A second Cub Foods in Eagan may come as good news to many local shoppers, but not to some neighbors of the store that is planned in a hotly contested development on Diffley Road.

Cub Foods said last month it will anchor the new Diffley Marketplace, replacing plans for a Rademacher's Fresh Market that had been envisioned just east of an existing Walgreens.

The new store, slated to open this fall, will be the smallest Cub Foods in the Twin Cities and have a unique, neighborhood-friendly design, said Lee Ann Jorgenson, a spokeswoman for the grocery chain.

But residents on nearby Daniel Drive have fought the marketplace since the summer of 2005, many on the grounds that increased traffic would endanger their children. Some also worry that the Cub brand name will attract even more drivers than they had feared.

"People are more familiar with a Cub Foods," said Kate Boyle, a Daniel Drive resident with four children who said news of the grocery-chain swap made her "even more concerned" about the development.

Cub plans a 42,000-square-foot store -- less than two-thirds the size of its typical store -- with a design to meet the city-approved development plan, Jorgenson said.

The store will not stow pallets above its aisles, and will have a warmer color scheme and subtler lighting than most of the 56 Cub stores in the Twin Cities area.

It will also close between midnight and 6 a.m., unlike the standard 24-hour Cub, she said.

Traffic concerns

Much of the controversy over the project centered around an access point to the marketplace on Daniel Drive, with neighbors voicing worries about cars driving to and from the development on the side street. The compromise plan, approved by the Dakota County Board in October, limits traffic on Daniel Drive to cars entering, but not exiting, the marketplace.

Rademacher's is partnering with Cub on the grocery store, though Jorgenson declined to describe details of the business deal.

Plans for the marketplace also include a bank, restaurant and two multi-tenant retail buildings.

Delays with project approval led developer Diffley Ventures to sue the city in May 2006, but the parties reached a settlement in August that includes a requirement that the developer set aside $20,000 in a pedestrian safety fund. The money could be used for improvements such as a sidewalk or trail near the marketplace, said Jon Hohenstein, the city's community development director.

Boyle sees the fund as an acknowledgment by the city that traffic will be a problem on Daniel Drive, and neighbors hope to persuade the city to slow traffic on the street by putting in a sidewalk, she said. But the City Council, approached with the idea this year, was reluctant to pay for it until residents agreed on which side of the street they wanted the sidewalk, said Tom Colbert, Eagan public works director.

And as far as the Diffley Marketplace goes, Boyle said, residents know it's "pretty much a done deal."

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016