I watched this presentation at the informational meeting yesterday. But I still have concerns. Accept for the fact that we blew $27 million of Federal tax dollars on land we will never recover our cost from and we never moved all the rail traffic from this area it will be interesting to see how they are going to buffer the rail traffic from this area;
• Will it be quiet enough for residential units in the area?
• With the railroad already saying traffic will become more frequent on the remaining tracks, how will you get to the development from the east safely and efficiently?
I have no problem with redeveloping this land, even though I worry about the pollutants left behind, as we should have learned from Phillips to the Falls. But without removing all of the train traffic from this area I feel the project as a whole fails to produce a setting for prime downtown redevelopment.
I was a big supporter of the project when first proposed by Mayor Munson, but once I found out the rail traffic is still going to be chugging through this area (and getting more frequent at other downtown and central parts of Sioux Falls) I’m not sure what we accomplished. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong 10 years down the road, but like Phillips to the Falls, I have my doubts.
Railroad executives are still laughing. ‘He’s gonna pay us 27 million on worthless land we won’t have to environmentally clean up and couldn’t give away.’ They’re still popping champagne and devouring caviar on the top floor at corporate HQ. We’ll have a new homeless camp with toxic health issues. The only commercial value is dope deals. God put brains in man. That was the day Huether got away from the herd.
What I think is sad, is how the hopes of a high speed train depot near Brandon, back in ’12, appear to be merely nothing but a pipe dream now…:-(
That looks like a reasonable site for Walmart #5.
Or a relocation site for WM #4.