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<br /> Joint Development Authority <br />TCAAP Redevelopment Project <br />Joint Development Authority <br />TCAAP Redevelopment Project <br />AGENDA ITEM 3c <br /> <br />MEMORANDUM <br />DATE: August 4, 2025 <br /> <br />TO: Joint Development Authority Board of Commissioners <br /> <br />FROM: Directors Mitchell and Jagoe <br /> <br />SUBJECT: Discuss Development Solicitation Questions <br /> <br /> <br />What is the role and value of a developer? <br />Real estate developers are private partners who bring their vision, expertise, and relationships to a <br />project. Developers engage engineers, architects, landscape architects, contractors, and financial <br />partners to shape a vision for a community and turn it into reality. Often the term developer refers to <br />entities that engage in vertical development: managing the construction of buildings, from financing to <br />design to permitting to construction and beyond. These developers typically specialize in certain <br />products; for example, developers who build multifamily buildings do not often also build single-family <br />houses, and vice versa. There are also land developers that focus on horizontal development, including <br />site preparation and installation of infrastructure such as roads and utilities, and then sell the land to <br />other developers/builders to for vertical development. <br />For a project the size of Rice Creek Commons, there is often what is typically called a “master <br />developer” or lead developer. Because Rice Creek Commons includes zoning for mixed-use, multifamily, <br />single-family, commercial, civic, parks and other uses, it is expected that several developers with <br />expertise in each of these specialties will work on different parts of the site. A lead developer selects <br />and coordinates those sub-developers, assessing the market, determining the order and timing of <br />development, and negotiating agreements. <br />If the JDA works with a lead developer, the JDA would sign one overall development agreement <br />(sometimes called a “master development agreement’), which would include a template of a <br />development agreement that sub-developers would be required to agree to prior to each phase of <br />development. Ramsey County would concurrently negotiate a purchase and sale agreement with this <br />lead developer, who would purchase the property either in one transaction or in tranches and then sell <br />parcels to sub-developers. The lead developer takes on a greater portion of the risk in this arrangement <br />and in return may make a profit through these land sales and/or through developing portions of the site <br /> <br />