According to this article in Thisweek-Online (and in print which was delivered to my doorstep — wet), Watson’s in Apple Valley is likely to be acquired by the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority under an action approved by the Dakota County commissioners to increase the parking available for the nearby transit station.
There has been a growing issue with the number of bus riders parking on adjacent streets in order to ride the bus downtown. In the past, riders parking in the Watson lot as well as plenty of other businesses in the area. Watson’s disallowed parking in their lots which has only made Watson’s look far more empty than it normally is. Honestly, even on weekends I have only seen a handful of cars in their large expanse of a lot. Kim and I have joked that it’s nothing but a drug front because there’s no way that selling a few pools a year could make up for the huge costs of maintaining that retail location.
Andre Prefontaine, owner of Watson’s, is disappointed in the low ball assessed value of the 50,000 square foot property on 10 acres suggested by the MVTA ($4.57 million) and while he’s willing to work with the MVTA and County on this (more like he doesn’t have a choice in the matter), he’s still upset — and rightfully so.
I’m no fan of eminent domain myself and I think that a several fair assessments need to be done before this deal closes officially but if Watson’s hadn’t banned parking in their empty lot we might not even be at this point now.
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September 25th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
[...] empty throughout the day and the current parking area only takes up half of the land that was taken by eminent domain. I would hope that when they build this transit station palace that they would eliminate the [...]