urbanMSP

Finance & Commerce brings news that Tower Investments, developer of the Elk Run project, owes $741,706.76 in fines and back taxes across 69 properties in Olmsted County (mostly in the Pine Island area). According to the company, payments have been delayed due to appeals by them against the county regarding the assessed value of at least some of the properties.

There are some milestones which need to be met. The first one relates to a requirement that 20 biobusiness jobs be created by December 31st of this year. It sounds like MnDOT might start requesting money if that doesn't happen. Ultimately, Pine Island would owe the state $3.65 million if Elk Run doesn't get up to 182 jobs by the end of 2019.

http://finance-commerce.com/2012/06/add ... un-issues/


The $34.3 million Elk Run interchange with U.S. 52 should open by November. It has a diverging diamond design. The main oddity is that this causes traffic to flow on the "wrong" side of the road across the bridge. There are also a few roundabouts nearby.

The interchange layout has been roughed out on OpenStreetMap. I don't think anyone has aerials of it yet.

Conceptually, this was a good plan concerning design. However, the business plan to execute was absolutely laughable. Steven Burrill is a well-known venture capitalist, no doubt, but ego's never get results. To boast about raising $1 billion dollars for this was a mistake from the beginning. A project of this size requires multi-phases, multiple fund raising efforts over a period of many years, not all at once. Using the excuse of a down economy is a very poor one, indeed. All one ever had to do was raise $150-$300 million max! One then starts to lure and attract businesses, just to get things moving on the site. Once it starts getting developed, it becomes easier to attract companies and talent to the area. One needs to show success before trying to raise another fund for development.

I could write a VERY long history about this project and the Bioscience industry as a whole in the Rochester area, however, I would get so frustrated writing it out that I might resort to name calling. What I will state is this: Never in all the years that I was in the finance business, had I ever dealt with a more inept, incapable and totally clueless bunch of wannabe's in my life. I will never ever even consider investments in Rochester again. My point was made.

Sad. The city has to pay to connect their town to the interstate ramps in order to attract sprawly commercial uses at its fringe.

http://finance-commerce.com/2012/11/mor ... terchange/

not even sprawly commercial uses. empty sprawly commercial buildings...

This whole deal stank from day one. Develop in Rochester, or Minneapolis, but not half way in between in a location that's not convenient for anybody.

And ignore real America??

This is a proposed development in Pine Island, Minnesota, a town of around 3,000 people. Pine Island is a nice small town, but one with some overly ambitious plans. It’s looking to bring a 2,325 acre development to the edge of town that includes a 200 acre “bio-business park” (thanks to “aggressive incentives”), 1.5 million square feet of commercial / retail, over 1,500 single family houses and a brand new high school. It’s a classic old economy “make no little plans” styled project that refuses to die.

To accommodate the new proposed growth, the MnDOT sunk $34 million into a new intersection and a collection of frontage roads where nothing exists beyond countless rows of bean stalks (locals are already starting to refer to it as a “bridge to nowhere”). All this money is being allocated under a plan to get numerous large companies to relocate bio-research facilities, headquarters and jobs to a small town in southern Minnesota. All while doubling the existing housing stock and adding the commercial and retail space equivalent of 14 Wal-Mart stores.

Does anyone think this plan isn’t insane?

Imagine if Pine Island were to create a “small” growth plan. Instead of a new $34 million interchange to induce growth, what if they would have updated an aging sewer system? Used it for civic or school improvements? In fact, they could have given each man, woman and child in town over $10,000 (or used it on a dozen other more productive initiatives). If they were more realistic about economic development, Pine Island could have taken the money and given out low-or-no interest loans to existing businesses looking to expand.

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012 ... small.html

Wow, this one interchange is over $11,000 per resident of Pine Island.

Wow, this one interchange is over $11,000 per resident of Pine Island.

It's a great example of how we view road construction as the best source of economic development. In my mind, a better, more productive idea would have been to give some of the money (possibly in grant / low-interest loan form) to local businesses that have the potential to grow - instead of building massive infrastructure to accommodate a 'pie-in-the-sky' build-it-and-they-will-come mentality.

Without sounding too harsh - the idea that you'd build a brand new town / large business park in a small town in rural Minnesota aimed at attracting the bio-creative-urban-class is laughable. Assuming bio-firms accepted the tax abatement / TIF / other incentives, it's insane to think that high-skill / highly educated bio-firm employees would willingly pick-up and move to Pine Island from San Jose, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, etc.

The idea was a failure for obvious reasons - unfortunately, MnDOT fell for it and built the Diverging Diamond interchange at a huge cost. Pine Island will never be able to afford the maintenance on it.

The interchange is closer to the center of Oronoco (2 miles) than it is to Pine Island (4 miles), and Oronoco is even smaller (1,300 residents). Here's how the area currently shows up on OpenStreetMap:
I think the actual development area is planned to be a bit more toward Pine Island than the brown construction zone implies there (I think that's just meant to cover the rearranged county roads). Still, the city already had one true interchange east of the town center and another at-grade intersection on the north end that could have been converted to a half-interchange in a pretty straightforward manner since there isn't anything in the way -- or it could just be removed entirely.

The north end of Oronoco already almost has a northward-facing half-interchange -- there's a bridge over the highway, and the roads leading to it have right-angled intersections rather than sloping ramps for some reason.

Anyway, this is another example of cities and towns trying to revitalize themselves by expanding outward -- in this case massively so -- rather than reinforcing what they already have. There are unoccupied buildings and empty lots along some parts of Main Street, and the northwest quadrant of the town was completely undeveloped. however, there are rivers in the area, and the town did flood enough to get cut off from the surrounding area a couple years back, but that was like a 1-in-70-year event or something. One wonders how far the millions spent on the interchange and new roads would have gone toward improved flood planning and protection.

Forget it, Jake. It's [s]Chinatown[/s] Oronopineocoland.

Even when this wasn't yet a failed plan, there were a lot of people (and not just the usual smart growth suspects) who said this proposal was ridiculous pie-in-the-sky. There's a long line of people to say I told you so on this one.

If Chuck Marohn saw this (and he probably has) his head would spin.

6 years later, no structures at Elk Run.
http://www.postbulletin.com/business/ye ... d8eb4.html

This was never proposed in any of the studies, but does look like the cheapest way to convert this stretch into a freeway would have been keeping the existing Pine Island interchange (some locals want it kept and there was a major project to build a roundabout in order to keep the existing ramps with a new frontage road) and build a new one just north of Oronoco. There was a desire to reroute 12 away from the residential areas, but it could have been done closer with less new roadway required and a standalone overpass not required.

Or we could, you know, not build more freeways.

I think this is a pretty well-justified freeway, though. There is too much access along the way, however, which is going to lead to sprawl. I've always liked the exit spacing along I-90 tollway northwest of Chicago (about one exit per 10-12 miles), and I think that's more appropriate for rural freeways like this.

Freeway: justified (a good road)
Elk Run DDI: not justified (an "economic development by road" failure)

If you build it they will come?

Part of how MnDOT justified it is that it is supposedly an interchange to serve both Oronoco and Pine Island. The plan is to remove the existing old diamond interchange in Pine Island, and build another new interchange on the far north end of town. This is really the wrong approach, because it doubles down on places of automobility rather than existing places. Interchanges should serve existing places, not hypothetical new places.

I thought the diamond in Pine Island was fairly new, but may be wrong about that. Is it possible for a mere mortal to look up the age of the bridge on some website, or do you need some special access to do so? I've never been able to find a good place to do it, though I'm sure MinnPost or the Strib have had an interactive feature or two on their website(s) over the years.