> Planning+Development > Community Profiles

Community profile: Eagan

A city at many crossroads

Build the roads and they will come. That’s one of the realities about the way Eagan grew.

Eagan is situated on the Minnesota River in northern Dakota County, across the river from Bloomington and the international airport. The city is within 12 miles of both downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul.

Despite that proximity, it wasn’t until the new Cedar Avenue bridge opened in 1982, followed a few years later by the opening of  I-35E and I-494 through the city, that Eagan really began to boom. The city’s population more than doubled from 20,700 to 47,400 in the 1980s and then grew to 63,600 in the 1990s.

Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire and his wife chose Eagan as home both because of its access to the Twin Cities and because “it didn’t feel like an urban community,” Maguire said. “It’s got a lot of open space. We wanted space to have a yard and trees. We also like having retail amenities close by, as well as our workplaces.”

Good transportation access has also attracted businesses and encouraged them to grow, said Jon Hohenstein, Director of Community Development for Eagan. “The mixture of businesses – hard manufacturing, service and information, legal publishing, logistics/shipping and retail – along with a variety of residential land uses, has served the City well on so many levels,” he said. “Diversity has helped the tax base remain strong and stable. It’s like the strength and stability a family has by having diverse investments.”

Transitioning away from an auto orientation

While increased access to and from the rest of the region has greatly benefited the city, local officials are now focusing on what the city’s Draft 2008 Comprehensive Plan identifies as three key planning trends: sustainability, active living, and connectivity.

As Eagan’s demographics shift to a more mature population, Maguire said, a challenge for the city will be to become more walkable, with more mixed-use development that doesn’t require a car for a visit to the local coffee shop.

“A major goal of the plan is to help Eagan transition from an auto-oriented suburb to one that is more walkable, connected and sustainable,” Maguire said. “Eagan is a place where you really can live, work, shop and recreate.  Our goal is to make it even easier to make the connections between those activities.”

The City is an active participant with the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority – the transit provider for several Dakota County suburbs. “We have very good cooperation between employers and MVTA to provide transit options for their employees,” Hohenstein said. MVTA offers several routes in Eagan between transit centers and large employers, such as Thomson Reuters.  The City sees transit opportunities expanding through projects such as the implementation of bus rapid transit in the Cedar Avenue Corridor.

Growth – both inside and outside Eagan – has brought increasing traffic congestion on county roads through the city. Congestion at the intersection of three major roadways – I-35E, Pilot Knob Rd. and Yankee Doodle Rd. – led the City to begin creating a ring road around the area. The most significant part of that improvement to date is the recently opened Northwoods Overpass over 35E.  

City officials are also working with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Dakota County, the Metropolitan Council and others to determine a route for a north-south arterial connection between I-494 and points south of Eagan, currently served by Hwys. 3, 149 and 55. Without one, future growth along the corridor will add more congestion to those roadways and limit the capacity for an appropriate scale of development close to 494, Hohenstein said.

“Special area” designation will aid redevelopment

The draft plan designates several “special areas” that will, in some cases, lead to more flexibility of uses as redevelopment opportunities arise, Hohenstein said. For example, uses could be intensified in existing shopping centers that have excess parking by adding service-related businesses, residential units and/or special retail. Such intensification of uses would reduce energy consumption and increase walkability.

Eagan’s housing stock is very diverse, Hohenstein said. Because interest rates were high in the late 1970s and 1980s when Eagan grew rapidly, many of the units built were attached homes and starter homes. In the 1990s, more move-up homes were built. With the city now 90% developed, the cost of land means that most new residences are upper-end or townhomes, he said.

Not all new housing fits this description, however.  The City works closely with the Dakota County Community Development Agency in meeting a range of life cycle housing needs.  This year, Eagan teamed up with the agency on a proposal to develop 24 units of housing for young adults, age 18 to 24, who are at risk for becoming homeless. The project will be located near Cedar Ave. and Hwy. 13; construction is expected to start in 2009. The project will include supportive services along with the apartments. It is the first such project in the region outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Promoting “active living”

Eagan is one of several communities that has partnered with Dakota County in the Active Living program. The partnership, comprising the county, several communities and two school districts, is seeking ways to make it possible for residents of all ages to integrate physical activity into their daily routines. The effort is supported by a grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Eagan was fortunate, Hohenstein said, to have a very strong parks commission as the community grew rapidly. The commission worked to ensure dedication of cash or land for parks with each new development. As a result, 19% of the city’s land area is public park land, and every home is within walking distance of a park.

While many residential developments were built without sidewalks, the city has been deliberate about building a network of trails for pedestrians and bicyclists along major city thoroughfares. A goal of the updated comp plan is to fill gaps in the trail system.

In order to promote more physical activity for residents, the plan also includes several land-use strategies. Examples include supporting developments that create the potential for places where people can live and work without a car, and encouraging new developments to provide “trip-end” facilities such as bike lockers and showers.

Increasing connections with the world

Eagan has taken the lead on another kind of connectivity – broadband technology. The City appointed a Technology Working Group in 2006 to assess the state of Internet connectivity to business and homes, and to recommend ways to improve it.

“It’s important to business in the information economy that the community is as well positioned with information infrastructure as we are with every other kind – sewers, water and transportation,” Maguire said. “For Minnesota to be competitive internationally, we need to have a world-class broadband infrastructure, with both high speeds and redundancy.”

In late 2008, the Working Group – which includes some of the top technology managers from small and large Eagan businesses, as well as residents, advisory commission members and city staff – will make recommendations to the City Council on the best options to achieve its goal.  “We’re future-proofing the city by setting high standards,” Maguire said.