Study ordered, 'big-box' moratorium delayed

City must first define what cannot be

handled under current comprehensive plan

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Placing a moratorium, in effect, on pursuing a moratorium to keep out a Wal-Mart Supercenter, the New Ulm City Council asked staff to determine if the city is prepared to deal with a 225,000-square-foot retail facility inside or adjacent to city limits.

The action came at Tuesday's city council meeting.

Support for a moratorium, if there was any, quickly evaporated during City Attorney Hugh Nierengarten's report of what the council could and couldn't do in establishing any such moratorium.

"If you're going to prohibit an activity, you first have to define what can't be handled under the present comprehensive plan, and in what ways are we deficient," Nierengarten said.

"As the first step, you have to determine if there is a problem; isn't that right?" Councilor Ruth Ann Webster asked.

Answering Council President Dan Beranek's call for a motion, Webster responded, "I'm hesitating to make a motion because I'm not sure there is a need for using valuable staff time on this."

"I'm not sure about a moratorium, either. I think it's prudent to look at retail development from a land-use standpoint," Councilor Sharon Weinkauf added.

"I don't know that we're not prepared to deal with placing a 200,000-square-foot store in the city, and I'm not prepared to enact a moratorium on this. I'm concerned about what a moratorium says ... ," Councilor Clark Tuttle said.

"However, I'm not adverse to making a motion instructing staff to talk about the impact of a Wal-Mart-sized retailer coming to town or adjacent to the city and reporting back to us as soon as possible."

"I favor the meeting because sooner or later we will need to deal with whether we're properly prepared for such an addition to our community," Weinkauf added.

Library project

That matter disposed of, the council went on to a different sort of dilemma. Bids were opened Tuesday for the library accessibility renovation that was budgeted at just under $600,000.

Heymann Construction of New Ulm, the low bidder out of the six firms, came in with a bid of $1,187,600, nearly $600,000 over the $590,900 budgeted cost.

"Quite frankly, I've never seen a bid this far out of whack," Beranek said.

The city's project architect, Eric Oleson of Kagermeier Oleson Hobbie Architects, Inc., of Mankato, said he too was bowled over by the bid opening.

"The construction market has really changed in the past year, and this project will require a lot of steel which is more expensive. I do believe, however, that there are some things that can be cut," said Oleson, in asking for the council's permission to work with the low bidder to try to shave costs.

However, Nierengarten objected to having that happen.

"If the project is changed in any respect, it should be re-bid," Nierengarten said.

Webster asked Oleson if there were any options not yet explored.

"Can we do this in stages, say enough in one stage to satisfy the Library Accessibility ($150,000) grant?"

"The accessibility (portion) was about 90 percent of the project, and I believe the deadline for using the grant is Dec. 30, 2004. But that's something we could dig into," Oleson responded.

City Manager Brian Gramentz said he would call the grant office to see if there is some way the city could get more time to use the grant.

"We were stalled for three months when all these grants were frozen because of the state budget deficit -- so I would think they should be able to give us until at least March 1 to use it."