Ramsey Town Center
I made my first visit to the Ramsey Town Center today. Its not a location that is typically on the way to anything. I was out there for a tax appeal. And anyone that has property in the Ramsey Town Center needs to consider appealing their property taxes, residential or commercial.
When you visit the struggling commercial area, I find it ironic that this shiny new building is the offices of the Midwest Medical Examiner. As the Ramsey Town Center is strewn with dead developments.
Its sad because there are some lovely homes built there, beautiful architecture on the the townhomes. But the projects have all been mothballed. Not one model home to be seen. And one sad “to be built”, a 2 bedroom, 1 bath single family home on a 55' wide lot advertised at $154,000 is the only active listing I could find on the MLS. As often the case, in addition to the builders, those that are suffering the most are the homeowners that bought into the dream. Unless they are very fond of quiet and don't like having neighbors.
As to solds in the last year--3 partially completed townhomes sold for $45,000 and a water damaged one for $52,000. And a new nice single family home, 2,500 square feet finished with 4 beds and 3 baths sold for $262,000. Lonely, though. It was really quiet out there on this flat open land.
It was a project that never made sense, even when it was conceived in the peak of the hot real estate market by the City of Ramsey, who sought out a developer. Though I doubt the City could have even considered the resulting bank fraud that landed people in jail and contributed to the main appraiser involved committing suicide. Back to the dead body thing again.
Expect for what appears to be a mostly empty commercial building with an event center, and a new Alina Clinic being built, all of the other “Town Center” commercial buildings are this amazing City Hall, the new VA Clinic being built, a large multistory empty parking garage, and the Medical Examiners Office.
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Laurie, You should really do some more homework before casting the stones.
ReplyDeleteThe City bought this property out of foreclosure a little over 18 month ago and in that short period of time they have cleaned up the mess left by the former developers and have over $80 million of PRIVATE development underway. I would challenge you to match that anywhere in the metro area. It has been re-branded "The COR" and has received considerable attention in the local and national development arenas. This project will be the featured site at the May MSCA meeting, and was presented as a case study at ICSC last December.
This spring a new 230 unit luxury apartment building is scheduled to break ground wrapping that 4-story ramp and using the remaining unallocated stalls. This will be the only project in the metro directly connected to a transit station and will likely be the largest of it's kind in the metro this year.
Also breaking ground this spring, and in addition to the $80m, is a 90 acre K-12 campus for Legacy Christian Academy. This campus will host almost 1000 students in it's initial phase, and include a performing arts center, hockey rink, domed athletic fields, and an aquatics center in it's full build out.
As to your comments about what you saw recently, The Allina Clinic is a new prototype facility and the VA was a huge win for the community as it was competitively pursued and awarded to The COR because of all of the new development and improvements to the project including the $3m Draw Park and Amphitheater.
The office building you referenced is nearly full, with a new restaurant and catering facility scheduled to begin construction this spring on the ground floor.
Laurie, I know you are in the business, but you really should take a better look before you jump on the nay-sayer bandwagon.
I