Stop Walgreens from Building in Highland Park

As you may be aware, Walgreens has proposed to build a new store in Highland Village. The building would be constructed at the intersection of Ford Parkway and Finn Street, the current sites of Party City and Marathon Gas Station (see picture on next page). While some businesses/community members may be in favor of the Walgreens being built in the Village, there are also a great number of concerns, drawbacks, and issues against the proposed Walgreens.

Some of the issues that have arisen in discussing the proposal at the Highland District Councils meetings are the following:
-Increased traffic in an already heavily congested area (Ford Parkway and Cleveland)
-Safety issues arising from the heavy traffic
-Increased demand for parking, although at present there is not adequate parking for the current businesses
-Parking lots would have to be policed in order to ensure that there is adequate parking for the designated stores customers, resulting in people not being able to park in a parking lot and walk to the neighboring stores (i.e. the Snyders parking lot will not be available for people to park in if they are not shopping at the store, thus decreasing business to the surrounding stores)
-A big box store coming into the neighborhood
-Unnecessary competition that Walgreens would bring to the small, local businesses of the community, like Patina, Lavish, Petco, etc.
-The lack of need for a fourth drug store in Highland Park
-The clientele that a Walgreens might bring into the neighborhood
-Increased crime with the increased number of people entering the neighborhood
As one can imagine, Snyders Drug Store, who would be directly affected with the building of a Walgreens right next to them (a parking lot would separate the two stores), has gone to great lengths to block Walgreens from coming into our neighborhood. At this time, there are more than 2,500 neighborhood residents. Because of the great response that Snyders had with their petition, the coalition leading the fight against Walgreens has proposed that the community request a special meeting to vote whether a Walgreens should be built in our community.

We implore you to reconsider the proposal to build a Walgreens right next to Snyder Drug Store on Ford Parkway and Finn Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. There is not a need for another drug store in our community.