Is that sign still up that says the Mongolian Grill is "Coming Soon" or something like that?
Not so fast on BWW and Petco coming to Ames
- Thread starter JP4CY
- Start date
Is that sign still up that says the Mongolian Grill is "Coming Soon" or something like that?
I would love to have a Petco in Ames. Currently there is nothing to get pet supplies here. Now with all of the apartments allowing dogs Petco would make a killing. I don't understand why adding more parking space would be a deal breaker. Maybe they could build it closer to Target and use their extra parking as overflow, they seem to have plenty.
Is that why we have had 1 high school in Ames for 50 years while Ankeny is getting ready to build another one?
There is a place in the Northern Lights shopping center called "Under One Woof". You should check them out.
I liked The Arc...it had charm and some rare animals from time to time, but I would have loved a Petco in town when I was in Ames.
I know quite a few people that currently get dog food from Brekke's off of 30 east if any of you head that way. Theissens seems to have a good selection too.
Yah I get the food from Theissens now. I'll try the under one woof to get some of the toys and supplies. I just hate going to Ankeny to get new toys when she tears hers up.
If you want to get really riled up, the "Coming Soon" signs at North Grand Mall now means "Maybe Coming Sometime in 2011 but Probably Not in the Original Form Sold to the Council if the Council Doesn't Give US Yet Another Extension!"
Can't wait for the November elections. All three up need to go. Ames should be so much more.
Growth? New Businesses? First-Class Hospital? Why would we want any of that stuff?
Ok, the real parking deal is probably somewhere in the middle. First, I have to say that I can't picture the site Petco is looking at and that would help. Whoever said that you can not only look at the present user is correct, to a point. And no, it has nothing to do with 'assuming a business will fail'. It has to do with building for forever and not for what suits you at that moment. Once you build out a site and do it poorly your hosed until someone decides to scrap it and start over. And yes, the planning horizon for building and zoning issues means that most business will fail, or move, or whatever at some point. SO, 38 is too few for such a large building, but if there is additional space that could be reserved for future additions that would work. Also, shared parking works well. The trend is toward less parking and Ames is not surprisingly probably behind the curve on that one. Parking is a huge waste of space, returns no tax value, is a negative in terms of aesthetics and stormwater issues, etc. Ok, so what was the question?
Thats all fine and dandy but its still might be turning business away. I think it was somewhere stated once that 40 some percent of house taxes go to the city and 90 some percent of businesses go to the city.
Good lord, luck at what a hassle Fareway had to go thru. Is Ames even getting the money off of that? I thought that Cameron School road meant that some of that tax dollars gets thrown into the Gilbert school district. I might be way off but it's just what I've heard.
If they arent going to develop in a manner thats best for teh city long term then you have to turn them away. Not saying that is the case here. Your numbers are also very off on taxes. What you are referring to is rollback. The same portion of a tax bill goes to the City in any case, and its very small as an overall portion of the bill.
But I think that's the point of why I started this thread: its city vs. planning. Without trying to sound too political here it appears there is some interesting thinking in management in less than 5 years. Over building apts in West Ames, new Fareway, an unused middle school, a late water park which may not even open this year, not wanting a new mall, a terrible looking existing mall, and now possibly not allowing a Petco due to parking size?
It just raises eyebrows to me.
I definitely won't argue that Ames is doing things right as I don't know. Only that in this instance neither side sounds correct! What happened to that other mall, I thought it did get approved a number of years ago?
That was to keep the sport teams more dynamic and vibrant insteads of splitting school population....
I still want to know what they plan to do with the old middle school.
And I'm sad I didn't have time to go get that playground equipment that has been laying out front and put it in my front yard before I moved out
And I'm sad I didn't have time to go get that playground equipment that has been laying out front and put it in my front yard before I moved out
Not all of those things can be pinned on the city.
- They must be renting enough apartments in West Ames to keep the companies afloat. It brings in more property taxes so I don't know why the city would want that to stop. Eventually all of the new apartments will force the older ones to close which may not be a bad thing for the city.
- I'm not sure how it's the city planners fault that the water park is finishing late. Maybe I'm not up on what's happened but that seems more of a contractor problem.
- The mall was cancelled because there was a campaign to elect people that would vote against the mall. Since the people that were for the mall didn't get out and vote the right people into the city counsel, it wasn't that surprising what happened.
- The existing mall is terrible looking but what's the city going to do about it?
The current city counsel does seem to be against change but that's why they were voted in. If people want change then when the next set of elections come around get involved and get people out to change it.
I thought that had everything to do with Ankeny expanding so fast as people that work in Des Moines realize that they don't want to live in Des Moines.
3 things -
1 The location has a ton of additional parking around it. Target, Super Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, Home Furniture (now closed) so even though Petco would have limited spots there would be a ton of overflow spots available for future businesses if needed.
2 - The mall was approved, then the anti-gorwth contingent (yes they really are anti-growth) made a mad dash to get enough people on the council to "re-vote" the issue and the "reformed" council basically put enough road blocks and additional requirements on the development it is effectively killed.
3 - There is an election coming up. I am not sure how to get your hands on it, but Pete Orazem a Prof at ISU is running and he did an analysis on Ame's growth versus several other similar towns over the last 10+ years and the lack of growth in Ames is staggering. Really staggering. I will see if I can put it out somewhere for people to look at.
