(a)

Purpose and intent.

(1)

Shopping centers have unique development requirements which are dissimilar from other commercial areas; therefore, this section establishes a separate commercial zoning district intended to be used in connection with the city's shopping centers.

(2)

This district establishes restrictions to insure that shopping centers are designed and located to minimize traffic congestion on public highways and streets in their vicinity and to best fit the general land use pattern of the area to be served by the center. The protective standards contained in this district are intended to minimize any adverse effect of the center on nearby property values and to provide for safe, efficient use of the center itself and safe, adequate and attractive parking areas.

(3)

Shopping centers are intended to provide areas for a combination of uses, including retail businesses, personal services, banking and professional services and office facilities to serve either a small neighborhood or the entire community.

(4)

It is the intention of this district to locate shopping centers only at locations that the city commission determines are suitable. Shopping centers are not permitted in the central business district or within the Hannibal Square Neighborhood Commercial District. The city commission may call upon the applicant to furnish additional information establishing compatibility with adjacent uses to justify the rezoning or use of land for a shopping center.

(b)

Permitted uses. All business uses and activities shall be conducted exclusively and wholly within an enclosed building except those uses permitted which are customarily conducted in the open such as off-street parking, plant and landscape garden sales and outdoor patio dining. Storage shall be limited to accessory storage of commodities sold at retail on the premises and storage shall be within a completely enclosed building. Some minimal display of bulk merchandise for sale within the business may be permitted outside and adjacent to an enclosed building but only if under a permanent covered building canopy but not to include vending machines.

(1)

Retail business involving the sale of merchandise on the premises within enclosed buildings but excluding resale establishments or pawn shops (other than clothing resale stores), vapor lounges and smoke shops.

(2)

Establishments involved in the rendering of a personal or business service including banks or similar financial institutions, barber shop, beauty and nail salon, spa, cosmetic treatments, coin-operated laundries, dry-cleaning establishments, post offices, restaurants or lounges, theaters (except drive-ins), and travel agencies but specifically excluding tattoo, body art, or fortune-telling businesses.

(3)

Business, financial, governmental, medical and professional offices, agencies and clinics; including physical therapy and state-licensed massage therapist.

(4)

Off-street parking areas and garages except those for the storage of construction equipment;

(5)

Permanent recreational facilities within enclosed soundproof buildings but excluding adult video arcades;

(6)

Private and semi-private clubs, lodges, halls and/or social centers;

(7)

Uses customarily incidental and accessory to the permitted uses, including the repair of goods of the type sold in stores in the center, provided that such repair may not be carried on as a separate business, and provided, further, that there shall be no manufacturing, assembling, compounding, processing or treatment of products, other than that which is clearly incidental and essential to the permitted uses.

(8)

Churches, nonprofit organizations' halls/lodges and schools (see parking requirements for limitations).

(c)

Conditional uses. The following uses may be permitted as conditional uses following review by the planning and zoning commission and approval by the city commission in accordance with the provisions of this article. See section 58-90, conditional uses.

(1)

Drive-in components of any business;

(2)

Buildings over 10,000 square feet or any addition over 250 square feet to an existing building over 10,000 square feet or additions to existing buildings that result in a building over 10,000 square feet in size;

(3)

Any conditional use provided in the R-3 or R-4 districts utilizing and limited to the site and improvement regulations of this district for those conditional uses;

(4)

Fitness facility, exercise or health club;

(5)

Any building with residential units as a component of the building. However, time shares are not permitted.

(6)

Car rental agencies limited to a maximum of 15 cars on site at any time, although the city may set a lower maximum number.

(d)

Minimum site for shopping center. The minimum parcel to be zoned for this district shall be two acres. Such parcel must be located in part on a street or highway considered to be major arterial street and capable of carrying the high volume of traffic a shopping center will generate.

(e)

Development standards.

(1)

Any building constructed within this district shall adhere to the following minimum required setbacks for front, rear and side yards. The front setback from all streets shall be a minimum of 15 feet from the property line. Side and rear yard setbacks from interior property lines within or adjacent to any other C-1 district parcel shall be a minimum of five feet from each property line but shall be 20 feet to any other non-C-1 zoned parcel and 35 feet to any residentially-zoned parcel. For any required front setback, the distance may be increased upon the determination by the city that a traffic sight distance safety problem may exist to the extent required to remedy the problem.

(2)

If a person constructing a building within this district desires to combine the minimum side yard setbacks and provide them on only one side of the lot, a site plan showing the locations of the proposed building as well as the location of existing adjacent building must be submitted to the planning and zoning commission for approval prior to the issuance to a building permit to ensure sufficient compatibility with adjacent properties. This reduction to the required side setback, however, shall not be permitted if adjacent to a residentially-zoned parcel.

(3)

The maximum floor area ratio and building lot coverage shall be 45 percent. The floor area ratio shall include the floor area of any attached or detached above-grade private parking garage. The 45 percent floor area ratio and building lot coverage may be increased by an additional five percent if the parking for the increased five-percent floor area ratio is located entirely underground beneath the building's footprint or if the building's upper floor(s) are cantilevered over such parking or if it is for a hotel building.

(4)

Exclusively residential buildings are not permitted. Residential units are not permitted on the first or ground floor. When residential units are included on the second floor or above, the floor area ratio may be up to 60 percent FAR, but the maximum floor space that can be devoted to nonresidential (office) uses is 45 percent floor area ratio. Limited residential use of the first or ground floor of such buildings may be permitted when limited to the functions of entrance lobby/elevator/stair access, leasing or management office or residential amenity spaces such as health/fitness, meeting/activity room or storage. However, in no case shall more than 15 percent of the first or ground floor be devoted to these ancillary residential uses (not counting the area of parking garages).

(5)

The maximum floor area ratios outlined above are not an entitlement and are not achievable in all situations. Many factors may limit the achievable floor area ratio including limitations imposed by the maximum height map, concurrency management/level of service standards, physical limitations imposed by property dimensions and natural features, as well as compliance with applicable Code requirements such as, but not limited to, parking and internal circulation, setbacks, landscaping requirements, impervious lot coverage, design standards and on-site and off-site improvements and design amenities required to achieve land use compatibility. Land located across a street and/or separated from the building site shall not be included in the floor area ratio calculations.

(6)

Residential density.

a.

The maximum residential density shall not exceed 17 units per acre.

b.

Notwithstanding this residential density limit, the property at 1020 W. Canton Avenue may be used at a maximum residential density of up to 25 units per acre. This density allowance may only be applied to residential use within the adjacent portion of the development site at 940 W. Canton Avenue as described in section a.

(7)

Development shall not exceed 85 percent impervious coverage in this district.

(8)

Building heights shall not exceed the height limits imposed by the maximum height map for those properties within the geographic areas shown with a two-story maximum, the maximum building height shall be 30 feet; for those properties shown with a three-story maximum height, the maximum building height shall be 42.5 feet; for those properties shown with a four-story maximum height, the maximum building height shall be 55 feet; for those properties shown with a five-story maximum height, the maximum building height shall be 65 feet; and for the properties shown permitting up to eight stories, the maximum height shall be 95 feet. Unless specifically approved by the city commission as a conditional use, properties with buildings developed with less than the maximum building stories shall conform to the maximum height for the applicable stories. For example, if a two-story building is developed within an area permitting a four-story building, the two-story building shall conform to the 30-foot height limit. Parking garage levels shall be counted as stories for each level except for any basement level or the open roof level.

(9)

Parapet walls, or mansard roofs functioning as parapet walls, may be added to the permitted building height but in no case shall extend more than five feet above the height limits in this subsection. Mechanical penthouses, mechanical and air-conditioning equipment, elevator/stair towers and related nonoccupied structures may be permitted to extend up to ten feet above the height limits in this subsection. Architectural appendages, embellishments and other architectural features may be permitted to exceed the roof heights specified in this section, on a limited basis; encompassing no more than 30 percent of the building roof length, up to eight feet of additional height upon approval of the city commission, based on a finding that said features are compatible with adjacent properties.

(10)

For properties not shown on the maximum height map, located adjacent to four-lane roads, the maximum height shall not exceed 55 feet, and the maximum height shall not exceed 42.5 feet for properties located adjacent to two-lane roadways. For corner properties adjacent to both four-lane and two-lane roadways, the maximum height shall be 55 feet.

(11)

Terracing and articulation providing additional setbacks are required to create relief to the overall massing of the building facades. Such design features of building facade articulation are required at least every 60 feet, on average, along the primary building facades facing streets or the building frontage where the building fronts its primary parking lot area. For any building over two stories in height and over 200 feet in length, there shall be a 35-foot break on at least the first floor, the design of which shall be a component of the architectural review process required for conditional use. For any building over two stories in height, a significant portion of the top floor shall be terraced and stepped back from the exterior face of the next lower floor by an average of at least five feet. Parking structures are exempt from this terracing requirement.

(12)

Whenever the rear or side property lines within this district share a common property line with parcels zoned residential, either a solid wall or fence (other than wood), shall be provided along the entire common line. The wall or fence shall be six feet in height; except that such wall or fence shall be only three feet in height from the front setback line of the adjoining parcel to the front property line of the adjoining parcel.

(13)

The maximum impervious coverage shall be 85 percent of any property.

(14)

Any above-grade parking garages or decks constructed within this district must be at least 100 feet away from any property used for single-family or low-density residential.

(15)

Other Code sections related to development that should be referenced include, but are not limited to, off-street parking regulations, maximum height map, general provisions, definitions, sign regulations (article IV), environmental protection (article V) (this section includes division 1, stormwater; division 6, tree preservation; division 8, landscape regulations; division 9, irrigation regulations; and division 10 exterior lighting), subdivision regulations (article VI), historic preservation (article VIII) and concurrency management regulations (article II).

(f)

Shopping center parking requirements. It is the intent of the city to require shopping centers to provide adequate parking for the businesses within a shopping center but at the same time avoid the proliferation or overbuilding of parking for shopping centers which is prevalent throughout most of the nation. The parking requirements of this zoning code, as with most other cities, is based on providing adequate parking for customers at a single destination. In shopping centers where customers often have multiple destinations, this often leads to an overbuilding of parking. As a result, this district establishes both minimum and maximum parking requirements as follows:

(1)

Shopping centers shall meet and provide the minimum number of parking spaces required by this Code, as a cumulative total of the individual businesses or tenant spaces, except as otherwise provided for by this section.

(2)

In calculating the minimum parking standards, internal pedestrian mall areas, corridors that are in the shopping center common areas (as opposed to individual tenant spaces), and areas dedicated to mechanical, electrical or plumbing space that services shopping centers generally (as opposed to individual tenant spaces) within the shopping centers may be excluded from the area calculated in meeting the parking requirements. However, parking shall be provided for all tenant areas within these mall areas, including freestanding retail booths, restaurant areas, food court areas, ticket sales, and other vending areas. Shopping centers shall not be required to provide parking for pedestrian mall areas that are utilized for special events such as antique car show, used book sales, art shows, antique shows, craft shows, etc.

(3)

In calculating the minimum parking standards, this Code shall allow for warehouse or storage areas within the major anchor stores and individual tenant spaces to be counted as a warehouse and storage use, provided these spaces are restricted to these uses and do not exceed ten percent of the gross leasable area.

(4)

A percentage of the parking required by this Code may be composed of grass or other pervious surfaces when that parking is deemed to be located where it will be utilized on an infrequent basis except for certain peak holiday shopping periods.

(5)

To the extent various businesses have different times of usage during the day, the city commission may consider this mix of uses in establishing compliance with the minimum parking requirements of this section as part of the review and approval of building permit plans as specified in this district.

(g)

Minimum off-site accommodations for traffic. Given that shopping centers are major traffic generators, these shopping centers, at the time of development, expansion or major redevelopment, shall be required to address the off-site traffic generation and transportation impacts of the development proposed and adherence to the city's concurrency management regulations. The city shall require submission of transportation impact studies by independent transportation consulting firms to determine the scale and nature of the impacts and compensating or mitigating actions deemed appropriate. The city may require site-related off-site traffic and transportation improvements as deemed necessary. Adherence to the city's concurrency management regulations may require financial contribution to the provision of transportation and transit service, including, but not limited to, the cost of transit vehicles and operations and maintenance cost.

(h)

Minimum on-site accommodations for transit.

(1)

Given that shopping centers are the focal point for many transit users, these shopping centers, at the time of development, expansion or major redevelopment, shall be required to address on-site provisions for transit services or located off-site adjacent to the shopping center acceptable to the city that will accommodate and encourage the use of mass transit. The city shall require that appropriate provisions be made to accommodate these transit needs including, but not limited to, transit vehicle parking and transfer areas, transit benches and shelters, transit signage, etc.; provided, however, the transit facilities shall be appropriately located at site plan review so as not to interfere with pedestrian or automobile access to the shopping center.

(2)

Shopping centers shall also be required to accommodate alternate modes of transportation, such as bicycles, by providing accommodations including bicycle racks and/or storage shelters.

(i)

Urban design guidelines and standards. The city commission may adopt and impose urban design and architectural guidelines and standards upon the development or redevelopment of shopping centers as necessary to accomplish the goals and objectives of this article.

(Ord. No. 2551-03, § 1, 11-24-03; Ord. No. 2646-05, § 4, 9-12-05; Ord. No. 2796-10, § 1(Exh. A), 2-22-10; Ord. No. 2849-11, § 5, 9-12-11; Ord. No. 2987-15, § 1, 1-26-15; Ord. No. 3096-17, § 5, 12-11-17; Ord. No. 2890-12, § 3, 10-8-12; Ord. No. 3349-25, § 4, 7-9-25)