Business Leaders Praise Eagan At State Of City Address

A leading executive from Prime Therapeutics says Eagan has “a lot of momentum at its back right now,” and its local amenities made Eagan an easy choice for the company’s consolidation plans on a 30-acre site in northeast Eagan.

Facilities Assistant VP, Brian Holmes’ comment was just one of several glowing remarks from business leaders included in a video as part of the 2017 Eagan State of the City Address.

The annual update, before a crowd of Chamber of Commerce and civic leaders, was held at Eagan’s first brewery—Bald Man Brewing Company. Its co-owner, Dan Jacobs, says they can’t brew beer fast enough because demand is a year ahead of projections.

And while the morning crowd drank coffee, not beer, spirits were lifted by news of Eagan fast becoming a destination city, not just for things to do, but for healthcare, new retail development, and corporate relocations accounting for $65 million worth of new construction.

Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire pointed out, “it was only a few short years ago that some people were suggesting Eagan lacked a night life—a vibe after hours.” With the addition of Bald Man Brewing, the Volstead Whiskey Bar and other venues, that reputation is changing fast.

Eagan’s Central Park Commons development accounted for 33 percent of all the new retail in the Twin Cities last year, according to a news release.

The biggest news of this last year was the Minnesota Vikings breaking ground on their new headquarters and indoor practice facility, the first phase of an overall 200-acre development adjacent to Interstate 494 in Eagan. Vikings executive Kevin Warren credits the City’s get it done attitude. The developer of Central Park Commons calls what’s happening in Eagan “amazing.”

Despite its many successes, Mayor Maguire cautioned that there is still work to be done to replace aging infrastructure, and modernize some city facilities. He questioned whether full-time city staff can remain at the same level it has been for over a decade, given the increasing demand for services.

He called that “a great problem to have.”

Eagan employers are in a competition for a decreasing labor supply, and the Mayor highlighted why making Eagan attractive and vibrant is so crucial:

“On our own,” Maguire said, “we are simply not producing enough doctors, enough high-tech workers, mechanics, laborers and restaurant workers to sustain our economy, much less grow it.”

Being a welcoming community is a matter of economic survival, he said.

In fact, according to Greater MSP, the Twin Cities region will experience a shortage of 114,000 workers by 2020. And if something doesn’t change in terms of migration, the decade following 2019 will see a severe labor-supply shortage says the state demographer.

Maguire said transformative cities seek to find their weak points so they can strengthen them. Case in point: the residential survey ratings of Eagan’s staff for customer service were quite high in 2016, 89 percent approval overall.

But going behind the numbers, the approval rating was 91 percent among white residents, but only 74 percent among non-white residents.

“So we have to ask—and we will ask, the Mayor said, “how can we do better?”

One thing that will serve Eagan well going forward is its continuing Triple-A Bond ratings from both Moody’s and Standard & Poors, leading the latter to conclude that “Eagan's bonds are eligible to be rated above the sovereign [the federal government] because we believe the city can maintain better credit characteristics than the U.S. in a stress scenario.”

Already Eagan has been able to pay for a new centrally located fire station, upgrades to its Central Maintenance Facility and future upgrades to Eagan City Hall and Police (facilities which have not been updated since 1996) with no increase in taxes; no increase in Eagan’s indebtedness.

“As we prepare for that next stage of development and redevelopment,” the Mayor concluded, “we want a city that is both solid and agile; a city that has the skills, the people, and the vibrancy to adapt to and drive a changing world.”

For those wanting to watch the State of the City speech and the destination development video containing business leader’s comments, the speech can be web streamed here.

Photo by Kim Christenson