This business seems to be hitting their stride quite nicely according to the Sandy Area Chamber.
• Sandy Fire #72: The Fire Department will be holding the official ribbon cutting for their brand new firehouse on Saturday, June 23 from 1 to 3 PM.  If Chief Schneider (no relation) hasn’t given you a tour of the facilities yet, you should really plan to attend.  It is….impressive.
• Joe’s Donuts: The final touches of Phase 1 of the Joe’s rehab will be complete this week as the weather is finally allowing the general contractor to schedule the painting of the roof.  Phase 2 (West Streetscape public infrastructure project) will involve concrete infill, a concrete pad with railings and a weatherproof table installed on the west side of their building, and a standard street bench, in Joe’s Donuts red, centered in front of their new front window.
• Regional coffee chain: We have a regional coffee chain that has been interested in Sandy for years that has taken concrete steps toward developing one of our downtown infill lots.  The plan is still evolving, but the prospects for development look pretty good right now.  Watch this space.
• Joy Teriyaki: Justin Hwang, owner of the franchise, is a very tired man.  He tells me he’s never had a store opening quite like what they’ve experienced here in Sandy.  During their “soft open” week prior to the official ribbon cutting, they ran out of things like chicken breast, gyoza, beef, etc. every evening due to the overwhelming traffic.  It has slowed down to what should be normal for them recently, but still one of their busier stores.

Econ Devl – Internal Projects:

• Downtown maintenance:
  • The remaining East County Gazette paper boxes lingering in our downtown (the paper is no longer being published)….are now gone.
  • We are discussing the possibilities of expanding AntFarm’s maintenance contract for the flower baskets to include basic maintenance of planter strips, sidewalks (remove weeds and grasses) and other public right-of-way maintenance issues. Shouldn’t be a very costly endeavor overall, and should also be more effective and “business friendly” than nagging downtown commercial property owners to do it.
  • We are beginning a number of façade projects in the next month or so, including some demolitions over at the Sandy Community Campus within the next few weeks.
  • We are also preparing to address the derelict building issue that Development Services brought to Council earlier in May. We’re not exactly sure what to expect regarding the responses to our initial letters requiring action on the part of the property owners, but we intend to update Council with regard to our progress as we proceed.
• Community Partnership Program grant: We got some fantastic news this week.  Due to a lack of requests for CPP funding, ClackCo Tourism had funding left over in this program.  Their policy is to look at the projects they feel would best benefit the County that didn’t get funded by their local constituencies, and the Tourism Development Council awards funding for those projects.  They also let us know that they had talked to a lot of tour operators, and found that tour buses don’t really go to Jonsrud Viewpoint anymore because it’s just too difficult to get a bus through the park.

  Jim Austin at CC Tourism said that this placed Jonsrud at the top of their list of projects they’d like to see, but we could never provide matching funds because a) the park is outside of the urban renewal district, and b) we can’t use Parks SDC funding because we have to use that to build local capacity, and adding tour buses would build non-local (i.e. tourists that don’t pay into our tax base) capacity.

  Yesterday, Jim called me and told me they feel it’s so important to them to get this done that they are going to provide us with full funding for the project.  So if you run across our County Tourism folks while you’re out and about, please thank them on behalf of our taxpayers for this.  We are preparing a nice “thank you” card and attaching it to a box of Joe’s Donuts to send over to them to recognize their generosity.  That’s $16,500 in funding that we definitely weren’t expecting to have…In other CPP news, AntFarm is moving forward with their fully funded study for the farmer’s market, and revised plans for the Meinig Gateway Arch should be here literally any day.

Econ Devl – Conferences/training:

• LOC Public Contracting Basics course (June 5 – Sherwood): Kelly and I went to a course in basic government contracting as a way to start diving into developing a better set of contracting documents to improve protections for the City.  Time well spent.  Very good course.
• OEDA Summer Conference (June 7, 8 – Corvallis): This is the smaller of the two OEDA conferences held every year, but a very informative conference.  The highlight for me was listening to a presentation by one of the mucky-mucks from Hewlett Packard give a presentation on the future of 3-D printing and how this is the next great technological advance for humankind.  They can now print things using different mediums including metal rather than just plastic, showed us what kinds of things that they can make with 3-D printers (metal: gears and sprockets, small metal parts; plastic: car parts with no assembly!) and talked about how 3-D printing will be way cheaper, faster and will produce better quality parts than injection molding or manufacturing metal parts.  3-D printing will ultimately bring a lot of offshore manufacturing not only back to the United States, but into local communities where some of these companies are headquartered.  It is truly an amazing technology.