I have now attended a series of meetings on the West End development, beginning with an open house that was sponsored by Duke Realty in January 2009.  Since then there has been a meeting with the St. Louis Park planning commission, a meeting with the Golden Valley planning commission, and finally a public hearing with the Golden Valley City Council in March.

The West End development is now being discussed in two separate parts: the “Shops” of West End, as well as the “Towers” of West End.

The Shops of West End consists of the retail shopping complex area. At the open house, Duke Realty explained that of the 385,000 square feet of space,  40% of the space has been leased.  The primary tenants are the grocery store as well as the cinema.  In addition, there is a to be a Noodles restaurant, a Potbelly's Restaurant, and a Verizon wireless store.  The owner of the Redstone restaurant located by Ridgedale Mall is also going to be opening a new restaurant concept.  Likewise, the owners of the Crave restaurant located at the Galleria in Edina will be opening a branch of their restaurant in the complex as well.  The retail  shopping portion of the development is still scheduled to open in the “fall of  2009”.

The Towers of West End is still in the conceptual stage.  Duke is proposing building either three or four office towers, together with a parking ramp that would accommodate approximately 4000 cars.  The recent meetings with the planning commissions and the City Council have taken place so that Duke can receive approval to continue to move forward with the office tower and parking ramp project.

However, given the present state of the economy, Duke has made it clear that the office tower project will probably not move forward for several years.  And even then, the project will be built in slow stages, likely one tower at a time.  We are told that the same may hold true for the parking ramp.  They will build the ramp in stages, depending upon how the office tower complex is proceeding.

Why is this important to our neighborhood?  The tie into our neighborhood of course has to do with the frontage road, and the anticipated increase in traffic volume in connection with both the shops as well as the office towers.

However, for the purposes of the City of Golden Valley,  the improvements to our frontage road are tied strictly to the parking ramp, which is the only part of the project that is physically located in  Golden Valley.  Duke Realty has agreed to pay an amount of money in order to help defray the costs of improvements to the frontage road, in connection with the office tower project.

I think you could make a strong case for tying frontage road improvements to the Shops of West End, but as a practical matter, that is not going to happen.  The Duke money for the frontage road improvements will be tied to the office tower project, and the indication at this point is that Duke will not be paying any money to anybody for frontage road improvements, until that office tower project physically gets underway.

At this point, no one really knows what physical improvements are in store for the frontage road, how much those improvements are going to cost, and how much money Duke is willing to pay towards them.

The Golden Valley City Council recognizes that the cost of the frontage road improvements may exceed the amount of money that Duke is voluntarily willing to pay.  Accordingly, the Council is talking about a way to assess any additional costs directly back to Duke.  At the same time, the Council recognizes that Duke has inherited a set of pre-existing conditions on the frontage road that is not Duke's fault.  Duke is indicating a willingness to pay "it's fair share", but how you define "fair share" and how much money that is, is anybody's guess at this point.

The City of Golden Valley will place a set of ‘conditions’ on Duke, in exchange for approval of the tower plan.  One of those conditions will be a neighborhood meeting, or a more substantial “workshop”, which will give the residents an opportunity to have input into the frontage road revision process.

When I attended the St. Louis Park planning commission meeting I had an opportunity to speak, and I found the St. Louis Park planning commissioners to be very receptive to our concerns.  In the end, the St. Louis Park planning commissioners made it clear to Duke  that they expect  Duke to square away the frontage road piece with the neighborhood residents, before coming back to the planning commission for final approval of the tower project.

Perhaps the most promising piece of news to come out of these set of meetings is that Duke has revised the physical plan of the parking ramp.  Originally, the plan provided for four separate ingress/egress points for motor vehicle traffic, directly out onto our frontage road.  But now the number of ingress/egress points has been reduced to two, with one directing cars to the south, toward the old Westside Volkswagen dealership, and only one directing cars to the north/east, and our portion of the frontage road .  This was a concession that Duke was willing to make in response to the concerns voiced by the neighborhood (as well as the city Council and city staff).

A closely related issue has to do with the pedestrian and bicycle ingress/egress to  the complex for the neighborhood residents.  At this point, the plan calls for a pathway that will thread directly through the parking ramp.  But Golden Valley city staff (especially Mr. Oliver) have voiced significant concerns about that, primarily for safety reasons.  The parties may reach an impasse on this point, because my impression is that Duke believes the present plan is the only way to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to have access to the complex from the direction of our neighborhood.

Stay tuned.  My hope is that in the near future the City will schedule a meeting/workshop designed to give the neighborhood residents a say in what happens to the frontage road.

Ken Huber