Posted: 3:53 pm Thu, July 5, 2012
By Drew?Kerr
Tags: Bruce Nustad, Jan Callison, Janet Jeremiah, John Bell, Klodt Inc., Park Nicollet, Reconnecting America, Shady Oaks Station, Sourthwest Corridor, Southwest LRT, TransACT, William Fleissig
Officials in Eden Prairie say they are working closely with the business community to determine where a platform for the Eden Prairie Town Center Station should be located. This photo shows the current view of a future station site from Technology Drive, one of the closest cross streets. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)
Local officials have spent years preparing for the arrival of the Southwest Light Rail Transit line, but as planning becomes more serious, they want to bring one more voice into the conversation: developers.
The idea emerged at a recent meeting, where Hennepin County Commissioner Jan Callison said she was concerned that market realities weren?t being sufficiently taken into account.
?What we?re trying to do is marry private and public resources, and there seems to me there?s a vacuum about what the private resources are,? Callison said in a follow-up interview. ?We need someone who can say, ?Don?t put your efforts there ? it?s not going to pan out.??
Callison said she decided to push the issue after a talk by William Fleissig, president of San Francisco-based TransACT, which specializes in transit oriented development.
In a telephone interview, Fleissig said planners for the 15-mile, $1.25 billion line are doing well ?but should be devising development scenarios ? outlines of the uses that could be supported at each station ? and working more closely with developers to come up with ?realistic assumptions.?
The private sector is too often left out of such conversations, or involved too late in the process to have a meaningful impact, said Fleissig, who also serves on the board for Reconnecting America, a national nonprofit focused on the connection between transit and economic development.
?You need to bring in a team of people who understand the market and the relationship between access and real estate to say, ?These are the options,?? he said. ?That question of what the market will allow doesn?t often get integrated very well.?
The case of Minneapolis-based Klodt Inc., among the first developers to tackle a large project adjacent to the proposed line, offers one example of the tension that can occur when community desires don?t match market realities.
Klodt plans to redevelop a former Park Nicollet office building in downtown Hopkins, near the site of a station planned for Excelsior Boulevard.
Hopkins officials want the Park Nicollet building to include retail space as a way to build a bridge between downtown and the station. But Klodt?s leaders have proposed flexible space because they don?t think retail can succeed in the current environment.
?When we look at a TOD [transit oriented development] site, we think one thing ? housing,? said John Bell, Klodt?s vice president of construction and development. ?When Hopkins looks at this site, they see Excelsior & Grand [a mixed-used development in St. Louis Park]. It?s a lot different perspective and we?re trying to accommodate their vision.?
Tara Beard, the community development director in Hopkins, said city officials met with a handful of developers before coming up with their redevelopment schemes, and continue to hope the street will become an inviting connection between the station and downtown.
Plans for two other proposed station sites in Hopkins remain less defined, however.
The proposed Blake Road station, now planned for Second Street Northeast, could be relocated farther south on Blake Road, where it could help revive an area now filled with aging retail stores and large surface lots.
The proposed Shady Oaks Station, on the Minnetonka border, will be shaped by access roads that have not been finished. The site is seen as a prime site for a park and ride facility serving residents west of the line.
Beard said city officials created ?30,000-foot? visions of how the sites could be developed years ago and would like to come up with more specific plans with input from the development community. But such conversations are difficult when there are so many unknowns lingering, she said.
?It?s hard to engage with the development community too strongly just because we still don?t know exactly what to expect,? Beard said.
Additional conversations with developers would come on top of an already hefty load of planning as officials look to begin construction on the line in 2015 and finish it beginning in 2018.
An environmental review, infrastructure inventory, market assessment, housing analysis and pending preliminary engineering work are part of the process.
Work on a Transitional Station Area Action Plan is also expected to begin after the Metropolitan Council selects a firm to lead the yearlong project in late August. That plan will also include an analysis of infrastructure needs, platform alternatives and community desires.
Callison said those efforts are important, but she?d like to see more information gathering on the market realities developers will face as they consider locating near the transit line, or the specific needs they may have if they are to build on adjacent land.
She said it?s important to identify those issues now, so that future planning efforts can take them into account.
?We?re making a huge public investment and we?d like to be sure that we maximize that opportunity,? she said. ?I?d hate to wait five years and have a developer say, ?If you had just moved that track a little bit differently, we?d be able to put something here.??
Such a conversation is already occurring in Eden Prairie. Officials are talking with property owners around the Town Center station area to get feedback on alternative platform locations that could be more advantageous to area businesses.
?We?ve been working with the private community for 10 years on alignment and station areas,? said Janet Jeremiah, Eden Prairie?s community development director.
Still, there has been some hesitation to actively market the corridor while plans remain in flux and funding hasn?t been secured. Officials are still working to land additional state funding to pay for preliminary engineering of the line.
Bruce Nustad, president of the Twin West Chamber of Commerce, said his group likely won?t look at advertising the route to new builders until engineering begins.
?We?re still really in the advocacy stage and not devoting resources to the specific surrounding development, saying, ?Here?s what the business community wants and needs,?? he said. ?There are some visionary developers out there, but even at their level they?re not going to make decisions yet. It?s a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.?
Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2012/07/southwest-lrt-planners-look-to-engage-developers/
the tree of life movie academy award nominees 2012 2012 oscar nominations kyle williams florida debate rand paul mark kirk
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.