Editorial: UMore project raises many questions

Talk about it

The University of Minnesota’s proposed UMore development has been the source of a lot of speculation, conversation and consternation over the past few years in Rosemount. Nobody is entirely sure what to expect from the finished product, still more than 20 years away. There have been some nice pictures and some intriguing ideas, but there is a long way to go between ideas and reality.

Nobody knows, either, how the development and the process that leads to it will affect Rosemount.

Most of the questions on the table will not be answered for years to come, but a few things should become clearer in the next 12 months. The university is in the process of hiring a consultant to measure the presence of contamination on the UMore land, a likely remnant of the property’s history as the site of a gunpowder plant during World War II. That study should be done by late next year, and the results should help clear up the picture of what lies ahead on the property. The more contaminated the soil, the more work it will take to clean it up.

There are other questions, too. Plans to mine gravel on the property have many residents — and Rosemount city government — concerned. So does the possibility of 20,000 or 30,000 new residents moving in over the next 25 or 30 years. That’s a lot of growth, and it’s going to mean changes in the city. You don’t double your population without having to make a few adjustments.

We attempt to start answering some of those questions this week with the first installment of a three-part series about UMore. We’ll answer a few more in the coming weeks about mining and the overall future of the property. We won’t clear up everything — this early in the process, that’s simply not possible — but we’ll try to give as clear a picture as we can.

This development still has a long way to go. And we’ll keep asking questions along the way.

Tags: opinion, editorial, rosemount, education