In Edina City Manager Scott Neal’s March 9 Friday Report:
Southdale TIF District – Staff are working with our consultant team to prepare the necessary documents and maps for the City to establish a new Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District around Southdale Center. We will present the maps and documents to the Council in the next two weeks and will ask the Council to take action at its March 20 meeting to set a public hearing for April 17 to create the TIF district and, possibly, to approve a development agreement with Simon Properties.
Here’s the HRA Resolution 2012-5 document from the March 20 council meeting. The Council approved setting a public hearing for the April 17 Council meeting.
In Edina City Manager Scott Neal’s March 23 Friday Report:
Southdale TIF District – Staff and consultants will brief Council Members on the proposed development agreement with Simon Properties in a special work session on Tuesday, March 27, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Mayor’s Conference Room.
In this StarTribune article about the Maplewood Mall (another Simon Properties mall):
Meanwhile, work continues at Southdale. The Edina project includes a new concourse, food court, entrances, elevators, stairs and other mall finishes, including painting over the teal-colored trim that evokes a strong 1980s flashback.
Unlike Maplewood Mall, which did not seek any public subsidies, Simon has requested financing assistance from the city of Edina. According to a proposed development agreement, the package would include a no-interest $5 million loan that would be paid back over an eight-year period. City documents state that Simon would be required to spend at least $14 million on common-area renovations to the mall to qualify for the loan. The project will be voted on at the City Council’s April 17 meeting.
The City Council will host a public hearing on Tuesday, April 17 at 7:00 pm on the proposed development agreement between the City and Simon Properties. The proposed agreement will be part of the City Council’s prep packet for the April 17 Council meeting. Yes, the proposed agreement is full of legal boiler-plate language, but it is still a readable and understandable document. I encourage residents to read it, and then to think about it. The Council is obligated to have the public hearing on Tuesday, April 17. They may also act that night, if they feel the proposed agreement is fair to both parties.
Time is becoming an issue for this proposal. The proposal is based on using some provisions of Minnesota State Statutes which expire on June 1. I’m pretty sure the City and Simon could not agree to the proposed terms but for the sunsetting legal authority.
I only mention this to provide some additional context to the discussion you might witness on Tuesday night. Council Members will not be rushing this item, but they may also not want to put it off to a future meeting or hand it off to a ad hoc task force. It’s likely they will want to resolve the issue – one way or the other – at the Tuesday, April 17 Council meeting.
Did the southdale loan plan pass at the 4/17 council meeting?
Hi Sam,
Yes, they passed it 4-1. See this Tweet from the Edina Sun reporter at the meeting last night:
http://twitter.com/#!/EdinaSunCurrent/status/192603168692125699
I’ll have the video clip up soon.
The council has a lot to consider. As I think about the recent news of Best Buy closing stores — and a huge part of that being consumers moving to e-tail — I wonder about the future of both big box stores and traditional shopping malls. If a decision is made to provide a loan to Simon, I hope the outcome is one that sets Edina up for the future, and not a re-casting of a model that is no longer sustainable financially.