Hi Steve, Thanks for posting! I’m glad to hear that you’d like to see the same thing, i.e. the downtown preserved, greatly valued for its character and seeing new development from private entrepreneurs as well as I do.
As usual with any vision, there are obstacles and problems to work out. The major obstacle with the town square green space idea is that the City will have a tough time getting approval from the State Historical Preservation Office for such extensive demolition of historic structures many of which were restored with public funds for green space when we do have many beautiful parks, especially the underutilized Central Park. Note we have a park on the corner of the busiest intersection in town, Main & Robert, and no one sits there and watches trucks and cars go by.
My vision involves “clustering” downtown businesses in the two blocks between Loring and Second Street, making the distances shorter to walk, not farther. I’d love to see walking encouraged, but to do so ironically will involve shorter distances not longer ones. (Its no secret we as a nation have gotten lazy) Many people have mentioned on the Crookston Times Guestbook and elsewhere over the years of the need for a central location for the proposed community center. (You know the one that never gets onto the drawing board??) My guess is we will want a roof over our heads for the community center, not simply green space. Since the City and School District chose to destroy not only Central High School but the Junior High School gymnasium as well, our chance for a sizeable central community center may well be gone. If we can concentrate the businesses and eaterys we will have at least a business center. Any vision we choose to follow will involve sacrifice no doubt about it, but we have lost so much already. Watch for my upcoming slide show on the blog.
The City through the Crookston Economic and Development Authority, (CHEDA) is interested in downtown. I believe they are working on a new housing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for downtown that could encourage private development. It just hasn’t been in the news as much as our new 3 or 4 rink hockey arena which in my opinion is moving way too fast for the money involved.
Reading between the lines on the former Wayne Hotel project, the building won’t be torn down until the next Minnesota Housing grant round is completed the end of October and we hear if the project has this piece of funding in place. It isn’t over yet! The people of Crookston need to influence the City not the other way around. We will have to come up with our own vision and include a strong “How to do it” section, in which major obstacles have been researched. Through people like you and others that are doing some serious critical thinking about downtown Crookston, we can move forward.
