City officials stress implementation, and associated costs, are still uncertain
A year and a half ago, Forest Lake’s city council formed a downtown committee to figure out what can be done to resurrect the struggling historic downtown corridor of the city. On Monday, July 25, the final iteration of the city’s downtown plan will likely be approved by the Forest Lake City Council. It’s the completion of the long-term vision-casting journey by the city that began in January of 2021, and aims to make Forest Lake a destination city by capitalizing on the lake and the trail throughout the year to attract new businesses.
That plan, say city officials, will be key in the years to come as they work to develop public land, like Lakeside Memorial Park and Hardwood Creek Trail, and look to private developers to bring back life into the historic core of the city. But they stress that right now, that’s all it is: a plan. The real work, they say, begins now.
In January 2019, Mayor Mara Bain transitioned from a council seat into the mayor’s desk, and focused on updating old plans for the downtown area that never got off the ground.
She said in an interview to The Times earlier this year, “It’s been a project that’s been talked about for years in Forest Lake, even if you go back as far as the redesign of Lakeside Memorial Park and building projects even 20 years ago. It’s been a longtime discussion.”
Assistant City Administrator Dan Undem, who has been at the city for eight years, said a vision and action plan for the downtown was sorely needed. He said due to a lack of a plan, city staff are more “reactionary” to projects that come across their desk instead of being more “planful.”
