Post in A bad place for a good project

Jan 07 20:04 UTC

A proposed 20,000-square-foot retail development at Lexington Parkway
and Randolph Avenue, anchored by a 14,420-square-foot Trader Joe's
grocery store, would actually improve safety and reduce traffic
congestion at that busy St. Paul intersection, according to a
recently released 38-page traffic impact study.

You're not alone if you're not buying the results of a traffic study
that was bought by the developers themselves.

Meridian Management and TOLD Development, the partners in Randolph
Hill LLC, want to bulldoze four single-family homes on Juno Avenue, a
triplex on Randolph Avenue and the Mach 1 automotive audio and
security business at the southeast corner of Randolph and Lexington
to accommodate Trader Joe's and a separate 5,330-square-foot building
that would house a handful of other unnamed retailers. The necessary
conditional use permit and zoning variances for the project have
already been approved by the Planning Commission on the condition
that the necessary rezoning is approved by the City Council. Concerns
about the additional traffic that would be generated by the
development prompted the City Council last week to lay over until
this week a decision on rezoning the 1.27-acre parcel.

To be sure, the traffic study does note that if no street
improvements were made, afternoon rush-hour traffic at the
intersection would drop from D to E on a congestion scale of A to F.
(The D/E boundary is considered by traffic engineers to be the limit
of "acceptable" congestion in an urban area.) As a result of the
additional traffic generated by the retail development, backed-up
vehicles at the intersection would "intermittently block the site
entrance" on Lexington if no street improvements were made, according
to the study.

Now that I'll buy.

To alleviate the impact of the additional traffic, the traffic study
recommends:

* Adding a southbound left-turn lane on Lexington at the entrance to
the parking lot.

* Adding a northbound right-turn lane on Lexington at Randolph.

* Adding a northbound left-turn signal on Lexington at Randolph.

* Retiming the traffic signals at five intersections in the immediate
vicinity.

No doubt all of those measures would help. But it does beg the
question: Why here when there are any number of other locations with
comparable neighborhood demographics that do not throw up such
formidable hurdles to what I'm sure most people believe would
otherwise be a welcome development in St. Paul?

But that's not the only question the development raises. More than a
few people are also asking:

* Why has the prohibition of truck traffic on Lexington, a city-
designated parkway, not been cited as an impediment to the
development? As proposed, truck deliveries would have to be made off
of Lexington because the city's Public Works Department believes any
access off of Randolph would be too close to the I-35E entrance and
exit ramps to be safe.

* What's with the full-court press that Mayor Chris Coleman's office,
the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and the St. Paul Trades and
Labor Assembly have been employing to insure the development occurs?
Last week, City Council member Pat Harris, who supports the
development, didn't have the five votes needed to approve the
rezoning. The word in City Hall this week was that strenuous lobbying
may have convinced every City Council member except Dave Thune to
support the rezoning when it comes back up for a vote this Wednesday.
How strenuous? It's said that the lobbying has been more vigorous
than what was employed for St. Paul developer Jerry Trooien's ill-
fated $1.5 billion Bridges of St. Paul.

* What does it say about the state of economic development in St.
Paul today when such Herculean efforts are expended locally on behalf
of a comparatively small-scale development whose California-based
anchor tenant is a 294-store national chain that is owned by a family
trust established by German billionaire Theo Albright?

Michael Mischke
Summit Hill