3-1/2

April 15, a recognizable deadline day, will mark three and one half months to the day since James A. Norman's last day at the new oppulent Ramsey city hall. While gone, his legacy of faulty planning and escalating taxes remains largely untouched, largely unchanged. In honor of rising taxes (something the newly formed business group, the RamseyBA with blog and website worries over), there is this Town Center -&- new City Hall and Ramp memorial image:




May Ramsey NEVER have a Port Authority. That part of the hubris and legacy of James A. Norman need not be embraced by even his most zealous supporters and cohorts.

As a closing note, two things: First, the RamseyBA IS aiming to build membership among the local Ramsey business community so mention it to friends. I believe their next April 19 meeting will be a public event, not limited to current members, with the open meeting goal being to inform people in the city and to boost the group's membership. But please check with them via the email address from their website:

probusiness@ramseyba.com

And have a look at their about us & mission statement page (where meeting detail is given in the footer).

Remember, in that fleecing image, you cannot tell business sheep from solely residential sheep in the long, waiting, fleecing lineup.

This RamseyBA is an interesting community grassroots effort bringing up the second closing point. I am not a member. I am not a business owner-operator and would not qualify for membership or be involved in their executive sessions, but at public sessions I believe I have something to learn from what they present.

Several Ramsey small businesses have been impacted by road changes - beyond everyone's dissatisfaction with wholly unneeded lights along south Ramsey Blvd (while a four-way stop at the dangerous Alpine intersection remains debated, talked over, undone).

In rush hour, perhaps the lights have justification. But during mid-day, evenings and other off-peak times, make them either flashing red four-ways or flashing yellow on Ramsey and flashing red on Sunwood, the seldom-used cross street, so that off-peak there is the equivalent of a two-way stop. Installing non-peak four way flashing red at Ramaey Blvd and Hwy 116 would fit the recently changed but successful past four-way stop there that worked just fine.

Having those nuisance lights operating 24/7 at Sunwood, for the near-vacant Town Center, is a total joke and embarassment.

A vibrant new real estate sector? Downtown, but shared-wall housing (even there) is in the doldrums.

There are two online and in-print Strib articles, April 5 and April 6 [remaining online for free public access for two weeks].

April 5, reporter Susan Feyder, writes:

Despite high construction costs, market conditions may bode well for office development in Minneapolis for the first time since 2001.

It's been six years since downtown Minneapolis got a new office tower, but the signs are growing that at least one could be announced sometime this year.

The vacancy rate for office space has dropped for the past two years, and the rate for top-tier Class A space stood at 13.6 percent at the end of 2006. Typically, developers begin considering adding office buildings when the vacancy rate gets down to 10 percent.

Space is even tighter in office buildings along Nicollet Mall, where the vacancy rate is just 6 percent, according to figures compiled by Bloomington-based United Properties. At year's end, the IDS Center's vacancy rate was 3 percent, while 50 S. 10th St. (formerly Retek on the Mall) was completely full.

"There's a high likelihood we'll see someone come out with plans for a new [downtown] office project within the year," said Brent Erickson, a senior associate at United who specializes in the downtown market. Erickson said the economy is expected to stay relatively healthy, keeping companies growing and in need of more space.

Even so, Erickson said a couple of things will have to change before a developer moves ahead with plans for a new office project. Rental rates have risen in the past couple of years but would need to increase more to get close to the cost of newly built space, creating the equilibrium that would encourage demand from tenants for new office space.

In addition, an anchor tenant for a new building would have to emerge. "You can figure that any new office building that goes into the downtown core will be at least 600,000 square feet," said Russ Nelson, president of the real estate brokerage firm of Nelson, Tietz & Hoye. "You would probably be looking for an anchor that would take about 300,000."

April 6, Jim Butcha reports:

Downtown condo plan goes retail

The developer shifted gears in a saturated downtown condo market. The new plan has Whole Foods and possibly a Best Buy.

A Seattle company has pulled the plug on plans to build a 290-unit condo building planned for the Downtown Jaguar site at Hennepin and Washington Avenues in Minneapolis. Instead, the company is proposing an all-retail complex that will include a Whole Foods and what could be downtown's first Best Buy store.

This is the second luxury high-rise downtown condo project to alter plans in response to a sluggish market, and one of several that's being redrawn for commercial or retail purposes.

In recent days, for example, the group that had planned to build the 350-unit Nicollet condominium tower along the Nicollet Mall announced plans to make it a mixed-use project. Some downtown condo projects are on hold indefinitely.

Many applaud the changes at what was once called the Two Twenty Two project, because it will take some pressure off an already soft condominium market. And it will add much-needed retail to a historic burgeoning riverfront neighborhood that's packed with new housing, sprawling parks and a growing number of cultural attractions.

"This would just be dynamite," said Fritz Kroll, North Loop livability chairman and a sales agent for an Edina Realty office that's in a renovated 1800s hotel down the street from the project.

"It says that there's enough housing already on the market and that there's already enough housing here to support some substantial retail growth."

[italics added] There's more detail to both items, especially the second, but with regard to Ramsey real estate dreaming, is any of this a good message?

Ramsey competed for that dense housing - Downtown is a more attractive location for that market segment, clearly, whereas Ramsey has prospered on a steady not heady growth by offernig more house and lot for the money - until recently when, with James Norman as City Administrator and with more than a gentle nudge from the Met Council (wanting to gain sewer connection and usage income from us), there was a shift in goals and direction.

Retail? Downtown's after that also, to match its advantages in dense housing. Elk River has its new shopping growth, and Riverdale's been built out. Retail saturation is a worry any potential Ramsey retailer would have to face and weigh in decision making.

Office? Downtown on the move again. What Ramsey has been good at, and successful with, has been the 1 to 1-1/2 acre lot and single family home, and the suburban small shop and warehouse job growth along the BNSF track corridor from the Anoka Business Park (where businesses such as E-Street Makers are housed in Anoka) up to the edge of the near vacant "Town Center" acreage west of Ramsey Blvd.

What has our city council and esteemed set of planners, in hand with Met Council, achieved via its latest trend in decision making?

Can you say "Mistake"? Can you say "Failure"? Can you say "Nedegaard Bankruptcy"? Can you say "Escalating Taxes"? Can you say "Leveled Public Services"?

Get a broom? Make a clean sweep in 2008? Or hold onto a questionable status quo and hope and dream some more into mid-century? Realism, or the romance of growth and the myth of over-saturated humongo numbers of new rooftops aiding us and not just Met Council's cashflow?

John Feges came to Council saying "Upscale" and "The Developer will pay for everything," then in the Monday May 19, 2003, front-page "Billion dollar urban village" article it became, "The developer could pay for everything." After a publicly funded $19 million was blown for City Hall moving and Ramp funding, plus upfront City millions spent for fronting sewer/water and other infrastructure for this private profit-seeking venture, we have a reported developer bankruptcy situation (without having paid for "everything" by any measure). We had Mayor Gamec expressing "doubt" in years-past City minutes about the level of housing exceeding 500 units, whereas we see thousands are planned. We see developer price-cutting and rent-to-own. That does not ring "upscale" to my hearing. Is there any sense of wanting to hold people accountable? How will that be achieved with who accountable for what, exactly?

Nedegaard news link.

See the PEOPLE3 meeting post, below, with the hot link there, or if you want it directly, click here.

Habitat for Humanity News - a Ramsey groundbreaking -

An added update note of clarification: In being critical of other development, and with a title "Developers Are Crabgrass," I want it absolutely clear I approve totally of what Habitat for Humanity aims for; and I believe there is a place for, and a community benefit from assuring that working families lacking buy-in wealth for more expensive propositions can still have a chance at the home ownership dream. A boost to credible and decent people coming to the neighborhood is a credit to our sense of fair play and decency.



From an email address on the city website, I got a VERY timely reply to a request for info from Habitat for Humanity:

We intend to build and sell 24 townhomes in three phases of 8 each year in 2007, 2008, and 2009. The homes will all be sold to working families who earn between 30% and 50% of the area median income as determined by HUD. Additionally the families will have to contribute between 300 and 500 hours of sweat equity onsite helping to construct their future home.

The site is to the southwest of 149th and Ramsey and construction activity on the first 8-plex will become readily apparent quite soon. We are having a groundbreaking ceremony on the 16th of April at 9:00 am at the site (148th Lane and Olivine) and you would have an opportunity to meet the coalition team that has just formed and will be helping us to garner community engagement and support as we move forward with the development process.

At this point, the coalition is in the early stages of forming so I can't really get you a roster. The chair of the Ramsey Coalition, however, is named Larry Culp [...] Feel free to contact either of us with further questions. It would be great if you post a notice on your blog inviting members of the public to the groundbreaking on 4/16 at 9:00 a.m.

Contact people are

Locally, Larry Culp, lculp@sihope.com
Twin Cities HforH, Karl Batalden, karl.batalden@tchabitat.org

I expect Pat Trudgeon of the City Planning staff will be there, and he and the web staff will probably be posting something soon on the city's website "In the News" at the foot of the website, with the other April events now listed.

CMDC - one afterthought.

CMDC looks ideally placed to offer an arsenel of advantages to those its senior management and board of directors favor:

CMDC is your best source for "owner occupied" commercial real estate financing. We specialize in providing financing through the SBA 504 Loan Program.

Financing commercial projects through CMDC will provide you with the following benefits:

* Lower down payments preserving precious capital for operations.

* Longer terms which can help to maximize cash flow.

* Below market fixed rates providing you, the business owner, with the ability to accurately predict your future capital needs.

* Rapid turnaround as a result of CMDC's Preferred Lender status and "best in class" service.

Lower down, longer terms, below market fixed rates, and rapid turnaround.

It cannot get much better than that, when you are looking to leverage your business risk with loans of other people's money. It gives a real advantage over competitors not accessing such benefit.

PEOPLE3 session - two unusual audience comments.

Re the Thursday, April 5, PEOPLE3 session, I intend to post more.

However, two specific and intriguing audience comments struck me as noteworthy. First, there was talk of recall. That always is an interesting consideration because it is a rejudgment of those elected. Second, someone spoke of hearing about "an investigation." It's nothing I know of, but it would not be unusual in a bankruptcy situation where millions have been spent on a "billion dollar urban village" concept, to look to account for cash that has flowed, and where the flow took all or most of it. Bankruptcy is a federal action, and bankruptcy fraud, wherever it might happen, is a federal crime. An investigation lifting all the rocks would not only be proper, it would be salutary to know if there is one. There should be one. The people of Ramsey deserve that.

Every player in promoting and propagandizing that billion dollar urban village image of reassuring prosperity should be scrutinized in order to assure the citizens of total trustworthiness. The big picture should be professionally reviewed, not a piece or a corner but how the entire business was done.

The second question bears on the first - the questions of recall for "malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance in office," see here, chap. 5, p 16.

An Anoka business is highlighted.

Ramsey resident David Elvig, running a business in neighboring Anoka, has been highlighted by CMDC, an SBA loan brokering firm in Andover, describing itself as:

[A]n SBA Premier Certified Lender (PCLP) authorized to provide SBA 504 financing throughout the state of Minnesota. Less than 10% of the certified development companies in the nation have this designation. Our mission is to promote economic development by cultivating a financing environment that allows small businesses to grow and prosper. To fulfill this mission, CMDC provides the following services to businesses and bank lenders:

* SBA 504 Loans
* SBA 7(a) Loan Packaging Assistance
* CMDC Initiative Fund
* Business Plan Development

Representative of its operations, CMDC's website touts:

At the age of ten, David Elvig was more than dabbling in wood working, building, and engineering. He was building—what must have been the talk of the playground—extraordinary tree forts.

At E-Street Makers, Inc., he is still going beyond the expected. He says, “I knew I wanted to be a great builder. Design had real importance. However, I’m an engineer first and an artisan second. My designs are driven by a need.”

They have pioneered the motorization utilized in cabinetry and boardroom tables that interface with audio/visual components and have refined the artistry of veneering and finishes. Their amazing talent of mixing the mediums of exotic wood, metal, and glass and their extreme quality craftsmanship sets them apart.

“My goals were to build a business profitably, [...] and be the best craftsman in the land. CMDC helped me achieve those goals [...] to afford more than the building, they created a single package for the land, building, equipment, and working capital. They have the competitive edge because of their knowledge of the community and willingness to help. They are great partners.”

[italics in original] CMDC principals and board are in a position to look for Anoka County operations with which they can build mutual trust and affiliation as Elvig said, "great partners" having "knowledge of the community." We should recognize these folks, both operations, for what they add to the tax base in Anoka and in Andover.