Answer: Why can’t the city locate a $65 million sports center center?The former Kmart power plants, AMPI, Silver Lake and Libby Factory, or even the mall area, are all near or above the existing facilities and widening the primary transit corridors and would bring more visitors to downtown than we regret is empty.
A more central location would also make the sports center more available to more people in our city. Our city needs density in the central core, but we are moving it further and further away.
If we were a genuinely progressive or creative city, we’d figure out how to reclaim underutilized land and use public services to revitalize those core areas, right?Instead, we will stagnate and give financial aid to the emptied center. —Research
Curious
There are a few imaginable answers to your question, but the most common is that there is not enough area near the city center to satisfy the desires of the planned 75- to 90-acre sports and recreation complex.
Of the sites it offers as an option, the Silver Lake Power Plant, located along West Silver Lake Drive Northeast, is the only one that is recently under city control. It would supply less than nine acres, meaning the city would likely have to expand into the nearby park, which is unlikely since plans are underway for the public space.
The former Seneca Cannery, at the intersection of 12th Street and Third Avenue Southeast, is owned by Olmsted County and also lacks the required space, with 11 acres surrounding the iconic corn cob water tower.
The expansion at the adjacent 52-acre Graham Park would still lack the planned area needed for the planned 125,000-square-foot indoor facility with multi-purpose courts usable for everything from basketball to pickleball, as well as the surrounding box needed for 12 multi-games. -Courts for specific use. Grass boxes for soccer, football or lacrosse, 12 dedicated pickleball courts, parking and other amenities.
In other words, the plans go beyond what is seen in the city’s existing recreation center or other public services already offered in the city.
Even if Graham Park provided enough space, it’s unlikely that county commissioners would be willing to sell the assets as part of their efforts to expand public uses at the site, which already hosts the county’s annual fair, hockey tournaments and a local farmers market. and weddings and social gatherings.
The public area in downtown Rochester may seem huge, but those open areas can be misleading.
Even the mix of the former AMPI and Kmart sites does not have an area of 23. 5 acres.
In addition, Camegaran LLC purchased the for a combined total of $10. 7 million in 2019 and 2020 to pave the way for long-term development, which is expected to include residential and advertising uses. Having already invested time and money in making plans and preparing the set, it is unlikely that the developer will be a willing distributor at this point.
Since Apache Mall is an active advertising site on 52 acres, it seems that the answer to the query related to this site is obvious. Under the current circumstances, the city has no authority to tell a landlord that they will have to evict their tenants and sell their land, even if they have provided an area for a public facility.
During the process of proposing a new regional sports and recreation complex to meet the growing desires for tournaments and the community’s preference for educational fields and courts, it was emphasized that the location would likely be on the outskirts of the city.
Ideally, city officials said it would be a place readily available to visitors and residents alike, while also offering a potential area for long-term development.
The city revealed three potential sites for the planned complex for $65 million from a recently approved local sales tax extension. With two of them located just outside the city’s southern and northwestern limits, the third is part of the former IBM complex northwest of Rochester.
Each offers a more than sufficient area and a likely and willing seller, as well as long-term development prospects, fulfilling several of the project’s explained objectives.
The ongoing process of determining a potential sale and progression value will likely influence the bottom line, but locating a location closer to the city center is not a likely solution unless large assets are suddenly available at the right time. be worth.
Given the costs of existing real estate and the opportunities for progression as the Mayo Clinic grows, I don’t see this opportunity on the horizon.