On the north side of 109th new town homes are filling the landscape.
“What’s unique about that project is they’re actually offering two different housing choices. One is a for sale townhome product but they also offer rental town homes,” said Blaine’s community development director Erik Thorvig.
This part of town is getting ready to see more commercial growth with at least one new restaurant starting construction soon.
“We’re going to see a new Culver’s restaurant being constructed this summer. The developer is still trying to attract other type of users in this area. We’ve been trying to get a grocery store here which has been challenging for them, but you could see additional buildings like the one that Starbucks and Jersey Mike’s is in with the multi-tenant type of structure,” said Thorvig.
On the west side of Blaine near Highway 65 and Main Street many new restaurants are underway.
“The right developer connected with the property owner and they’re bringing some new restaurant options that we don’t currently have in Blaine such as MOD Pizza. They’re going to be putting a Chick-fil-A in there and the Noodles and then a Mr. Carwash and a Zupas.”
Near the National Sports Center there’s a few more restaurants that you to be popping up soon.
“At the southwest corner of 105th and Radisson there’s a local developer that recently received approvals for two buildings on that corner. They’re going to be building what’s called a Pizza Pub Prime which is an upscale Pizza and Restaurant that’ll have a large outdoor rooftop patio which is a nice experience that not a lot of our other restaurants have in Blaine. Then they’re going to do a second building just south of that will be a multi-tenant two-story building that will have office potentially another restaurant as well and some other different types of spaces for any new businesses that we’re trying to recruit to Blaine,” said Thorvig.
But it’s not all restaurants. Blaine is also seeing growth in the industrial sector.
“The industrial sector is very strong throughout the metro area and in particular in Blaine. We saw over 700,000 square feet of new light industrial space constructed in Blaine over the last couple years. Light industrial isn’t necessarily the most exciting thing for residents, of course they want the restaurants and retail options, but light industrial spaces bring new businesses and new jobs to Blaine which are very important. There’s a project at Highway 35W and County Road J called Blaine 35, and there’s three buildings there that are 300,000 square feet they’re going to be bringing in five new businesses to Blaine relocating from other cities. There could be over 400 new jobs coming to Blaine as a result of that project.”
Looking more long-term, Blaine is making some plans for the future of the Northtown Mall area.
“The city council recently adopted a moratorium in the Northtown area, and what a moratorium does is it essentially pauses development and allows the city to get our regulations in place so that any new development going forward is consistent with our vision. Right now, we’re looking at zoning and land use for the Northtown area and we’ll hopefully wrap that up here sometime in the late summer, and that will then set the the vision forward for any new development in that area,” said Thorvig.
Blaine is also working on a downtown type development on the north side of 105th Avenue close to Radisson Road. Erik Thorvig said the city would likely be sharing specific plans for that area before the end of the summer.
