Big Drab Grey Buildings

As we recently looked, neglected buildings can bring down the value of an area and just suck the life out of a block, while it’s property owners are rewarded with paying less in property taxes. As we look around, there are other buildings in Mound that, while they are maintained, don’t seem to add value to the block they sit on.

I’m speaking specifically about utility buildings.

Frontier building is the white/off white on the right side of the picture, on Commerce. Clearly our local phone company needs a place, and we love having them a part of the town and local scene, but  what is Frontier telling Mound when the building they built and are using  looks like this?

Frontier has two buildings in Mound, the one pictured above on Commerce, and the other next to Shirley Hills School. Let’s focus on the one above for a moment. This building is in a area that has mixed use, some residential but is trending commercial.

Google Street View, is that the front, or back of the building?

What kind of message is being sent to the neighborhood when a building like this is constructed? I took a walk around this building, and the entrance is on the back side, along with some windows. Frontier, or it’s neighbors have allowed trees, bushes and fences on the sides, so they don’t have to look at each other. You know what’s across the street from this building?

Langdon Apartments, across the street from the Frontier building.

Apartment buildings. Notice that the apartments put a parking lot between them, and Frontier? Now it should be noted that the Apartment buildings have a lovely view of Langdon Lake on the other side, but not everyone gets to live on that side of the building, do they? Can you imagine if you were considering getting an apartment here, and the stark contrast from one side of the building, to the other?

What does this Frontier building say about the city, and this block?

When a building like this is constructed, it’s telling us several things. Putting the backside of the building on the street is telling everyone, you are not invited, please leave us alone. Putting up large grey featureless sides is showing us that they are not concerned with anyone but themselves, and have no intentions of trying to be good neighbors. We walk and drive by this building and pay it no attention as it doesn’t create any value to that experience.

Clearly there is a reason for this building, and it’s being used, and maintained. We aren’t trying to push Frontier out, we just want them to create places that add value to the neighborhood. Unfortunately, this building creates an environment telling everyone who comes to this area to drive through, there’s no reason to stop here. We need to insist that buildings built along high traffic volume areas like here need to add value to the street and block they live on.

What kind of environment do these other utility buildings create in their neighborhoods?

Mound Public works building, and the huge electrical junction off of Shoreline Dr.

Pond Hockey Arena, while it’s not a utility building, it creates the same effect.

Quicknotes

So many things going on, we wanted to be sure to share some quick notes about what’s happening here and around town. Just remember to gather your unused coats for the WeCAN coat drive!

Many of you I’m sure remember Mama’s Happy that was located next to Johns Variety. If you hadn’t heard, they moved not too far away to Lyndale at the old Creamery, I guess it used to be called Kathies Finds, or something like that. Mama’s happy is having a big event this weekend, and bringing vendors from all over the region to showcase their wares. We hope you go and join them this weekend.

Hilltop Primary School is having their annual Octoberfest this Saturday, 11-3. This is a major fundraiser for the schools PTA with helps the school provide resources for it’s students. Lots of games and food will be there, a real family friendly event. Definitely worth your time! And please enjoy a Root Beer Float from the SEAC table.

It was revealed a couple days ago that “School Digger”, a website that ranks schools by test scores, found that our own Westonka Schools ranked at the top! Quite an accomplishment of top of Hilltop receiving the Blue Ribbon a couple weeks ago, and Shirley Hills was named a “Reward School” by the Minnesota Department of Education.

The Girl Scouts are celebrating their centennial this year, and it will be ending this Saturday with a big day of service. The project our local troops are taking on is leaf and lawn debris on hard surfaces like streets and driveways. There will be hundreds of Girl Scouts out and about in the region Saturday bagging leaves that are on the streets, in particular around storm drains. It is an effort to stop yard waste from going into the storm drains, and then into the lake. If you see them out there, give them a hand, or thank them for their work!

The Westonka Historical Society is hosting a presentation about the history of Mound schools at Minnetonka Shores (formerly Presbyterians Homes) on Saturday, November 10 at 10AM.

Also, the Mound Tree Lighting Festival is coming up on Thursday, November 15 6-8PM. They are planning to bring back many of your traditional favorites such as hot chocolate, cookies, horse-drawn hayrides, the arrival of Santa and Mrs. Claus, the Pop Singers and other choirs, a huge bonfire, and other festivities. New this year will be a LIVING NATIVITY, acting out the story of the birth of Jesus Christ and the origin of Christmas. You can follow details by liking their Facebook page.

Keep in mind that Mound has two significant events coming up, Heroin: Our Community and Mound Magic – An Update on Mound Community Development.

And if you missed it, the Laker shared news about our website and the discussions happening here last weekend. We greatly appreciate all the encouraging words we have heard from folks.

Let’s keep up the great discussions and keep working to have a City of Mound that people will drive to, not drive through.

ACTION! – WeCAN coat drive

Let’s not have “A Place in Mound” be just a ‘think tank’, but be a ‘do tank’!

One of my desires with “A Place in Mound” is not to just be a place for talking about Mound, but to be a place where we actually DO things to help Mound be a better place. This is our first call to action in a simple way so we can be “neighbors helping neighbors” as WeCAN’s mission states.

I am certain we all have coats and jackets sitting in our closet that are unused, and don’t fit. This is an excellent opportunity to donate them to families and people in need.

With winter coming fast, they are having a big push this month is to collect coats for those who need them. Here is there announcement about ways you can donate coats, or obtain one if you are in need of a winter coat.

WeCAN Winter Coat Drive. Please share the warmth! 

It’s almost winter in Minnesota and no one in the community should be without a coat. 

WeCAN (Western Communities Action Network), a local, non-profit, community service organization, invites you to donate coats that are clean and in good condition. Boots and snow pants also gratefully accepted. 

Children, teen, and adult sizes needed. 

Coats and other winter gear can be dropped off between Friday, October 12th and Monday, October 29th at a number of locations (businesses, churches, schools) in the WeCAN service area. 

Those who need a winter coat, are invited to come to WeCAN on Tuesday, October 30th 2 p.m. – 7 p.m. or Thursday, November 1st 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. 

Drop off locations include-
Bethel Methodist
Crow River Bank
Christ Lutheran Church
Culvers in Navarre
Gillespie Center
River Valley Church
Shirley Hills School
St. John’s Lutheran
St. Martin’s by the Lake
Good Shepherd Church
Klein Bank (St.Boni)
Mt. Olive Lutheran
Minnetonka Mud
Our Lady of the Lakes Church
WeCAN Office

For additional information please contact the WeCAN office 952-472-0742 (Lisa Floeter)

WeCAN is truly an important organization working hard to make Mound a great place for everyone. If we want Mound to be a great place, it needs to be a place for everyone.

Visit www.wecan-help.org for more information about WeCAN.

Showcase – WeCAN

It is an unfortunate fact that many people struggle day to day with just trying to provide basic necessities for their families. Due to circumstances in life, people find themselves without a job, and then without healthcare. Childcare because a big issue for young, struggling families. Also, in todays auto-centric world, people need to deal with the struggles of trying to get to work with a car (that we count on being insured) that they hope to high heaven doesn’t break down, because they won’t know what to do then.

Mound is fortunate to have a great organization like WeCAN (Western Communities Action Network) to support people and families with these, and other issues. They will assist families with food needs, transportation issues, people looking for work, and connect people in need with the necessary services and programs to help them get through rough times. As their mission says, it’s “Neighbors helping neighbors”.

One of it’s big efforts this last year is the WeCAB program, which is a supplemental transportation service. It consists of volunteers from the community who will provide short rides to those who cannot drive them self to an appointment. It doesn’t replace dial-a-ride, but supplements it, and it’s run entirely on volunteers and donations.

We-CAN is a great organization that makes Mound a great place.

Looking ahead – tomorrow we are asking our readers and followers to do something. “A Place in Mound” is not just about talking, but about taking ACTION in simple and easy ways, as well as some harder ways. If you want a change to come about Mound, it’s going to require more than just talking about it, or making a statement at the city council, or collecting signatures. It’s about finding old coats and bringing them to your local church for the coat drive, finding value in shopping and supporting our local businesses, and engaging city staff and officials in discussions. Tomorrow is about ACTION. ~ GML4

A system of Property Taxes that don’t create value

A non-place that reduces the value to the area around it. Why is this allowed?

There is a warped sense about how property taxes are assessed. Take the familiar Mound property above. It’s an old commercial building on Commerce Blvd across the street from Our Lady of the Lake.

We would judge judge this property one of the worse in Mound downtown properties. It clearly hasn’t been used in a long time, the owners don’t seem to bother maintaining it. We’ve remarked before that it seems like the owners are just sitting on it until someone like Walgreens gives them money to walk away from it.

The owners of this property don’t live in Mound. The only time they worry about it is when their property taxes are due. Fortunately, as the building deteriorates, their property taxes go down too. If they tried fixing it up, then their property taxes would go up as well, and that of course is the last thing they would want.

Essentially, we have a system that penalizes property owners for improving their property.

This happens because we tax buildings much more heavily than the land under them. These buildings are visited by an official assessor who determines their value. The higher the buildings value, the higher the tax. Under this system, a rational person has every reason to put up crappy buildings that will not be highly assessed, or he has every reason to let his property run down, or build nothing at all. This is a major reason for the current desolation of American towns and cities.

A Place in Mound asks, is it rational to continue a system that rewards property owners for letting this happen? Or is there another way that encourages more productive land use, and produce a higher for all involved.

Park Spotlight – Tyrone Park

Today we look at another park on the island, Tyrone Park. It’s just north of Wilshire on Tyrone Lane. It’s a beautiful little city park, the kind that anyone would want to live next to and enjoy.

I well maintain sign. It’s nice that it’s neighbors take care of this place!

It has most things would would want in a park, including a playground, a big open area, baseball field with backstop, and a basketball court.

A great playground. There are places here for older kids, and some for younger kids as well.

Basketball court.

Tyrone Park appears to be walled in on three sides with trees, but if you look closely on the northwest side of the trees, there’s a well worn path, that connects the park to Carrick Road on the north side. I don’t imagine this was a path the city planned, or maintain, but it’s clear that residents on Carrick and it’s neighbors use it, and even maintain a small bridge that lets them avoid getting their feet wet in a stormwater rut that runs through the wooded area.

Bridge on path in wooded area.

Nice big open field. Emerald Lake is actually on the west side of the trees here.

I believe one could park their car here next to the park on Tyrone, but as this neighborhood has it’s streets being reconstructed this summer, I could be wrong. As we’ve noted in almost every other park we’ve looked at in Mound, it is very difficult, if not impossible to actually park on the street next to a park.At “A Place in Mound” we believe it’s reasonable for everyone to have access to it’s city parks and common spaces whether they decide to walk, bike, or drive.

A beautiful baseball field.

One item lacking from this park was benches. Besides one picnic table that could’ve been moved anywhere, there were not places to sit around this park. The playground really should have places for parents to sit while the kids play.

Someone clearly saw the need for a bench, and has left a plastic chair here for people to use next to the playground.

The backstop was actually donated by Rotary, another group making Mound a great place!

Tyrone Park is clearly a jewel of a neighborhood park that adds value to this neighborhood. It’s inviting, useful, attractive, and clearly makes Mound a better Place!

Well… at least we’re not Minnetrista…

Some, in the Highland Road neighborhood in Minnetrista, are not happy.

The Minnetrista City Council approved assessments to 13 properties after the completion of the Highland Road Improvement Project on Oct. 1, but not before three property owners filed appeals….  Out of 13 properties, eight were assessed $11,000, three were assessed $9,000 and two were assessed $1,000.

As my Norwegian farmer uncle would say… “Uff-da”.

Let’s take a step back and look at what was done.

The brown is the old Highland Road. Note the hairpin turns that used to force automobiles to slow down.

One major issue was two very sharp hairpin turns on the old Highland Road next to the Dakota Trail. I don’t remember driving this road more than once myself, but I recall the very sharp turns here, really slowing down my car. Slower cars mean safer streets, especially around the Dakota Trail crossing.

The other issue was that Highland Road was it terrible condition and needing attention badly. Of course, bad roads also slow down traffic, though they also add significantly to wear and tear of our vehicles.

They clearly spent A LOT of money to straighten out those two hairpin turns, acquiring property and total construction of two short road beds, on top of the rest of the Highland Road construction. The cost for the entire project was $1.75 million dollars. The 13 residents are paying $117 thousand of that, so the city is paying $1.6+ million dollars.

The question you should be asking is, “How can Minnetrista afford to pay $1.6 million dollars for this project?!?!

Well, that comes at the end of the story….

majority of the road reconstruction was funded using state aid money

… ah… so this is a MSA street project. As we’ve looked at before, Mound is going to be starting a series of reconstruction of it’s MSA ‘streets’ in the next couple years.

Now you should be asking, “What does it mean for Highland to be a MSA street?”

Here are the good things about a MSA street…

• Street built so cars can get through fast. I imagine cars will be cutting 30 seconds off their commute time.
• State provides most of the funding for the street construction, so city saves money.
• Emergency vehicles also probably improve response times because of this construction

Here are some of the problems about having a MSA street…

• Cars will be going by your home or business fast, the street is not built for pedestrians or bicyclists.
• Generally people do not like to be on, or around MSA streets. They are not a pleasant place.
• Your home and business is a place to drive through, not to.

The other problems for the Highland Road project, where cars used to go through the Dakota Trail crossing slow because of those hairpin turns, cars now can just barrel on through, and are essentially being allowed, even encouraged to not worry so much about the trail. It seems like this is making the trail crossing more dangerous.

The city approved the assessments last week, citing ALL the positive comments from other residents about the projects. Of course, most of those people are more concerned about just driving through this neighborhood, than having anything to do with it. And the city loves this, as it gets to improve Highland Road without really having to pay for it. The state of Minnesota is paying for it!

It’s not really fair of me to pick on Minnetrista here today. Hundreds of cities in Minnesota accept MSA money to build these streets, including Mound, and why wouldn’t they.  Free streets!

The problem is that the MSA streets are mainly built to connect places, and give people opportunities to drive past neighborhoods and businesses at high speeds, usually only cutting seconds off a commute. The cost of them is that they hurt the local scene.

The worst part about this is, the state of Minnesota will give a city millions of dollars so people can cut 30 seconds off a commute time! Millions of dollars for 30 seconds?! Is that 30 seconds THAT important?

We bring up Bartlett Boulevard often here at “A Place in Mound“. It’s a street/road hybrid for cars that’s next to a school, churches and neighborhood and it’s a place not safe for children or people. People don’t like to walk or bike on it.

Bartlett Boulevard, like it’s new counterpart, Highland Road in Minnetrista, brings no value to the place it’s built on.

Mound already suffers from seven miles of MSA streets, including Bartlett Boulevard by Shirley Hills school.

Actually, MSA streets hurt the neighborhood.

Fortunately for Mound, this is a time it could change the direction for it’s Boulevards as many of these streets are due to be reconstructed in the next few years, starting with Three Points Boulevard next year.

So what do you want Mound? Do you want to build places to Drive to, or places to Drive through?

Edited – I had originally posted that Minnetrista had spent $160 million, when it was $1.6 million. My apologies.

Showcase – Scarecrow Stomp

Just a friendly reminder that the Scarecrow Stomp is happening tomorrow morning 10-1 during the Mound Farmer’s Market and ECFE Stroll-a-thon.

There will be activities for the kids, including Hula Hoops with Sally
Music from The Abiders,

AND LOTS MORE

If you get cold, some nice fire pits to warm yourselves up.

So NO excuses… and come talk to me (I’m helping with the Hula Hoops!)

Join the Scarecrow family!

Business as Usual

One thing “A Place in Mound” is about is challenging the status quo. Too many ways about our city are done automatically without questioning the basic underlying premises that guide us. The assumptions that are made are part of the reason why cities everywhere in the country are in a tough bind.

Consolidating police with Orono doesn’t cease the budget cuts down the line. Cities need to find a new way to operate in financial times, and it can’t be done with only cuts, nor is raising taxes.

Mound can continue to work under the assumptions that have guided us to a place where it’s acceptable to eliminate/consolidate/reduce it’s own police force, and pretend that it will be all ok.  Mound can continue to think that the major redevelopment on a major intersection is just grand on it’s own, even though the city seems unconcerned that it might not break even  in property tax revenue. Mound can continue to develop places (or non-places) that people can value, or not value.

The conversations brought up here and in conversations we have with people nearly everyday highlight how ingrained the status quo is.

When the conversation turns to the speeds on Bartlett and the other highways boulevards most people think Mound just needs to put a police officer out there, or just post lower speed limit signs. With the reconstruction of these streets in the next few years, Mound, and it’s neighborhoods, have an opportunity to put design changes that would slow things down, and save money. Instead of doing the same thing so Minnetrista residents can get to the office 15 seconds faster, the City of Mound needs to think differently.

Highway Bartlett as it goes through the Shirley Hills neighborhood. Does this stroad (street/road hybrid) add any value to this neighborhood?

Whenever I get to share the information about the potential loss of revenue that the city of Mound will experience with the Walgreens development, people make excuses, and talk about the other values the development brings to Mound. We don’t deny those. We are more concerned about the fact this issue is never discussed in any development discussion. Mound needs change it up, and incorporate a financial outlook on these development so the whole picture is clear.

City governments are in big financial trouble, and that is only going to continue. Mound can either experiment, and explore new ways of improving itself, or it can continue with Business as Usual.

Whoops – Light posts

Some mistakes are simple oversights, like the unseen sign outside Caribou. Other mistakes take a lot more effort, and a lot of people should be embarrassed about them, like poles in sidewalks.

Pole in sidewalk on Bellaire, west of the Westonka Library.

A lot of people have their handprints all over these mistakes. From the original design, to the surveyors, to the builders and installers of sidewalks and poles. Most of these people either didn’t look closely enough to see what was going to happen here, or when they was what was going to happen, didn’t think it mattered.

Pole in sidewalk on Commerce, in front of Jubilee.

Well it does matter. These mistakes are telling pedestrians and bicyclists who may use them that they aren’t important, and are more of an afterthought.

Unfortunately, these are not easy fixes. These lightpoles are the worse, as they were just installed within the last couple years (and don’t get me wrong, I love them! Their efficient and attractive, and add some nice value to our streets)

How would I fix them? Well… it won’t happen on these streets for a long time, but someday these sidewalks will be reconstructed, and I would  have the city switch the sidewalk space, for the grass strip, and put the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. The poles can stay where they are, and would end up in the strip of grass.

Pole in sidewalk on Commerce in front of Verizon.

Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to happen for some time.