I'm bemused as a member of the Lyndale Neighborhood Association who joined with the Whittier Alliance and the business community in seeing the opening of Nicollet as a sine qua non for commercial corridor development both north/south and east/west at the Nicollet/Lake intersection. I also see the value of the modest storefronts incorporated in the proposed layout for the anchoring store in the southwest corner of the superblock - good expansion destinations for the Hispanic and Somali retail businesses getting their starts in nearby mini-malls. This is not some half-baked notion.
Here's more from my post to what must be a stunned task force. Note the confirmatory sentiment in the response that follows from another task force list member. > > I've been to any number of meetings, the most recent being the > Nicollet/Lake Businessmen's Association, at which Sherman Associates > representatives have talked knowledgeably and with every expectation > of success in their negotiations related to a succession anchoring > retail presence on the southwest portion of the superblock. Not > Kmart. But not nobody, either. Why is that understanding missing from > the negative pitch that Jim White made? > > Our neighborhood organizations are all for this and so are we at > Charles Horn. What's gone wrong here? > > It's not as if CMs Dan Niziolek and Lilligren are out of the loop > either. There is solid, solid support for opening Nicollet. There's > plenty of support for the new housing proposed on the north end of > the superblock. There's thoughtful incorporation of the Greenway > asset. There's ample support for the expanded Family Practice Clinic > and one of the Sherman Associates reps told me that if push came to > shove there would be no dearth of commercial alternatives for that > southeast corner of the superblock. There's the companion features of > state, metro, and county road improvements. There's related > streetscape improvements built into the highway package. > > This smacks of some kind of inept. Why continue the obvious and much > disliked closure? Think about the size of the downtown bailouts - > Kmart may dig in, but Kmart is a finite quantity a lot smaller than > the massive numbers the council has been willing to throw at downtown > development fiascos. A Nic-Lake_Taskforce discussion list member/eyewitness responded: "I was at the council meeting of the CD committee yesterday. You summed up the essence of the issue very well ..."inept". Or perhaps, "void of any vision, and a complete absence of any appreciation for the efforts of both Sherman and the hundreds of neighborhood committees and volunteers. "If, in fact, the real reason the city has lost interest in the project is because the city doesn't have the money, then be honest with everyone and tell us there is no interest because there is no money...not use as an excuse that the project needs to be delayed/postponed to revisit the validity/appropriateness of the concept." I can think of a number of descriptive terms for the crude handling of this decision: disingenuous and disrespectful come immediately to mind. It's certainly dismaying and it's going to take more than glib phrases to repair this damage. Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten, in the Lyndale Neighborhood --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.459 / Virus Database: 258 - Release Date: 2/25/2003 TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
