The EDA held its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday morning.
Items of note:
- The EDA will be presenting a brief update on activities at the Dec. 4 City Council meeting.
- Rice County is planning to hire an Economic Development director by the end of this year.
- Updates from the Land Development subcommittee and Fiberoptics Initiative task force were postponed till the next EDA meeting on Dec. 14.
- There were three impromptu presentations/ Q&A sessions by organizations requesting funds from the EDA for the upcoming budget cycle (applications had to be received before today’s meeting to be considered for next year). The applicants were the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation, the Northfield Enterprise Center, and the Northfield Chamber of Commerce. No action was taken; decisions about funding will probably be made at the Dec. 14 or Dec 28 meeting.
That’s a wrap. Agenda and past minutes can be found here on the City website.
The EDA just received the rough draft from TIP Strategies for review. Representatives from TIP Strategies will be returning to Northfield in three weeks with the final plan to meet with the EDA and discuss rollout of the plan.
This chart, illustrating the anticipated workforce “talent trough”, makes a good teaser, and I didn’t think leaking it would rile anyone too much. (Click image to enlarge.)
I’ve only read the first third of the draft, but I believe the analysis and data in the plan will be extremely helpful in providing focus to both the EDA and the Planning Commission. In addition to analysis, the Economic Development Plan will include an implementation strategy and recommendations for focus on particular industry targets within the context of overall planning and development in Northfield, and consistent with Northfield’s Comprehensive Plan.
Here’s hoping.
At the 3-22-2006 meeting, the EDA approved funding of $20,000 to the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation. The NDDC has achieved several visible accomplishments in the past year and has many more plans for 2006 and beyond. The NDDC is the organization to thank for providing the impetus for the new street banners, the full-color Downtown Directory in Bridge Square, renewed Third Thursday cultural programming, ArtSwirl, and many retail initiatives. Their partnerships with the Northfield Arts Guild, the colleges, local businesses and downtown property owners, and others leverages the dollars invested and helps promote both the economic vitality of Northfield and a serious amount of goodwill between these organizations with different priorities and focuses (or foci, in the case of the colleges).
Last Monday, 2/27, the City Council received a feasibility study/market analysis on three options proposed for the municipal liquor store:
1. Relocate to the Q-Block property on Highway 3.
2. Relocate to the current Lansing Hardware location on Division Street
3. Expand the existing liquor store at its current location.
There’s some very interesting information in the study and analysis, which can be downloaded from its location on the City website, buried in the meeting packet for last week’s Council meeting.
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At the last EDA meeting, we approved the Master Plan prepared by Dahlgren Shardlow Uban. The plan is available in PDF format from the City website. You can read about it in the Northfield News article, but the link won’t work unless you log in as a subscriber.
Tonight, the EDA and City staff were invited to meet with the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation for “Beer & Brats” at the Rueb-N-Stein. There was no agenda for the meeting, just an opportunity for both organizations to get to know each other and to discuss ideas and issues of mutual relevance. Ross Currier, Executive Director of the NDDC, opened things up by thanking everyone for attending, and asking what the NDDC could do to support the EDA in their mission.
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Okay, here by popular demand is the preliminary Northfield “Community Assessment” document from TIP Strategies. Feel free to comment here, or start a discussion on the Issues list.
Last week, TIP Strategies, the firm retained by the EDA to create an economic development plan for Northfield, returned for their second “context mapping” session in which we met with local officials and business representatives to present and discuss TIP’s findings to date. I put up a very ugly HTML version of the PowerPoint presentation from the meeting. I’d welcome any questions or comments, with the caveat that the full analysis is not complete, and the specific recommendations will not be known for another month or two. (You can follow the developments and timeline on TIP’s project website for Northfield.)
Don’t touch that dial! More to follow, Real Soon Now.
This afternoon Griff Wigley, Ross Currier, and I made our first attempt at an audioblog entry for a northfield.org podcast. One of the topics we covered was the Q-Block issue. (See the “Locally Grown” audio show page.)
The concept plans for Q-Block are all variations on a theme, with one-story buildings pulled up close to the sidewalk on the highway side, parking in back, and housing on the west side of the block. Some of the concepts incorporate the existing Quizno’s and Quarterback Club buildings as they are; some concepts show how these buildings might be replaced by new construction.
I think it will be in the best interest of the community, long-term, if the Q-Block development looks more like an organic outgrowth of downtown and less like a suburban strip whenever possible, so I’d like to see a plan that has more visual cohesion with downtown and with the new developments taking place on 2nd street on the east side of the highway. The proposed new commercial/ mixed-use building façades on the Q-Block should be taller than one story; the development will look too disconnected from the rest of the intersection and from downtown if there’s such a great discrepancy between building heights on the east and west side of the highway.
There’s a public input meeting this Thursday, 6:30 p.m. at the Archer House, lower level conference room. Whether you agree with me or not, please attend the meeting to review the concepts and let your voice be heard. We all want to build a better Northfield.
At the last EDA meeting (held a week early so we didn’t have to meet on Thanksgiving Day), we reviewed a presentation by John Slack on possible scenarios for development of the “Q-Block”.
From the City website: “The City Council has directed the EDA to create a master plan for the area known as the ‘Q-Block.’ The master plan is intended to foster a climate for reinvestment and create a mix of uses within a pedestrian scale environment. The EDA has been working with DSU to create the plan. To date, property owners have been interviewed, an existing conditions analysis has been completed, and redevelopment expectations and preliminary design concepts have been generated. On December 8, 2005, the EDA will host a Public Forum at which the Preferred Development Alternative will be presented for the site. The public will have an opportunity to comment on the master plan, as well as learn more about the planning process and findings. Please plan on attending this Public Forum.”
Concept plans, in PDF format, are available on the City’s project page.
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