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• . 21.
<br />Everybody will love it' =
<br />When a project as large as the Mall of
<br />America opens, it is easy to imagine a
<br />scenario in which a millionaire developer
<br />chooses a site and rides roughshod over a
<br />defenseless municipal government. Not
<br />so here. The mall would never have been
<br />built without massive public financing
<br />and the determination by the city of
<br />Bloomington to create something large on
<br />the site of Metropolitan Stadium, former
<br />home of the Minnesota Twins baseball
<br />team and the Vikings football team.
<br />Shop (and bopJ `til you drop.
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<br />Bloomington (pop. 86,000) is about 10
<br />miles south of downtown Minneapolis
<br />and 10 miles southwest of St. Paul. It is
<br />Minnesota's third largest city after the
<br />Twin Cities. Originally a farm town with
<br />no real center, it evolved after World War
<br />II into a typical bedroom suburb-and
<br />more recently into a quintessential Edge
<br />City, its corporate office growth spurred
<br />by the proximity of the Minneapolis-
<br />St Paul International Airport and the
<br />area's beltway, Interstate 494. The Mall
<br />of America occupies the city's eastern
<br />corner, an isolated triangle bordered by
<br />I-494, the Minnesota River, and Cedar
<br />Avenue.
<br />Although the 1981 move by the Twins
<br />and Vikings to the downtown Minneapo-
<br />lis Metrodomewas ablow to Bloomington's
<br />self image, it left the city with 78 acres of
<br />land in a highly accessible location. State
<br />law required that the stadium site be
<br />reserved for commercial or industrial use,
<br />although the Metropolitan Council, the
<br />Twin Cities' regional planning agency,
<br />questioned the adequacy of the area's
<br />sewer and transportation systems.
<br />A 1979 study of the stadium site by an
<br />Urban Land Institute panel had recom-
<br />mended mixed-use development with of-
<br />fices, hotels, and a limited amount of
<br />retail linked by an enclosed central public
<br />_"spine." The city followed up in the early
<br />1980s by amending its. _comprehensive
<br />plan and developing new zoning ordi-
<br />nances to permit substantial new office
<br />and hotel development in the area, along
<br />with limited entertainment and retail uses.
<br />Planning director Rick Geshwiler, AICP,
<br />says the most innovative ,city effort was
<br />the preparation of a generic environmen-
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<br />tal impact statement for development of
<br />the entire Airport South district prior to
<br />any actual development proposals. The
<br />EIS committed the city to make transpo
<br />tation and infrastructure improvemen
<br />in conjunction with new development.
<br />But the two local developers who had
<br />bought the site from the iVlinnesota Sports
<br />Facilities Commission reneged on their
<br />contract, and in 1984 the Bloomington
<br />Port Authority bought the site for some
<br />$15 million plus interest and carrying
<br />costs and finally demolished the stadium.
<br />(The port authority was created in 1981 to
<br />help develop the Airport South district.)
<br />At that point, a study of the site's develop-
<br />ment potential yielded two options: a
<br />traditional downtown with a pedestrian
<br />center, which would have required the
<br />city to parcel out the land piecemeal, or a
<br />completely master-planned, mixed-use
<br />development.
<br />The city chose the second option, with
<br />the expectation of attracting office devel-
<br />opment with some ancillary retail. Its
<br />marketing efforts brought four responses
<br />from developers. Three of the proposals
<br />were for offices and limited retail. The
<br />fourth bid was from the Triple Five Cor-
<br />poration, owned by the Ghermezian broth-
<br />ers, developers of the West Edmonton
<br />Mall. Their proposal, which would dwari~
<br />the present Mall of America, included a
<br />four-million-square-foot retail mall -with
<br />six anchor stores, two 10-story hotels,
<br />two million square feet of offices, the
<br />world's largest indoor lake (with subma-
<br />rine rides, and a 100,000-square-foot con-
<br />vention center.
<br />"It is so wonderful we can hardly be-
<br />lieve it ourselves," the Ghermezians said
<br />in a press conference. "You will love us,
<br />we will love you, and everybody will love
<br />o it." A visit to the West Edmonton Mall
<br />;. convinced Bloomington officials and former
<br />3 Gov. Rudy Perpich that the project might
<br />fly. In the eyes of the region's other gov-
<br />'a
<br />ernments and business interests, how-
<br />ever, the proposal seemed far too big to
<br />be viable. Jay Jensen, director of the Min-
<br />neapolisCommunity Development Agency,
<br />called it an example of the "death wish
<br />that periodically shows itself in develop-
<br />ers and their financiers in undertaking a
<br />project that has a likelihood of failing."
<br />Scaled back
<br />After the Metropolitan Council reviewed
<br />the project as a "development of regional
<br />significance," the convention center and •
<br />1.5 million square feet of office space
<br />were dropped. The council said the re-
<br />gion could support only one new conven-
<br />tion center, and that it should be the one
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