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<br />jJ~ <br />(> I;) \ <br /> <br /> <br />LL <br />\ <br /> <br />THE CURRENT TWIN LAKES DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL <br />June lQ, <br />Bf'Ai Sands <br /> <br />This current Twin Lakes Development proposal reminds me of a car salesman <br />driving up to my door with a very nice car that he wants to sell me. But it has some <br />problems. One, it's a terrible color-sort of a dirty yellow-a chartreuse. It has a v-8 <br />engine, so gas mileage would be bad. And it has an automatic shift, and I want a stick <br />shift. I asked him how much he wanted for his car, and he said "$46,000,000"1 I decided <br />this is the wrong car at the wrong time, at the wrong price. Now I made up that story to <br />illustrate my feelings about this Twin Lakes Development Process. <br /> <br />1. BiS! Box is the wronS! development (car). <br /> <br />It doesn't conform to the City's master plan for this area, formulated just a <br />few years ago (2001). That plan dictates NO RETAIL, and only limited <br />service business to serve the local area. The current plan (page 11) says big <br />box retail and strip centers are NOT RECOMMENDED. I still agree with that <br />assessment. (The current master plan is available on the city's web site.) <br /> <br />2. It's the wronS! time to develop the site. <br /> <br />(a). We're just coming offbad economic times, which has cooled demand for <br />new office construction. Also, Twin Lakes development was stalled while <br />the exclusive developer, Ryan, was given the job of completing Center Point, <br />a failed project. Ryan has successfully developed Center Point during the past <br />8 years (including two beautiful Veritas office buildings,) and attention can <br />now be focused back onto Twin Lakes. Several years from now, after <br />business picks up, businesses will be growing, and looking for more space. <br />Bio tech and med tech are growing already. Please note the new plan has a lot <br />of office/tech in its plans, or at least did have at the time they presented it to <br />the stakeholders. This indicates to me real estate planners expect to see office <br />demand rebound shortly. <br /> <br />(b). June 10th (abbreviated) headlines: May Department Stores buys <br />Marshall Fields operations and nine Mervyn locations. May will continue to <br />operate Marshall Fields stores; Mervyn stores will be closed. Profitable <br />businesses are rarely sold. I don't want to add to Rosedale's competitive <br />problems at this time by putting in more retail. We also have to consider <br />protecting Har Mar and The Original Target at B and Snelling. Rosedale, <br />Target, and Har Mar make up a very significant part of our existing tax <br />base-We need to protect that source of city/school/county revenue. We <br />should do no harm. <br /> <br />1 <br />