pf_03552 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

is no reason to retail, office, or housing market is so clearly superior to the retail, housing, and office markets in greenfield, outer ring suburbs such as Woodbury and Blaine that you can be sure the Twin Lakes project will be more profitable than similar greenfield projects. There is every reason to believe just the opposite. By far, most new housing and most new retail are going to the greenfield, outer ring suburbs. Because of more and more rooftops in those outer ring suburbs, those greenfields can be just as profitable for developers, if not more so, than the Roseville trade area. And when two potential sites for housing and retail development are equally profitable, and one is a brownfield and one is a greenfield, developers will rationally avoid the higher, front-end costs and larger risks entailed in redeveloping a brownfield in Roseville and go instead to the less expensive greenfield. And that is why, without a TIF subsidy for Twin Lakes, you will continue to see large-scale housing and retail projects develop EITHER with substantial TIF assistance in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Burnsville, St. Louis Park, and other cities providing redevelopment assistance OR such projects will leapfrog over Roseville to the greenfields beyond where city assistance isn't needed and it is easier to develop. Without substantial city assistance nothing new will happen at Twin Lakes except possibly some reinforcement of the current trucking uses there. g. The ratio of public to private investment in Twin Lakes is still evolving. Yes, the ratio of private to public investment is likely to be smaller in Twin Lakes than other redevelopment projects (and it will be a higher ratio than some projects). It is a smaller ratio because the Twin Lakes site is more difficult to redevelop than most, as evidenced by the failure of Twin Lakes to redevelop in a comprehensive way over the last 15 years. h. The cost of redeveloping Twin Lakes will only become more expensive over time. As current trucking uses get older and also possibly expand into newer trucking-related ventures and structures, it becomes that much more difficult and expensive to change those uses. The land and buildings don't get any less expensive. The cost of environmental clean-up doesn't get any less expensIve. 3. City Manager's Recommendations: Remember that compromise involves give- and-take; you gain some things you want, you lose others. No one gains or loses everything. In that spirit I recommend a Council motion or motions directing staff to develop a Twin Lakes Financing Plan along the following lines: a. Direct Staff to cease any further work on and to abandon Gap Strategies 7 (City G.O. Bonds) and 10 (Fiscal Disparities Spread Citywide). 10