By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News 

2222 Coalition of Neighborhood Associations hosted an open house at Highpoint 2222 on September 16.  About 200 people attended to see what developer Karlin Real Estate is planning for the former 3M campus at 6801 River Place Blvd. over the next decade if rezoning is granted. 

The site has about 1.1 million square-feet of existing leasable space and sits on a 156-acre campus. In addition to finding one or more tenants for the leasable space, Karlin is also considering plans to build up to 1,250 apartment units on the site, along with retail and a parking garage.

Local residents gave feedback about these ideas that could happen over the next decade. 

“I don’t want the apartments,” said Jim Stanley, a resident of Canyon Creek. He was an employee for 3M for 30 years and he worked at the local campus for 20 of those years.

Stanley has three big concerns about plans for adding apartments. 

“First of all, traffic. Second of all, water. Third, wastewater,” Stanley said. “This is an aquifer and to build on this and to want to build 1,250 apartments, it’s going to put a huge strain on our water supply. And the traffic is bad now but it’s going to be even worse with 1,250 apartments. It’s too much. I mean, if it was being reused for what it’s zoned for, I’d be all for it, even some retail, and that kind of thing, fine. But apartments, we can’t handle it,” he said.

Tara Sims and her husband Ron Baker have lived in River Place almost 25 years. Sims said when 3M was at the campus, it was a quiet part of the community, not contributing to safety or traffic concerns. 

“Once we saw all things were picking up here, at first you’re like, oh, okay, that could be good, but then when we start hearing it might be very dense, that’s where I’m worried,” Sims said.

She wants to make sure the egress in and out works because over the past two decades, it has become increasingly difficult to get out of River Place. “That’s a worry for me. That’s the main thing I want to get a sense for because that could really impact our property values.”

“Mixed use could be great. Maybe it could provide more opportunities for shops and restaurants in here, that’d be nice,” Baker said. “But I’m concerned about the way they did 620, especially with the latest additions, it’s a disaster. They just made left turns legal, which didn’t improve the safety any. So if they do the same thing here, getting in and out of the neighborhood’s going to be terrible. So for as long as they can figure out how to manage the traffic and the flow with the high school and everything like that, then great. But I’m afraid they’re just going to skip over that.”

Photos by Lynette Haaland, Four Points News