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2.3 Existing Conditions ■ The Salvation Army property is in the final stages of acquisition by the Suburban Hennepin Regional Park District. Hennepin Parks plans to convert it to a regional park reserve, . removing many of the current buildings and restoring the area to its natural state. Recre- ational facilities will be limited and of low impact. The park will be a location where resi- dents of the region will be able to come and enjoy an attractive, natural setting through a system of trails and an interpretive center. As such, this redevelopment plan focuses on this area only to the extent that it will be important to maximize connections between the planned new regional park and the redevelopment area, and through it to the rest of St. Anthony. Similarly, Silver Lake and the established neighborhood of homes along the lake ■ is not a principal focus of this plan except to the extent that the quality of runoff entering the lake from the Apache site will be greatly improved through implementation of a rede- velopment project. The focus of this redevelopment plan is the southern third of the study area that includes the Apache Plaza mall and assorted office, commercial, residential and retail uses. The south section is dominated by the Apache Mall and associated parking, with the Cub food store and Equinox apartment complex being the two largest other uses. The entire area shows signs of having been developed through a series of isolated, incremental deci- sions that have made for an uncoordinated patchwork quilt that lacks coherency of form r and function. The area has a number of physical constraints, some of which are immutable, others are not, but r each of which limits the potential for a redevelopment plan focused on the reuse of the Apache Mall property. • , '~ "" These constraints are discussed be- low. For example, the site is isolated from a ; St. Anthony to the south by railroad - track that is currently active and is con- ■ sidered to remain so for the foresee- = '9 able future. The area is cut off from Formless,vsO7 zed Silver Lake by a berm and a row of single family homes that stretches along the entire south shore of the lake. The Apache Mall property is currently t landlocked, being separated from the r Silver Lake Rd. to the east by a num- '"tee"i I Circulation, Site Visibility ■ ber of stand alone commercial uses. s,^m1mm vdlagc Access can be made to the site from ■ two places but visibility and sense of presence is greatly impaired. The mall site does not extend to Stinson Blvd.. It is separated from the street within the interior of the site by a vacant parcel that previously housed a grocery store, several office and commercial uses. A series of strip commercial uses are located along Stinson Blvd.. Access is made to the back side of the mall through a stub extension of 39th Ave NE. Sig Northwest Quadrant Redevelopment Plan St. Anthony Village Page 2.3