Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

Join us Tuesday, October 4, at 8 am at the Archer House for the next NDDC Downtown Forum. Our guest will be Minneapolis StarTribune Staff Writer Steve Berg for a discussion of bustling sidewalks and other signs of downtown vitality.

You may have seen Steve’s two-part series last July titled “Healthy by Design”, comparing the downtowns of Vancouver, British Columbia and Minneapolis. In the articles, Steve urges Minnepolis to use Vancouver as a model of how to design public beauty so that people get out of their cars and onto sidewalks, both for economic vitality and personal health.

Coffee and cookies will be served and the public is welcome. We don’t charge a penny for these terrific discussions.

Much of the work of the NDDC occurs behind the scenes…and is performed by elves.

Keith Covey, Scott Davis, Joe Grundhoefer, Kiffi Summa and Victor Summa joined me this morning at the Upstairs Reub-N-Stein to stuff bags full of downtown goodies for Family and Parent Weekend at St. Olaf College. With such a combination of great minds, we quickly developed a perfect system…or two, to fill the bags.

When the 500 bags of goodies were all lined up, it seemed like a cross between Martha Stewart and Halloween, especially with Krin Finger’s hand-tied bows and Mary Rossing’s fake fangs.

The bags will be distributed to visiting Families and Parents at St. Olaf this Saturday. Two weeks from now, we’ll do the same thing at Carleton College.

About a year ago, the City Council, on a 5-2 vote, overruled the Planning Commission, which had voted 6-1 to allow the owner of The Cow and Chapati to open an upscale Italian restaurant on the coner of Division and Woodley.

I was up in The Cities on business last week and happened by the Birchwood Cafe, a popular gathering place in a residential neighborhood. It made me reflect on what might have been…

…here in Northfield.

At the 9/22/05 Economic Development Authority (EDA) Meeting, City Staff announced that the public input on the Q Block (so named because of the Quaterback Club and Quizno’s on the site) redevelopment project would occur after the Consultants and City Staff have defined the realm of possibilities as two options. The public would then be allowed to choose between the two options.

This is not unlike the 2004 Downtown Improvement Project, where Consultants and City Staff decided that what the downtown would get was crosswalk pavers. The public was then allowed to choose the color from a previously defined palette. It is also very much like the 2005 Downtown Improvement Project, where Consultants and City Staff decided that what the downtown would get was drinking fountains, planters, and benches. The Citizen Task Force was then allowed to choose between the two benches that City Staff had previously selected. (…by the way, where are those benches and planters?)

Also of interest at the EDA meeting was City Staff’s comments about Safe Crossing of Highway 3 at West 3rd Street. EDA President Paul Smith raised the point that for years he has been hearing citizen concerns about creating a safer crossing of Highway 3. City Staff acknowledged this concern but said that they didn’t want to raise citizen expectations. Staff offered “traffic-calming” measures like landscaping as an alternative to traffic signals.

The new five lane highway that is being constructed in the middle of our community is at least 100 feet across from curb to curb. If you’re in the middle of the street trying to pick your moment to run to the far curb, trees planted 50 feet away will have a limited effect on your safe crossing, at least in my opinion…but then, I’m not a traffic engineer.

There was much discussion at the meeting about how the Q Block is a highway property. In fact, the Q Block, defined by Linden Street on the west, 2nd Street on the north, Highway 3 (or John North Boulevard) on the east and 3rd Street on the south, is more of a westside property. Linden Street and Highway 3 are the short sides of that rectangle. 2nd and 3rd Streets, the potential pedestrian connections to the eastside, are much longer.

Rather than defining the development of the Q Block by one of its two shortest sides, a broader vision would be to connect the westside and eastside of our community while simultaneously increasing pedestrian safety in crossing the highway. It is a a vision that the NDDC has been advocating for since our start in 2000.

The public infrastructure required for development of the Q Block will be public expenditures. The public infrastructure will also largely determine the safety of crossing the highway. We hope that the citizens that support the vision of connecting our community will have more of an opportunity to express their opinions than choosing between predefined concept A and predefined concept B.

At Monday night’s Council Meeting, City Staff argued that if stop signs were installed on Division Street at 7th Street, they would have to eliminate the diagonal parking along the west side of Division on that block. Looking at other west sides of Division Street blocks, it’s hard to understand this argument.

At Division and 4th, there’s a stop sign with diagonal parking.

At Division and 5th, there’s a stop sign with diagonal parking.

At Division and 7th, there’s a place for a stop sign with diagonal parking.

Perhaps somebody out there in the blogosphere can help me understand this argument.

As for the NDDC, we’ve been working for these stop signs since April and, after six months of hard work, they were defeated on a 5 to 1 vote. We’re thinking that we’re going to give it a rest for a while and hope that maybe the folks living down at Village on the Cannon and walking up to Econofoods might pick up the ball and run with it for a few plays. We’d be happy to provide some blocking.