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Newspaper Clipping - Newspaper Clipping Scan - Eagan Fastest Growing City - 2/7/1988Tale of tW Pine City: Achievements result of hustle By Lee Egerstrom Staff Writer INE CITY — Robert E. Andersen, the steer: Pine City, say s he clear of the Twin Cities south suburbs except when he' coming or going at the Minneapo lis -St. Paul International Airport. "I hate to places like Eagan an pening in p Burnsville," he said. "Nothing falls out of the Twi Cities and lands in our laps. R have to hustle and work hard f, anything that comes our way." Make no mistake. Pine City c hustle. And its accessibility, about miles north of St. Paul on ma gives it advantag e communities in outstate Minnesf lack. Last year, Pine County t an average unemployment rate 7.9 percent, about three percenU points above the Twin Cities gion's rate but well below that many rural counties of compara size. Jobs have increased slig] in recent years. Still, not much comes easily in Pine City. That's the way it is in o town illustrates development inequillies Please see Pir_, City /3H 9M 'L Raenigej'AepunS Eagan: Fast - growing city's marketing consists of answering phone By Bruce Orwell Staff Write} n Eagan, new streets get names such as "Corporate Center Drive" or "Technolo- gy Circle." Developers trip over each other in a race to build the biggest and best shopping center. Northwest Airlines, Cray Re- search, West Publishing and the United Parcel Service have all come to town in recent years, and there's still room for more. And in a city that has doubled its popula- tion from 20,000 to 40,000 in just seven years, there were more than 1,000 new single - family housing starts again in 1987. What has Eagan done to encour- age all of this? Next to nothing. "At this point, our marketing program consists of answering th phone," says planning directo Dale Runkle. "Which is a nice situ ation to be in." City officials and local busines interests attribute Eagan's succe to factors ranging from, luck t good planning. Mostly, its a ca of the right place at the right tim, a once- isolatOd area now blesse Pine City Mayor Robert E. Andersen: "Nothing nthall that comes the es our woes and lands in our laps. I'le have to hustle and work har with quick access to Minneapolis, 0 St. Paul and the airport and plenty I of companies eager to take advan- tage of that access. The city is so confident of its prospects that its most prominent leaders eschew development tools such as tax - increment rt aanri in Eagan can powerful slow-growth in- creasingly p movement, the kind more common to growth hotbeds such as Orange County, Calif., than to the Midwest. During the explosive growth, Eagan has used tax - increment fi- nancing just once, to help attract a new Unisys (then Sperry) sales and marketing facility: New Mayor Vic Ellison says that was once too many, and he vows to keep Eagan out of the business of offering com- panies inducements to locate there. Ellison and others are content to just sit back and let it happen. "I'm e philosophically opposed to using r an types of incentives," Ellison _ said. Government ought not be in the position of picking winners and losers. Of course, I can afford to s take that pure stance because of ss the position Eagan's in. If I were o mayor of a struggling community, se I would have to be more open to Please see Eagan /4H ■ 411 L St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch Sunday, February 7, 1988 Joe Oden /Staff Photographer Tom Hedges, city administrator since 1976, points mostly to new highways as the key to Eagan's luxury. "Eagan has never had to spend a lot of money, or hire a lot of people, to attract development," he said. Eagan/ Inducements to build not needed Continued from Page 1H incentives." Ellison isn't alone in saying the government should not be making Offers for new facilities. "There has been talk that things like tax - increment financing and other tools as an inducement, to develop- ment don't have to be made," said Dan Aberg, executive director of the Northern Dakota County Chamber of Commerce. Even with that approach,. the city is on a roll. Ellison says that sometimes fairly large companies — with more than 100 employees — have moved into town and city officials didn't notice for months. There were too many other dis- tractions. Tom Hedges, city administrator since 1976, points mostly to new highways as the key to Eagan's luxury. Until 1980, the city was es- sentially landlocked, trapped by the Minnesota and Mississippi Riv- ers with no good way of getting to either St. Paul or Minneapolis. But in rapid succession, bridges went up that connected Eagan to Minneapolis via Cedar Avenue and Interstate 494. Later, Interstate 35E opened the city to St. Paul, and suddenly, Eagan was a hot commodity. The result is a kind of city offi- cials' nirvana. "Eagan has never had to spend a lot of money, or hire a lot of people, to attract develop- ment," Hedges said. In fact, some of Hedges' toughest tasks have revolved around managing the consequences of growth, from making sure the city's utility system is keeping pace to refereeing disputes among competing developers. Hedges also has adopted a "pinch yourself" phi- losophy for his staff and city coun- cil. "I've always cautioned the coun- cil, and my own staff, that we don't want to get too comfortable with this situation," Hedges said. "We always have to be attractive as a community." Eagan has delved periodically into competitions for large -scale projects such as the metropolitan stadium that went to Minneapolis and the horse racing track that eventually ended up in Shakopee. Hedges said those bidding wars left a bad taste in the city's mouth be- cause of the politics involved. But even when Eagan has lost, it's won. Northwest Airlines, ac- companied by a lot of tax revenue, has settled in at the site where city officials once tried so vigorously to get a stadium and later a race- track built, and Cray Research is on the way to a spot on an adjacent tract. The city did not dangle fi- nancial incentives for either firm. The business people who have arrived seem satisfied so far. One of those operations is Check Tech - Please see Growth /5H Sunday, February 7, 1988 St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch OUTU*K 19881 5H Joe Oden /Staff Photographer The Eagan business park is located on Corporate Center Drive. Growth/ Five - minute trip to airport a plus Continued from Page 4H nology, a firm that came to the city in 1985 to produce its comput- er -based printers. Senior vice pres- ident Paul Hanson says one of the biggest factors in the company's move from Eden Prairie was the sheer amount of space to be found in Eagan. In fact, Hanson said, space was so plentiful that when one office deal fell through and the company had to find another location quick- ly, it easily found an existing build- ing that fit its needs just up the road. The company has blossomed from 55 employees to 90 in that space. Check Technology also was swayed by another of Eagan's big NORTH OAKS_ =_� ARE LOTS AVAILABLE?1 (MANY HAVE CALLED TO ASK. YES, INDEED; AND A NICE SELECTION TOO! (It's true that only one lot on the lake and one lot on the 'Island' are offered for sale each year, and those N generally are sold the first day of business in January.) selling points — a five- minute trip to Minneapolis -St. Paul Interna- tional Airport. The company has a lot of shipments in and out of the Twin Cities, visitors arrive often at the airport and the company's ex- ecutives are frequently on the go. It all adds up to a mad dash that shouldn't end for years to come, until Eagan's population has reached about 90,000. "We're talk- ing absolutely prime chunks of de- velopment," Aberg said. "It's gold- en. People look at what happened in Bloomington 25 years ago and say, `My God, we can make that kind of money again.'" Hedges recalls an earlier time, too, when he was city administra- tor of St. Peter, in southern Minne- sota. He went through all the gyra- tions other communities must go through, with varying success, and he is familiar with the very tough circumstances an outstate location imposes. "They just don't have the luxury of population centers, cultural cen- ters, an international airport or the volume of work force," he said. "There's no question our prosperity has been a product of those fac- tors." PFPWW .-5 r IN A7 ww- Sunday, February 7, 1988 St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch OUTLOOK 1988 3H ine i Public, private sector coo eration pays off p Continued from Paae 1H most of Minnesota beyond the Twin Cities. The metropolitan area already has a disproportionate share of the state's income and jobs relative to its population, and the disparities have been increas- ing. Despite these trends, some out - state regions — St. Cloud, Roches- ter, Fergus Falls, Grand Rapids, Mankato, Marshall, Willmar, Al- bert Lea — have been doing well. But most smaller communities have been unable to buck the tide. State planners point to Pine City as a prime example of how the public and private sectors in rural communities should work together for economic development. Lead- ers there take chances, and recov- er quickly when risky business deals don't succeed. They have shaped strategies for attracting companies and devel- oped a trained cadre of volunteers who entertain officials from pros- pect firms and explain potential services to them. They have created an industrial park, with funds coming from local investors and the state and federal governments. Pine City's comprehensive eco- nomic development plans led state officials to designate it as a "Star City" in July 1986. Star Cities are Minnesota municipalities whose of- ficials have demonstrated a major commitment to economic planning and development. Circles from Cities Pine City has a relatively stable population of about 2,600. An addi- tional 3,400 or so residents live in the immediate area and consider themselves part of the community. The city has a scenic lake and river; with a second lake, sur- rounded by summer and year - round homes, just outside of town. It's also the seat of Pine County, and has modern schools and a state vocational- technical institute. "You can sit up here and see cir- cles reaching out from the Twin Cities," Andersen said. "If you live in the first circle, you get the urban sprawl and eco- nomic extension of the Twin Cities. That first circle reaches up to places like Princeton and Cam- Staff Photos by Joe Oden Bob Haedt has acquired the abandoned Burlington Northern depot and adjacent right -of- way property and is developing it into a restaurant - shopping complex. "We are going to give tourists and travelers a reason to stop and discover Pine City," he said. bridge now, but it stops before you get here. "We are definitely in the second circle. We are close enough to the Cities to legitimately go after com- panies, but we have to sell our- selves and our location pretty hard to ¢et them." Civic leaders began a sustained economic development effort in 1953, when they formed the Pine City Development Corp. Over the years, this entity helped bring sev- eral small industries to town. In 1968, it got 3M to build a plant and buy more than 50 acres of adjacent land for expansion. "3M isn't expanding in Minneso- ta, and I suspect the people of St. Paul know the reasons why better than we do in Pine City," Andersen said. "But we meet with 3M prop- erty managers every year to re- mind them they have an invest- ment in our community and they will always be welcome." Perhaps the development corpo- ration is best known for its bill - bUund which stGVd astride 1-35) 101 many years. The corporation used the sign to offer all comers a $1,000 reward for any contact or lead that resulted in an industry moving to or starting up in Pine City. Dedicated leaders Andersen talks of dedicated civ- ic leaders keeping Pine City stable and growing modestly through good times and bad. But there is no need to leave the mayor's office to search for extraordinary people. Andersen left Pine City to serve in World War Il. He landed in the Office of Strategic Services, fore- runner to the Central Intelligence Agency. He spent the war years in Swe- den, coordinating Allied support for the Norwegian and Danish re- sistance to German occupation.. He stayed on with the agency after the war, spending 18 of 30 years in various overseas assignments. In 1975, Andersen and his wife returned to Pine City, where they had vacation property. He soon be- came involved in community af- fairs, and was elected mayor five years ago. Now Andersen uses his intelli- gence agency background to ex- Funds for an industrial park north of Pine City came from local investors and the state and federal governments. plore leads and analyze state and federal programs that can strengthen Pine City's economy. The fruits of his labor will be obvi- ous by 1989, when the U.S. Trans- portation Department completes a second I -35 interchange at Pine City. Federal officials also are plan- ning a rest station near the inter- change — the only designated rest area on the Minnesota portion of I- 35 that hasn't been built.. Pine City has lobbied hard for the second in- terchange, which is near its indus- trial park, 3M and a small airfield. "Look at the development around the interchanges at Owa- tonna and Faribault and the other cities on 1 -35," Andersen said. "It will happen here, too." Extensions of water, sewer and curb and gutter services to the in- dustrial park were completed last year, with help in the form of a 70 percent subsidy from the federal Economic Development Adminis- tration. Pine City is particularly good at recovering from setbacks. Its officials helped Swedehomes USA locate here, with the firm op- erating initially in the city's aban- doned armory while a 37,000 - square -foot plant was being built in the industrial park. But last spring, just as the plant neared comple- tion, the company went bankrupt. Pine City got Product Fabrica- tors Inc. of nearby North Branch to acquire the building last fall. Then that firm began making electrical parts there. Wisconsin Bar Brand, a snack food packaging and distributing company, went through changes of ownership that led it to Pine City. However, another change of own- ership now appears likely to lead the firm to St. Paul. While two existing manufactur- ers — Atscott Manufacturing and DAKA Corp. — have increased em- ployment and production in Pine City, leaders are still trying to find buyers for a Land O'Lakes dairy abandoned in 1984. By Memorial Day this spring, another big setback will become a major Pine City attraction. Bob Haedt has acquired the "bandvncd LurlirlgtUll r4wtller❑ depot and adjacent right -of -way property and is developing it into a restaurant - shopping complex. Pine City is on BN's abandoned St. Paul - Duluth rail line, but one freight train a day continues to use a spur line there. Haedt is building a restaurant near the depot, which is being re- stored to house three retail shops. Sidewalk cafe tables will be placed outdoors on cobblestone walks, and a city park is directly across the tracks from the development.