(BLAINE) – City leaders pressed grocery store chain Hy-Vee representatives for a more definitive timeline after the company’s land has sat largely undisturbed for more than two years.
Hy-Vee asked the city for a one-year extension of its conditional use permit for the land it acquired across Main Street from Blaine High School in late 2018. Preliminary site work and grading was completed on the plot, which is very close to a large neighborhood and Jefferson Middle School, about a year ago, and nothing has happened there since.
Phil Hoey, Director of Real Estate for Hy-Vee, joined the council meeting via Zoom and told council that he anticipated the company would move forward with plans for some of the outparcels that surround the larger future grocery store on the plat later this year, possibly this fall.
Mayor Tim Sanders pressed for more specifics or a clearer timeline, but Hoey would not provide one. He said the company is committed to having its Spring Lake Park location opened sometime in 2021, but for what the company planned to do beyond that remained uncertain. When pressed, Hoey did say he found it unlikely the company would need to come back in April 2022 and ask Blaine for another extension.
“As a community, we really, truly look forward to having a Hy-Vee grocery store,” said Ward 1 Councilmember Wes Hovland. “But, at the same time, we have an obligation to look out for people living in that area, and to have to deal with construction for a year, year and a half, two years, that’s not fair to them.”
Hovland, for his part, said he would support this extension–which did pass–but he would have a hard time passing another extension.
