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Project Status Memo 2 Star Tribune Developer's vision for Arden Hills mega-site gets pushback Developer proposes town center with 12-story buildings. By David Peterson Star Tribune August 15, 2016 — 10:57pm The company chosen to oversee one of the biggest developments in the state is asking the suburb of Arden Hills to move its City Hall onto the site and to approve residential buildings as high as 12 stories. Developer Bob Lux of Alatus LLC on Monday outlined the company’s vision for a town center on hundreds of acres at the site of the old Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant. Anticipating criticism, Lux told City Council members, “please don’t throw things at me.” It has long been clear that crunch time for the megaproject would arrive when a private developer with its own money on the table laid out the type of density and intensity it would need to make Rice Creek Commons profitable. The idea of building a new City Hall and perhaps also a library and museum drew instant pushback. “Not sure about moving City Hall, sorry,” said Council Member Brenda Holden. “We’re in the middle of our community right here. That doesn’t hold my interest.” Others were willing at least to consider it, but the idea of residential towers met a lot of resistance. Lux and his colleagues outlined a project whose town center would resemble Santana Row, the celebrated Parisian-style development in San Jose, Calif., with waterfront amenities recalling the band shell area on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. Another model for a town center featuring movie theaters and restaurants would be St. Louis Park’s West End. “People from North Oaks and White Bear Lake would be coming here for entertainment and meals,” Lux said. “The people who designed West End are working for us and learned some lessons from it.” The informal workshop, which also involved commissioners from Ramsey County, a key partner in the project, is expected to be the first of a sequence stretching into autumn. The key to making the new project a walkable, pleasant environment, the developer stressed — rather than “seas of parking lots” — would be a mass grading of the entire property. That would