A familiar eyesore – the ruins of a former Burger King restaurant at the corner of Highway 5 and County Road 4 (Eden Prairie Road) – may disappear in 2024. That’s because the Eden Prairie City Council on Tuesday, Dec. 5, approved plans to build a Crew Carwash on the property. The preliminary approval was unanimous; Crew Carwash needs to return in a few weeks for final approval. Why it matters: The automatic car wash would, finally, mean an end to the blight that is the southeast corner of Highway 5 and County Road 4. As part of this project,…
Author: Mark Weber
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Mark Weber
Mark joined the Eden Prairie News as a reporter in 1979, just five years after its start, and spent the next 34 years in various roles including editor and publisher, as well as general manager of the parent company, Southwest Newspapers. He also published Edible Twin Cities magazine. His encore career was serving the nonprofit Eden Prairie Community Foundation as executive director. Mark is now retired. He and his wife, Roma, have two grown sons and a daughter-in-law, as well as a grandson. They have lived in Eden Prairie since 1984. "I hope the many words I have typed over the years have helped people understand the world around them."
It’s how you might draw it up if you were building a noteworthy career in parks and recreation management in the Twin Cities: On Oct. 11 in Richfield, where you’ve worked the past 20 years, you formally open a signature project – an off-road, bike-skills facility called Taft Bike Park – and five days later, you join the City of Eden Prairie as its new parks and recreation director. This is the productive path taken by Amy Markle, whose leadership of the Eden Prairie Parks and Recreation Department began on Oct. 16 following the retirement of Jay Lotthammer. She becomes…
The public has a chance to weigh in on the City of Eden Prairie’s 2024 budget and property tax levy on Tuesday, Dec. 5, as well as on the proposed construction of a Crew Carwash in the southeast corner of Highway 5 and County Road 4. Public hearings on those topics are on the Eden Prairie City Council’s agenda when it meets at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Eden Prairie City Center, 8080 Mitchell Road. The council has already given preliminary approval to a 2024 budget of $60.3 million and a total property tax levy of $47.1…
As memorial services for former First Lady Rosalynn Carter take place in late November, including a formal funeral service on Nov. 29 in Plains, Georgia, longtime Eden Prairie residents might remember that she visited EP 45 years ago. The purpose of the first lady’s half-hour stop in Eden Prairie on Oct. 7, 1978, during a trip to the Twin Cities was to visit the Muriel Humphrey Residences, a set of three group homes – each holding 12 residents – located at the corner of Preserve Boulevard and Anderson Lakes Parkway. The homes were operated by the Louise Whitbeck Fraser School…
Local nonprofits Kaleidoscope Teens and Relate Counseling Center provide hometown support services for teens struggling with mental health issues.
Despite not securing many funding partners, the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District is moving ahead with the purchase of 28 acres of mostly open land along Spring Road in Eden Prairie. Why it matters: Funding the purchase through its budget will add 4% to the watershed district’s tax levy for at least the next three years, but will end the years-long controversy about whether or not homes should be built on the sloping property, with soils susceptible to erosion, located near Riley Creek and historic Fredrick-Miller Spring. The district’s board of managers voted 4-1 on Nov. 16 to proceed…
Tenants of Eden Prairie apartment complexes that are defined as having affordable housing and are changing owners will get additional protections under a new ordinance. The ordinance, given preliminary approval on Nov. 14 by the city council, would apply to about one-half of the roughly 35 apartment complexes in Eden Prairie. Owners of those complexes would be required to give notice of sale and ownership intent to tenants and the city. The notice would need to state whether the new owners intend to raise rents, and if so, when and by how much; clarify if they will re-screen or use…
Eden Prairie Police Department trains officers, collaborates with schools and other agencies for response to juvenile “person-in-crisis” calls.
Eden Prairie city officials are looking for more consistency in their approach to crosswalks and other pedestrian crossings, and it’s mostly because of the pandemic. “This really stems from, I think, COVID,” says Public Works Director Robert Ellis. “COVID brought a lot of people out to our trail and sidewalk system, which is a good thing. “As we’ve kind of returned to normal, the traffic has picked up. So I think people felt comfortable in 2020 walking around when there wasn’t a lot of traffic,” he adds. “But now that the traffic’s returning, they’ve been calling the Engineering Division quite…
Only two gravel roads remain in Eden Prairie, and one of them – the segment of Dell Road from Crestwood Terrace to Flying Cloud Drive – is now likely to be rebuilt and paved in 2025. With the Eden Prairie City Council voting Tuesday, Nov. 14, to move ahead, city staff will now schedule a January public hearing for the southwestern EP project, which is significant because it includes sewer, water, and storm drainage construction in addition to the road rebuild, all on a steep and curving route up and down the Minnesota River Valley bluffs. The city wants to…