General Minutes September 2005

GENERAL MINUTES OF TURNAROUND TEAM MEETING

The TurnAround Team, Inc. General Meeting – 26 September 2005

Deb Swank, Chair, called the meeting to order at 7 PM. In attendance were 16 people.

  1. Henry McClure gave a recap of work to date on the College Hill Redevelopment project. He had new renderings of the buildings and of the layout of some of the buildings. The umbrella organization is now called Washburn-Lane Parkway, LLC and is a joint venture of McClure Real Estate and Southwind Capital, LLC. The apartments will go for “market rents”. It will come up at the October 4th work session and might be on the agenda for October 11. At whatever meeting it is, the request will be for the TIF, CIP funding, and Development Agreement. Retail will occupy 10 percent of the total square footage of the project. Henry also handed out a schedule that shows completion by July 2007.
  2. Alex Kovalchuk gave a brief presentation about what a redesigned TAT website could look like and demonstrated a few different layouts.
  3. Phil Sell, Shawnee County Extension Agent, gave the main presentation on Lawns & Lawn Care. He had a bunch of handouts for everyone. Starting off, he said that the old standby K-31 fescue really isn’t that good anymore. Tall fescue should be seeded before October 15th for it to get a good start. To prepare the lawn vertical slicing is probably the best but core aerating before prepares the lawn bed for good air. For seeding, about 12 to 15 seeds per square inch is the right application rate. Fertilize tall fescue in the fall… late fall is very good. September / November is a good schedule to fertilize. Fertilizing in late April or early May is good ONLY if you are going to water the lawn all summer. You can have the Shawnee County Extension Office do a soil analysis of your yard: get 12 to 15 samples and mix them all together then take it in. The soil test costs $20 to rent the tool to take core samples. Because of funding from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the soil tests themselves are free. Fall is the best time to take care of weeds… the best weed control is a healthy lawn. A lot more choices are out there now for crabgrass. “Dimension” is good for weed and crabgrass. Use care with fertilizers and chemicals to keep them out of the water supply… exceed may wash into storm drains and get into the river. Turf type tall fescue is the most shade tolerant grass and there are new cultivars that are fine bladed. Shawnee County Recycling will make available a compost bin at no charge. Go to the Extension office to fill out some paperwork and get a coupon for a recycling bin.
  4. We held a brief discussion of ideas for recognitions.
  5. There is an Historic Preservation Economics class at Washburn to look at adaptive reuse of buildings. Coco-Cola is going to be moving out of their building just south of 17th & Kansas. There is a building at 17th & Clay that might be good or the old Montgomery Door Closer building at 17th & Randolph.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 PM.

People who are interested in improving the quality and image of Central Topeka, particularly people who live in or own property in the Central Topeka area from Monroe to MacVicar and 21st to the Kansas River, are particularly encouraged to attend. For further information, call 234-2883.