MENDOCINO COUNTRY Independent
    Web posted 6/5/09
    riverdale.jpg
COON RAPIDS AND ANOKA, MINNESOTA, looking North. The light rectangle in the background is Anoka city.


RIVERDALE VILLAGE PREFIGURES MENDOCINO CROSSINGS
    While the 310 page Mixed Use Masonite Specific Plan in DDR's initiative is replete with references to design standards and amenities, it contains repeated disclaimers that the actual project will be determined by market conditions (at the discretion of the landowner) and that all else within is merely conceptual.
    Anoka, Minnesota is the hometown of Garrison Keillor, and erstwhle model for the fictional small town of Lake Wobegon. It is being exsanguinated of businesses, jobs and tax revenues by Riverdale Village only a mile south down Highway 10/47 with two exits that deposit you into the middle of a commercial cornucopia.   Shoppers from Anoka are being drawn to spend money just over the city's border in Coon Rapids.
    Riverdale Village is an is an 872,507 square foot hybrid shopping center owned by Developers Diversified Realty, encompassing a cluster of discount stores, "lifestyle tenants" and traditional mall anchors. Its layout bears an erie resemblance to the scetches in DDR's plans for the Masonite site. This probable future view of  "Mendocino Crossings" site in Ukiah Valley contrasts sharply with the visionary renderings of the Ruff architectural firm showing walkable green neighborhoods with duck ponds, farmers markets and bioswales of all things.

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The Vision: Richard Ruff Associates, 2007


  There's a Starbucks and Kinko's in proximity to one another - -  not to mention a Border's Book Store, Best Buy, Old Navy, Qdoba, Noodles, Target, Einstein's Bagels, etc.
    The blogwriter John  Michlig at http://fullyarticulated.typepad.com/sprawledout/the-mighty-mighty-edge-no.html puts it,
    "From ground level, however, Riverdale Village is downright purgatorial; a bewildering maze of big box stores, chain restaurants, chain coffee shops, and asphalt that stretches in all directions with no discernible pattern and no regard for pedestrian traffic.
    "You simply cannot safely walk from one place to another, even if you can clearly see the place you need to go. One must get back into a vehicle and attempt to negotiate the completely arbitrary-seeming network of curvey, loopy roads that seem to lead everywhere but where you're trying to go. This is not one-stop shopping; you need a car to get there, and you need a car to stay there. "
riverdale1.jpg
The Reality: John Michlig foto.