The proposed Hy-Vee at 50th and O just won't die. Council member and candidate for Mayor Ken Svoboda is pushing a reconsideration of the project by trying to get area property owners to sign off on a cheaper version of the 50th Street extension. One of the reasons area property owners balked was that they perceived that the street project contained too many "extras", thus dramatically raising its price.
If Svoboda can swing this, it will make a nice feather in his cap that certainly won't hurt his election chances.
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Good for Svoboda if that works. It’s nice for someone to get a leg up in campaigning for actually thinking about a problem and accomplishing something rather than just name-calling or making up the catchiest meaningless slogan.
Good for anybody in this town that can spur some economic development and increase the sales tax dollars and offer some jobs. HyVee is a big enough entity that if they really want the store there, they can help make this happen with no TIFs, ands, or buts.
I also give kudos to the fact the 84th and Adams stuff is moving along. That Wal-Mart would probably be open now, or close to it, had the mayor not fouled that up. So it was a bad plan to have a 200,000 square foot store there (that neighbors wanted) because it was too big, but having 2 175,000 sf stores (that’s 350,000 square feet for those of you scoring at home) is okay?
I don’t care either way, but that kind of delay and goofing around sends a bad message to developers and retailers, and the several month delay is just that much longer that the property isn’t producing as much property tax or sales tax dollars.
The extra, unnecessary costs referred to in the article are landscaping and other pretty-ing things. I wonder if Svobs’ company was going to get that contract. I’d like to see them use the left-over state funds from O Street, if the state lets them. I don’t want them to pave that stretch until my idea for a public art campaign can be realized.
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