More information on the Menards panel discussion

Decorah City Administrator Chad Bird addressed a crowd of approximately 100 managers at the Iowa City/County Management Association Summer Conference Thursday morning at the Hotel Winneshiek. Bird's presentation, "The One that Got Away: Lessons learned from development deals that fell short," focused on the City's development discussions with Menards.

Bird led a panel discussion featuring Winneshiek County Development Director Stephanie Fromm, City Attorney John Anderson, and Engineer Lindsay Erdman of Erdman Engineering. All panelists agreed they learned a lot from the Menards experience. "If we did it over, we would do some things differently," said Anderson.

The panelists agreed that there were some glitches in the city's rezoning process that slowed things down and made it difficult to proceed with Menards building in their preferred location behind Wal-Mart. Fromm explained that Menards wanted to capture the retail synergy that location would provide, and was uninterested in considering alternate building sites, such as the frequently suggested Decorah Business Park, because of its industrial, rather than retail, nature.

Even if Menards would have considered building in the Decorah Business Park, Fromm said the process of adding traffic lights and turning lanes to accommodate a big box store like Menards would have taken a long time, and Menards wasn't willing to wait. Fromm said when she first got the call about Menards, she and others quickly came up with a game plan to set things in motion, but Menards pulled out before they had time to get everything in order. "The timing was off," said Fromm.

Both Fromm and Bird emphasized the importance of community members speaking up to make their opinions heard -- and not waiting until it's too late, as in the case of Menards.  "A loud minority spoke for the silent majority, and because of that, we lost out on a huge economic opportunity," said Fromm.

When asked by an audience member if there is still a chance Menards will come to Decorah sometime in the future, Bird said with a smile, "Stephanie and I reach out to Menards frequently, and they haven't told us to stop calling yet."