Civil Municipal - Feb 2024

some sites on the four corners of the community as potential rebuild sites and worked with them to identify the best opportunity to rebuild. And that was near I-90.” “The proximity of I-90 to our downtown was unique for us; in a lot of communities around I-90, you have to travel several miles to reach their downtown– for us it is only about a mile. You can see the lights of downtown St. Charles when you take the exit. That spurred our first direct connection to I-90.” “Ultimately, because of the state of the economy in 2009, North Star Foods chose not to rebuild,” Gastner continues. “When we got that news we wondered, ‘Do we want to create this business park even without North Star as an anchor; does it still make sense?’ The answer was ‘Yes.’ We knew it was the next big opportunity for the community and we thought it was the right time to make it happen. And because it would be kind of a doorstep to our community, we had to be deliberate about what we wanted it to look like. That’s why we created a new zoning designation–Regional Commercial –specifically for that site because we knew we wanted a good mix of commercial businesses and light industrial, and we wanted to be able to blend them to create what, visually, would be a welcoming corridor.” THE BUSINESS PARK OPENS The Chattanooga Innovation Park completed its Phase One development in 2011 with approximately 35 acres of developable land. It was designed with numerous redundancies in its water, sewer, electric, and telecommunications infrastructure to support future growth. It offers low tax and utility rates and direct access to interstate transportation. Today, it is host to a Love’s Travel Stop, Whitewater Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram automotive dealership, and several other businesses.“It has been a successful endeavor,” says Gastner. This success of the Chattanooga Innovation Park prompted the city to expand the area and develop the second phase in 2021. The expansion added nearly 20 new acres of developable land. 81 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 5, ISSUE 02 ST. CHARLES, MN