Development Plans Detailed For Edgewood Drive

For those who frequent Edgewood Drive in Baxter, it is clear that change is on the way, but up until now, it has been unclear what changes can be expected. Aspen Dental and Caribou Coffee will be housed in the newest building on Edgewood Drive. But as for the lot next to it, Baxter Community Development Director Josh Doty wants to put to rest any rumors of a new building.

“There are parking lot modifications because Camping World, being a part of the application, includes outdoor display of recreational vehicles,” said Doty. Those RVs from Camping World will be displayed in what is now the empty lot.

The original Gander Mountain building will not change much on the outside except for some new paint. But the inside will be transformed into a new concept store including Gander Outdoors, Overton’s and Camping World.

“We’re excited that they were interested in Baxter, the fact that they were interested in our market to locate their new concept store is certainly exciting,” Doty said.

It’s a change that will benefit the community.

“Not only from a retail standpoint, but also from a tax based standpoint as we were looking at the alternative of having an empty building, and now a building that was only partially occupied is going to be fully occupied and with retail opportunities that didn’t exist 8 months ago,” said Baxter City Administrator Brad Chapulis.

The project has no official start date at this time, but they could begin as early as spring of 2018. The entire process isn’t expected to last long but with a large emphasis on pedestrian safety there will be additional construction.

“There is a great deal of improvements that will be made as part of this site that would include sidewalks that would connect pedestrians all the way from Clearwater Road through this development site all the way down to Cub Foods and Excelsior Road; also, from the Gander Mountain building back towards Edgewood Drive as well,” Doty said.

The community of Baxter will soon see the change from an old store to a new shopping experience.