BLAINE, Minn. – (Sept. 11, 2015) – Most cities in the metro area have a comprehensive plan that they review every 10 years. That plan dictates where houses will be, where high density apartment buildings will be, and where commercial and industrial areas will be. Because of this, when it comes to new businesses moving into a city, or choosing what businesses will be where, cities are fairly limited. Blaine’s comprehensive plan is very thorough and when new businesses or developments are suggested, the question of whether or not it fits in with the plan is reviewed. Blaine City Manager, Clark Arneson explains more.
“People assume that we, A, are either out recruiting these businesses to come to Blaine, or that we have an ability to say that we like ‘x’ but we don’t want ‘y’. We don’t have that ability. If you meet, and it doesn’t matter what the business is, if you meet our comprehensive plan and you meet our zoning requirements, it is very difficult for any city not to approve that. In fact you would probably get sued if you do.”
One area in the city that is about to go into redevelopment is the Oak Park Plaza which should be seeing big changes underway before the year is through.
“That is a redevelopment on the west side of Blaine at 109th and University and it is probably about a 1960s shopping center. Large parts of that will be removed and a retail redevelopment will occur there and a new facelift on a lot of the remaining buildings that are there as well”
But, Blaine didn’t get to look at Cub Foods as an anchor in that area and say that they thought it was a good plan for them to build. They work on what number of square feet will be going in, how many parking stalls there will be, and what the elevation and drainage will look like.
“We work with the developer, they find their tenants. We don’t say, ‘well we’d like to see an Anytime Fitness or Karate’. We don’t do that. We work in this particular case with Tri-Land Development in Chicago who owns the land and said I’d like to develop 65,000 or whatever the number is of commercial space. That’s the envelope that we deal in.”
Coming to the city in the near future are: a new Aldi, a new Goodwill, a Super Wal-Mart, a Chick-Fil-A, and a store called At Home.
“Commonly right now with Facebook and other social media, once we do a commercial approval, it’s not uncommon to have some Facebook comments saying: ‘how could you approve ‘XYZ’?’ when the reality is, we don’t have a choice if they meet the comprehensive plan and the zoning. We aren’t out recruiting commercial entities to Blaine.”
A lot of the comments Clark has seen lately are centered around a more upscale grocery store and the desire to have something new in Blaine. While there might be a place for that, no one from those stores is asking to build.
“The marketplace takes care of that and the property rights. People make their own decisions and we aren’t out chasing restaurants or anything like that either. A lot of it, whether it’s a Kowalskis or a Byerly’s or whatever is all market driven and whether Blaine’s market is able to support that is their calculus not ours.”
Blaine intends to continue growing in residential, commercial and industrial areas. The Met Council predicts that Blaine will grow by about 25 thousand people in the coming years. As far as what other stores will move into the area in the future, that remains to be seen.
