This ABC Newspapers link. Stating in part:
McDonald’s never signed the time extension document the Ramsey City Council had approved in February 2016 and did not pay the $5,000 escrow the council had required as a condition of approval, according to City Administrator Kurt Ulrich.
“We’d certainly like to have them come, but we’ve been patient,” said Council Member Melody Shryock.
Ulrich said McDonalds told him on Feb. 23 that it wants to hold on to the property and develop it when there are “more generators and a demand to support our business.”
Tying up a promising location, without paying even five-grand; Trump would respect that way of doing business.
Don't call them "Big Macs," call them "Darren burgers," which means wholly ephemeral but for the cash Darren extracted as a "fee" [commission without any real estate license, neat trick, but terminology aside, Darren got the cash] with the extraction of that cash having been given full blessing from a too pliant council at the time.
Matt Look, how are you doing?
Your cohorts, after you bailed on the Town Center stuff from a town council seat and chased the bigger County Board paycheck. And that school alleged to have plans across the highway . . .
Back to the online item - read it all, it is tightly written and informative. One more quote:
Sarah Edstrom Smith, an attorney with Briggs And Morgan who negotiated the land deal on behalf of the city, feels the city has a strong case if it chooses to take back the property title through a court action because McDonald’s failed to meet the deadlines for groundbreaking and restaurant opening that were included in the land deed recorded with Anoka County on March 3, 2014.
“The re-entry language does not require the city to compensate McDonalds if one of the conditions subsequent is not met and the city commences an order to re-vest title to the property,” Smith said.
ABC Newspapers asked McDonald’s why there has been a delay, when ground breaking would happen and if it would fight the city on any efforts to remove the restrictive covenants and taking back the property without any compensation.
A McDonald’s spokesperson said the company has no information to share at this time regarding the Ramsey property.
[...] Council Member Chris Riley said they should not rush to take back the property since there are no other buyers lined up and the city is still trying to sell other large tracts of land in The COR development north of Highway 10 and between Armstrong and Ramsey boulevards.
“We don’t want the land. We want a building. We’re all in agreement of that,” Riley said.
Council Member Kristine Williams has a different opinion. She called it “a prime retail spot” because of its location and the city already put in the underground utilities so these building pads would be ready for development.
A third opinion, the firm is jerking the town around, and should be sent packing. They have a location a few miles away and might have never intended to build in Ramsey, but to tie up the land so no competitor would do so.
Go to court, tell the firm to watch the doorknob. A third opinion, apparently one not articulated at the intrepid council table.
It all comes back to a project that was a mess from day one, and continues. Bless judgment, a virtue best shown when lacking. Final ABC paragraph, go there to read it, shows a fourth opinion, and judgment. Let us say call the bluff if bluffing is what's happening. In a gentle way, but it's either a bluff or real, or just coasting since a competitive site to an existing burger outlet has been, and remains, tied up to the benefit of the existing down-the-road joint.
NOTEWORTHY: The down-the-road McDonalds is next door to a Culvers fast food outlet, with Culvers a BETTER QUALITY outlet in some minds, AND Culvers is NOT dissing its neighbors down the Highway toward Elk River; at that spot between Anoka and Elk River, (that being the quintessential characterization of RAMSEY over time, and still). The place with the RV sales lots along the highway.