The Longfellow Community Council had a public meeting concerning a proposal to develop 3815 Lake Street E and the rest of the block. A former owner of Riverside Market is the proposed owner. He plans to replicate a turn of the century general store, with a host of quaint touches.
The NDC meeting concerning the Peterson Machinery property brought out a roomful of people, where the parties at 3308 Lake brought out three neighbors. The effort on the latter meeting was giant compared to this meeting. I guess that shows something.
While the discussion went on, I thought back to the extensive meetings over 4320 Lake Street before the enlarged Super America was built. We had many months of warnings on that, and active neighbors got concessions from the corporation on many areas. Then there’s Fattalone’s Ace Hardware. Were there a lot of meetings on that? Gary Schiff was redistricted out of the area, and he was a prime mover with SA. Maybe that means something.
There were a bunch of environmental questions raised. That also got me thinking about the Ace Hardware. Did it install rain gardens? West River Flats? Forage? Blue Door? Seems like I’m hearing issues on this grocery store not raised for any recent development proposal. I don’t think these issues are the best to raise when trying to fill empty commercial locations. But maybe there is some sort of ulterior motive.
I did raise the question about the LCC environment committee. I now want to attend a couple of its meetings to see if the same people raise the questions there. The reason it matters is that the LCC Board has to rule on at least one of the decisions made tonight.
I’m a member of Seward Co-op. Maybe I need to inquire what environmental steps it took when building the present property. Despite being a member, I guess I’m in the dark about how much Franklin businesses care about rainwater. By the way, an assertion was made that the storm sewers are already overtaxed. Having lived here since October 1993, I can remember exactly one case where that seemed to be true. It required a 5 inch rainfall in less than a day. Because of the exceptional nature of that rainfall, there has been no re-engineering of the system. So I’m not aware of the factual bases of the claim that the storm sewers can’t handle the rainfall that is already falling on the Peterson Machinery site. If that isn’t creating flooded streets, the proposed grocery store probably isn’t going to exacerbate anything.
Stay tuned. I don’t think the fat lady has sung yet.
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