Canterbury to bring development plan presentation before council Tuesday

Shakopee Valley News

On Tuesday, Canterbury Park representatives will give a presentation to the Shakopee City Council on the overall development plan for Canterbury Commons.

It’s certainly not the first plan.

Over the past decade, Canterbury Park officials have tried several times to develop the nearly 400 acres surrounding the racetrack.

1985 to 2000

Canterbury Park began as Canterbury Downs, which opened in June 1985. By 1992, the track had closed. One year later, the property was purchased by Curtis Sampson and Dale Schenian.

“It really was a significant decision to put the track here, it was a significant win for the city of Shakopee to get that new entertainment racetrack facility in Shakopee and the community was quite excited about it,” Canterbury Park Holding Corporation President and CEO Randy Sampson said.

The track reopened in 1994 under the Canterbury Park name and live racing returned in 1995.

“We did that because we were racing people,” Sampson said. “We believed racing deserved another chance in Minnesota.”

In 2000, the track added casino table games, including poker in the Canterbury Park building.

“That was very important in terms of taking racing from just kind of surviving here and just being able to keep the doors open to take it to another level as far as purses and the business being viable,” Sampson said.

2008

The initial plan to develop the area around Canterbury Park was unveiled in 2008.

The arrival of Highway 169 in 1995 changed the entrance of the track to route users by the horse barns in what had been the back of the track. So the plan focused on moving the barns to the new backside and create a destination retail space and some residences.

“We started out with a plan to move the barns, complete relocation of all of the barns, and create a lifestyle retail, similar to Arbor Lakes,” Sampson said. “At that time, they weren’t building shopping malls anymore, they were building lifestyle retail with the Main Street feel to it.”

But the stock market crash in September 2008 put an end to that plan.

“Nobody was doing any major development projects at that time,” Sampson said.

2010s

The market began to rebound and Canterbury officials started looking at their land again. Another plan was drawn up but was never made public.

At the same time, Shakopee became a draw for company headquarters and facilities such as Seagate, Entrust Datacard, Emerson, Amazon and Shutterfly.

“(We wanted to) create something unique, a destination, something that fits well with Canterbury as an entertainment destination but also meets the needs of what the city is looking for in terms of development,” Sampson said. “We could have put in warehouses or whatever along the way but that was never our vision for the development.”

Canterbury also expanded its entertainment offerings, adding the expo center in 2014 for larger events such as trade shows, MMA fights, pool tournaments and beer fests.

A plan in 2015 once again moved the horse barns and put retail in the front with a movie theater, grocery store, restaurants, a department store and smaller shops.

The theater, Marcus Theatres, ended up moving to Southbridge and the grocery store, Hy-Vee, went to Marystown instead.

“In our analysis of the situation, the primary issue was that the cost of the roads and other utilities and other development infrastructure, combined with the complete relocation of the barn area created a hurdle, or an upfront cost that we did not believe was viable as far as moving forward with the development,” Sampson said.

Canterbury decided to take another look at the plan.

However, the company heard from potential development partners that for a retail area to succeed and be attractive to partners, a residential element would have to be included.

“The other thing that we heard from people that were potentially interested in being part of this development was ‘Well, we get it in the summer with live racing, with Valleyfair and all the stuff going on around here but what about the winter, what about the off-season?’ ” Sampson said.

“That drove part of our thinking that... we need to try and create more year-round events that will drive people here not just during live racing.”

2017

The current plan features a relocation of half the barns and a residential component, some of which is included in what has been called Canterbury Village (though that’s not the official name yet), a $100 million luxury apartment complex.

“Every piece of our concept is something that revolves around actual conversations that we’ve had with potential developers,” Media Relations Manager Jeff Maday said. “This is a well-thought out plan.”

The apartments would consist of 600 units built over two phases and is also the catalyst for a comprehensive plan amendment to allow that much density in the zoning around Canterbury.

The apartments would have a number of amenities including pools, saunas, exercise facilities, game rooms, pet spas, playgrounds and more.

On Tuesday, Canterbury officials will show the City Council how the residential portion fits into the Canterbury Commons project to address some council members’ concerns and let the council and community see their vision for the area.

It’s a chicken and egg situation. Developers expressed concern about the retail due to a lack of residential and the council wanted more information on the retail to see how the residential portion would affect the area.

If residential were not included because the comprehensive plan didn’t pass, Canterbury would have to return to the drawing board again, Maday said.

“We are confident in this plan and are optimistic about a positive outcome throughout the approval process,” Maday said.

The apartments are key because the company wants to create a play on Shakopee’s “live, work, play” mantra with “live, stay, work, play.”

“That is the type of walkable community that a lot of people are looking for now and has become popular in the inner ring of suburbs,” Sampson said. “It is something that makes sense that particularly young people but also some of the Baby Boomers that like the idea of that urban lifestyle.”

Canterbury officials are waiting until Tuesday to reveal the other development possibilities for the project, but Sampson said the company hopes to draw unique attractions that visitors can’t necessarily get anywhere else as well as office spaces, restaurants and retail.

“Those types of things are what people are gravitating toward now and we’re looking to find some unique concepts that fit those types of entertainment and restaurant areas,” Sampson said.

The area will be developed, Sampson said.

“One of the concerns that we have to overcome now is we’ve been talking about this for 10 years and some of these people are like, ‘I don’t know if that’ll ever happen,’ ”he said. “This is real and this is going to happen and start filling the rest of the space in.”

The comprehensive plan amendment goes before council for a vote in December. The amendment requires a super-majority, or four of the five members.