Remaking the vision of remaking Coon Rapids

The slumping housing market has put an end to an ambitious plan for a 300-unit residential development along the southern end of Coon Rapids Boulevard in Coon Rapids

The city and would-be developers of the Port Riverwalk project have agreed to cancel a purchase agreement in January, effectively killing the plan for about 40 acres of now-vacant land.

But while housing development lags in the city -- as it does across the metro area -- commercial development in Coon Rapids will get a big boost in the form of a 33-acre mix of office and retail space at Hwy. 10 and Hanson Boulevard.

Developer Bill Cooley said construction on the project, dubbed the Gateway Commerce Center, will likely begin in 2009.

The two developments -- one dead and one being born after decades in litigation -- offer a mixed view of development in the city.

After years in court, the project planned for Hwy. 10 and Hanson Boulevard -- which could approach $50 million -- is in the late stages of city approval.

Community development director Marc Nevinski said the city, having recently approved an agreement on design standards and expectations, is waiting for a site plan from Cooley.

The development will include a hotel, offices, three or four restaurants, a gas station, drugstores and other retail, possibly furniture stores and "the obligatory Starbucks," Cooley said.

"We're moving right along" doing the time-consuming work to prepare the ground for construction, he said.

Cooley has been working on the project, or earlier versions, since the 1970s. For 11 years, he said, the project was stalled by a lawsuit he filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had classified most of the property as wetlands. Cooley won in the lower courts, and after appeals, eventually was awarded $3 million.

With the costs of installing sewer and water and the soil prep work, he said, "You have $10 million in it before you even start laying a stone."

Port Riverwalk

In 2005, Nevinski said, the city and Shamrock Development had envisioned roughly 300 townhouse and senior units on the vacant parcel along the southern side of Coon Rapids Boulevard, in a redevelopment zone the city refers to as Port Riverwalk.

The City Council is expected to sign off on an agreement canceling the project.

But the city hasn't given up on developing the land. The two entities recently reached an agreement that allows the city to reexamine what it wants on the land but gives Shamrock the first option to build there.

"If they can do it within the prescribed timelines, then we'll work with them," said Nevinski, the development director. "And if they look at [what the city wants] and they say they can't do it, then we'll go to the market."

So what does the city want there? It's going to be part of a larger discussion in 2008 as the city updates its planning vision for redevelopment along Coon Rapids Boulevard in general.

The city plans to consult with development analysts to try to find the right mix of commercial and residential development to support it, Nevinski said. Right now, he said, the city's housing stock leans heavily to single-family homes.

"We do like our single-family homes. And yet we need to add some rooftops, if we want to add commercial [properties] in that area. The question is: How many rooftops, and what are they going to look like?"

Eric M. Hanson • 612-673-7517