Burnsville’s Nicollet Park Band Shell
Last week I posted a comment about suburbs trying to create an identity for themselves under my post about the completely unnecessary and overpriced Apple Valley Liquor Store #3 which will be located in the complex adjacent to the pointless Apple Valley Target South and it got some interesting discussion going.
Well, a follow-up to that discussion is this story about how Anderson Builders of St Louis Park have decided to pull out of “downtown” Burnsville’s revitalization attempt known as Heart of the City. This “downtown” includes such businesses as Cub Foods, Milio’s Sandwiches and the Grande Marketplace as well as others such as Jensen’s Cafe located on the corner of Nicollet and Burnsville Parkway.
This entire development seems a whole lot like Apple Valley’s lame attempt at creating a “downtown” with the whole Apple Valley Central Village bullshit. It’s obviously going so very well for the suburbs to try and give themselves identities that everyone knows are nothing but attempts at creating more retail space for chain businesses.
Personally I think that this is great news. I can only hope that stories like this will deter the suburbs from their continued quest to become “Little Woodbury” and create these false “downtowns” in the hopes that people will be fooled into believing that they live in a real quaint town and not some dumpy chain-infested hellhole.
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January 31st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
See also here as the link to the Star Tribune article will eventually die a painful and horrible death.
January 31st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Bill,
I couldn’t agree more. If you’re looking for a suburb that actually has an identity and a pretty cool downtown, check out White Bear Lake. Some of the highlights for me are proximity to the lake, the Friday farmer’s market and their annual Manitou Days festival every summer. There are only a few chains in the downtown area and they aren’t that bad. No big box stores. The quaint downtown was one of the major things that drew us to White Bear Lake. Suburbs need to stop thinking that the box store will save them and make space for small businesses. That’s what will give them an identity.
Andy
January 31st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Bill,
Right on.
Daniel
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
Knowing that a builder is uninterested in backing the plan for this obvious waste of money, the Bursville City Council has approved $4 million dollars to build the 250 space parking deck for their Heart of the City pet project.
*shakes head*
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 pm
And to follow-up with the comment I posted above, it seems that Burnsville is putting their mouth where their unnecessary money is by saying that the Heart of the City really is viable!
Well you better if you’re going to sink $4 million dollars into a project that, as of now, has done little but create a new Cub Foods and other overpriced ventures.
With Apple Valley going the *EXACT* route with “Founders Circle”/Apple Valley Central Village, I can really see the morons at our City Council watching this closely thinking to themselves that they too can sink ungodly amounts of money into projects to turn a barren wasteland into a sea of overpriced and empty buildings (yay for tax revenue!). The problem with Apple Valley is that they won’t be able to do it without additional funding like Burnsville claims they were able to do in this particular instance.