Fire Station Sold, Cedar Grove Development Inches Forward

Jon Hohenstein, director of community development for the City of Eagan, announced at Tuesday's city council meeting that a settlement had been reached between the city and the owners of Competition Engines, Randy and Sandy Quam.

The Quams recently dropped their eminent domain appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court and entered into an agreement whereby the city will purchase their Cedar Grove property and the couple will acquire the city-owned fire station property on Lone Oak Circle, once the new fire station is completed. 

The owners of Larson Automotive also decided to drop their appeal to the Supreme Court, leaving U-Haul as the only holdout. In the words of Mayor Mike Maguire,"...and then there was one." 

The council heard from Jim McCaffrey, senior vice president at Cassidy Turley, a real estate brokerage firm, and Len Pratt of Pratt Development about their plans to aggressively market the Cedar Grove property to developers. According to Pratt, he is seeing signs of the real estate market recovering and is hopeful to begin making the Cedar Grove vision a reality. 

In other business, the council approved weight restrictions on Nichols Road between Silver Bell Road and the Burnsville city limits. Concerns about the roadway's structural ability to handle the increased truck traffic that has resulted from the current closing of Black Dog Road and the anticipated spring floods led Director of Public Works Tom Colbert to recommend a 4-ton per axle limit on that portion of Nichols Road. 

These items were also discussed/voted on during the meeting:

• The council approved an amendment to the city's outdoor-storage ordinance to stipulate that only three commercial vehicles per parcel may be stored outdoors in areas zoned commercial or industrial. Any stored vehicles in excess of three would require a conditional use permit. 
• The council voted to grant  Biothera an additional year to complete the creation of a required 30 new jobs, per the company's Minnesota Investment Fund agreement with the city.
• Mayor Maguire asked for a moment of silence to honor long-time Burnsville City Council Member  Charlie Crichton, who passed away on March 13.