Community Perspective: St. Michael

 

Maintaining Commercial and Industrial Land

 

Despite pressure to sell off land for housing, the city of St. Michael is working to retain its commercial and industrial land and plan for its future.

 

As part of this planning, the city is pursuing a new interchange at Nabor Avenue along Interstate 94, located halfway between Highway 241 and the County Road 37 exit where there are 450 acres guided for commercial and industrial development.

 

"Since 1997, when the interchange was first on the city's plan it was viewed as one of the few opportunities to create a large commercial/industrial area," says Marc Weigle, St. Michael's community development director. "There's tremendous pressure for residential growth, but we need to plan out 10, 20, 30 years and make sure there's enough land for commercial/industrial use."

 

However, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has no funding for the new interchange, so the project will be privately funded. "The financing will be difficult," Weigle says. "It will be a combination of TIF, tax abatement, other city funds, assessments and developers' payments."

 

St. Michael is working on an environmental assessment and preliminary design for the interchange and hopes to have an Interchange Access Request approved by fall 2006.

 

"Once we get to that point, we can continue to pursue it if developers and landowners are prepared, or we can sit on it for five or 10 years until the market can support it," Weigle says. But this way, the city has started the ball rolling. Without action, it could lose its future access approval with MnDOT.

 

Some developers have told the city that it will have to do mixed-use to support the interchange; however, the city council is adamant that it wants to reserve the land for commercial/industrial development, Weigle says. He says that's important for several reasons, including preserving its tax base and creating jobs.

 

Weigle also adds, "We're moving ahead on this for the landowners, to show them we're serious about the interchange.

 

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