Archive for the ‘Savage’


Flavor at the Depot: Savage, MN

In a move which is unsurprising yet sad, the Savage City Council has agreed to allow yet another restaurant to fill the vacant space left by the Savage Depot Bistro. While the ownership/management of the Savage Depot Bistro had a variety of bad business decisions of their own which led to their (admittedly longer than I expected) demise, this new venture is dead from the get go.

The new restaurant known as “Flavor at the Depot” (or FLaVOR at the Depot as quoted by Burnsville Patch which would be even more ridiculous) will be a breakfast and lunch spot which means the two sisters opening the place are already shooting themselves in the foot by competing with nearby staple Windmill Cafe, but also because they’re not going to be able to sell enough meals after year one to make the ever-increasing rent:

From the Savage Pacer article:

The proposal reviewed by the EDC Wednesday requests a five-year lease with an option to renew for an additional five years. Proposed rent for the first six months would be $1 per month, then $500 per month for months seven through 12. The rent would increase in year two to $750 per month.

According to the Burnsville Patch article, the rent will continue increasing up to $1500 in year 5 which works out to an average of about $950/month over the five year term, something the City of Savage is unlikely to have to even think about.

The place is doomed from the start. It’s small, it has mandated limitations due to its historical state, it is in an area full of heavy competition from other well-established restaurants covering the entire gambit of types (Mexican, fast-food, bar, sports bar/wing joint, breakfast/lunch, etc), and most importantly, the name is simply awful.

What do you think about this one? Would you walk into a lease which you know is going to continue to increase over time eating away at whatever profits you were making? Do you think the City is being fair to the residents of Savage by charging a pittance for the first year? Do you think this one has any chance of making it knowing what they’re trying to do and the competition in the area? Whatever you have to say go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Elko/New Market Residents Happy by Luck

According to this article in the Star Tribune, the first ever resident survey in Elko/New Market shows that residents are extremely happy with their city when compared to other similarly sized exurbs. However, the reason for their happiness seems to relate more to the fact that residents outside the city, located in the larger county, are footing the bill for much of what Elko/New Market needs.

From the article:

Despite a bare-bones police operation, with many hours covered by sheriff’s deputies, the city’s rating for police patrols is in the top 10 percent in the metro as a whole and the top 5 percent among exurbs, city officials say.

[...]

It’s part of Scott County, meaning it can take advantage of an aggressive program of sharing costly equipment and technology with the county and the three big suburbs to its north — things like excavators, which can cost a fortune yet be rarely used.

Listen, being fiscally conservative is a great thing and no one is complaining about a city which takes it seriously. However, while sharing less critical resources such as excavators makes sense and having access to the County’s services are part of paying taxes there, it seems almost wrong to rely on limited Sheriff resources while other cities have to fund their own large police departments to ensure proper coverage and then tout it as a great thing.

Elko/New Market has learned from many of the mistakes of its neighbors and is taking the proper approach to growth by waiting for actual need rather than confusing ‘need’ with ‘projection’. Still, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it and to brag about using the services of the county paid for by other much larger groups while claiming fiscal conservatism will likely rub some the wrong way.

What do you think about this one? Is Elko/New Market somewhere you’d like to live? Do you think they’re taking it a little too far when they are able to piggyback off the success of other local large suburbs by sharing resources and having to fund little of their own? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What Makes You Attached to the MSP Metro?

According to this MinnPost article which discusses what makes people attached to a particular city. The article discusses with Katherine Loflin, a placemaking expert and lead consultant for a Gallup and Knight Foundation study on what drives attachment to a city. While the results of this study are interesting, most people may disagree with the findings.

From the article:

If people can find jobs and reasonable places to live, they’ll be attached enough. Worrying about quality of life, amenities, public spirit and all that squishy stuff seems a bit trivial in an economy that still recovering from one of the worst recessions ever.

But Loflin makes a business case for love of a place. These days, those people most likely to drive the growth of a city, namely young people between the ages of 25 and 34, have reprioritized. Quality of life registers high on their list of necessities. Corporations are finding that increasingly they have to sell talented recruits on the place where they would be relocating as well as the job.

As a hiring manager working in a field which is showing rapid growth and high competition during the turned down economy, I have been fighting to both recruit and retain people for my teams. While my experience is limited and certainly not as wide as the number of people looked at by this study, my experience in no way mirrors what Loflin has said. Talented recruits just out of school or with less than 10 years experience have just as much desire for high salary, regardless of their current location in our outside Minnesota, as anyone else I have talked to recently. You can sell them all you like on the greatness of the MSP metro but they know two things: money talks and it’s freakishly frigid here. When recent grad students are requesting six figure salaries without more than a few months of relevant real-world experience and getting offers from elsewhere with it, I can give you a 99.999% guarantee that this study is bunk.

What do you think about this one? Would you pass over a much higher income elsewhere just so you could stay where the people are? Are you surprised that recently minted masters-level students without much relevant experience are receiving such high offers when you hear in the news that this group is so hard pressed for cash lately? What attaches you to the MSP metro? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Savage Removes Hoops to Avoid Violence

According to this Savage Pacer article, the City of Savage had to take down basketball hoops at a park due to violence in the area which may have spilled into the modified lockdown at Burnsville High School last week. According to the City of Savage this has happened before due to violence in their parks and is an effective way to keep youth from the parks when there is a related public safety issue to the basketball hoops.

From the article:

Savage police received a call on Tuesday, April 30 about a possible fight that was going to occur at River Bend Park, 14347 Joppa Ave. Officers arrived at the park at about 6 p.m. and spoke with some of the teenagers who were gathered there. The teenagers denied the report of an impending fight, and the officers reminded them that they would take the basketball hoops down if criminal activity occurred. “We’ve told them before that if problems occurred out there, we’d take [the hoops] down,” Seurer said.

[...]

Seurer said that the city took down the basketball hoops at River Bend Park about two years ago because of a history of altercations at the park, but that the hoops had since been put back up. In the previous period that the hoops were down, there were “dramatically” fewer altercations at the park, Seurer said. “We’ve got kids out there practicing ball, out there on the playground, and we don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Seurer said of the decision to take down the hoops. “It’s a public safety issue.”

Seurer said the hoops have made the park a popular place for lots of kids to congregate, which can sometimes cause problems. When asked if the hoops might be put back up at some point, Seurer said that “it won’t be anytime soon.”

Are you surprised that limiting public safety calls is as simple as removing a set of basketball hoops from a park? Do you think the basketball hoops should ever go back up? Do you believe the fights planned for this park are related to the one that occurred at BHS causing a modified lockdown (which really isn’t a lockdown at all and should be how every day is handled at the high school)? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.