Note the names of interest, "Bloomington-based NorthMarq" and "Welsh Companies."
These are names the City of Ramsey should be including in its solicitations, in fairness, besides only the currently favored firm, Landform. For all I know, it might be the City of Ramsey business that is keeping Landform alive these days, afloat in this greatly depressed commercial real estate market where Ramsey decision makers seem intent to be the salmon swimming upstream, driven by pure instinct, when the stream clearly has run dry.
A lot of flopping in place and heaving of gill slits; no real progress seen as achieved. Show something before spending yet more, chasing the dry upstream course. Please.
Yes, I am aware. A restaurant. As in one, one restaurant. Due early next year.
Progress of a sort.
Landform, that firm presumably will continue receiving any tendered checks and cashing them, with its promise-you-little-or-nothing-beyond-best-efforts disclaimer language prominent in its submitted paperwork.
We watch. Ben watches, from across the street.
Bless them all.
_______UPDATE________
The omitted Strib link was placed in the first line, and it goes without saying any reader interested in Ramsey Town Center failed planning should read the Strib item on Woodbury Lakes in its entirety, given that off-highway locale, and mediocre demographics apply while Maple Grove, Riverdale, and Elk River commercial outlets are within a short drive distance for Ramsey citizens. There's relative saturation that way, and Canyon Grille closing indicates that the restaurant business is flagging when an exceptional quality outlet shuts its doors. The words "distressed property" are key, and it appears RTC is a luckier situation in that it was not built out just before the market tanked, as with Woodbury Lakes. But when the market improves, it is the existing sites that are better placed than RTC. Again, my view of wisdom is to sit tight and waste less that way. But that was a better strategy before the town decision makers bought the site. Now it's not a White Elephant in the town, but a White Elephant owned by the town. Ah, well ---
One further item, Strib reports, here, Oct. 8 online, that the price of oil is escalating because the value of a Bush-Obama dollar is tanking. Perhaps the convenient drives to restaurants in neighboring locales will drop further, and more and more people will eat more cheaply at home. That seems to be the current frame of events, with some exceptions. Some people simply do not like to cook, and restaurant visits might reduce to an unsustainable trickle without running dry. The question is what kinds of retail and dining businesses are healthy enough to weather sustained bad economics. Times are hard, and what's wise or foolish spending for a community is a matter of disagreement and debate - or it should be - among decision makers.
It appears Ramsey is full steam ahead. The Titanic was too.
________FURTHER UPDATE________
In fairness to Landform, its "representative projects page" [this link] does not show Woodbury Lakes as being one of its items. It does not have that bug splat on its windshield. That's positive but not greatly reassuring. The City fathers should look at the several projects they tout, to see how healthy a track record they have, times being as they are. It would be negligent and questionable, to do less. I think forty or so projects are represented - touted - on that resource page. Check them out, it's doing the job to do so, and not doing the job to do less.
What's the healthiness of that collection, as to survival in current times and situations? Don't be lured one way or another by one or two items. Check out the bunch.