Open House Recap

Thanks to all the great neighbors, friends, and family who came out last night to share their thoughts about the outdoor seating plans for Sandcastle! 

There were over 40 people who showed up and we were flowing into the hallway. The MPRB did a great presentation on what went into the current design plans and then there was a healthy question/comment time. Here are some of  the topics that came up.

• How to manage the bike lane to lessen chance of accidents for bikers and pedestrians
• A desire for as much space as possible for seating
• Talk about materials for the seating; decking vs. paving
• Canoe parking
• More picnic tables in the larger park area
• Moving bike rentals to other side of beach and adding bike parking
• Interest in making this happen sooner than later (MPRB stated a timeline as beginning construction after Labor Day) so that beer and wine would be available sooner than later also (nothing like a beer on the lake!)

Updated plans will be posted on the active projects section of the MPRB website. Also, the MPRB announced they will be having public events for input on master planning the entire Lake Nokomis park area later this summer. 

Here are some photos from the night. 

Ward 11 City Council Member John Quincy, Sandcastle owners Chele Payer and me, and Ward 12 City Council Member Sandra Colvin Roy. 

Cliff Swenson, Director from MPRB presenting. 

Paul Neseth from Locus Architecture presents with MPRB. 

Friends of Lake Nokomis Founder Steffanie Musich and Sandcastle's contractor from The Big Room, John Booth. 

What is all this Sandcastle stuff?

Some of you may have questions about how Sandcastle ended up with the concession at Lake Nokomis. I realize you may not attend MPRB meetings regularly, as do most people.  Or perhaps you had mono all through 2012?  Regardless of your reason, I’m happy to share some background with you.

In the spring of 2012 the MPRB formed a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) charged with putting forward a single business for running the concession. The CAC did a lot of work gathering information from local residents about what they wanted to see in the park. The MPRB then put out a request for proposals and Doug, Chele and I put one together. You can find it online here.

In the summer of 2012 we then presented to the CAC. There were two other parties that presented at the same time. The CAC deliberated and a month later we got the word that we were chosen.

At this point we went into negotiations with the park board. Using our proposal as a foundation, we spent five months first gathering information about what it would mean to build out the concession (it hasn’t been operational for a couple years). Secondly, figuring out who was responsible for what. On December 5, 2012 our lease agreement was approved by the full MPRB.

Community ~ Food ~ Sustainability

Community, food, and sustainability are the key principles that we laid out in our proposal. While we would love to do everything we outlined in the proposal in the first season, reality and resources won’t allow that. Here are some things that you will see in the first season:

• Concession building upgrade following green principles to make it meet code and put in a functional kitchen.

• Run the business as close to zero-waste as possible.

• MPRB will be landscaping, adding more seating, and building a pavilion.

•  Beer and wine sales with completion of the pavilion.

One large change from the proposal is that we will not have an off-site kitchen. All food preparation and service will happen on-site at the beach. This means that there will be no indoor seating. We do plan to develop some barriers to inclement weather in a pavilion but, really, who’s going to show up at a beach in a storm anyway? This also meant that we had to reimagine some of the visions for the space we stated in the proposal, like hanging local art of sandcastles and having our tagline ‘Eat Like a King’ written in multiple languages around the inside. We do plan to have the menus translated into multiple languages.

Lastly, we hope to work towards the environmental educational components throughout the first season. The second season will see that realized more fully. For other details about Sandcastle (like the menu) you can visit our website: www.sandcastlempls.com