If we were the people at Lowe's, we'd be looking around Ames for another place to build our store.

If we were the City Council, we'd be wondering why the Lowe's matter is even on the agenda for Tuesday night.

And if we were the owners of those empty 23 acres off Grand and Bloomington, we'd be looking around for someone to develop apartments on the land.

For nice as it might be to have a big Lowe's Home Improvement Center in Ames, it shouldn't be built on those 23 acres north of Cub Foods. It shouldn't be, and it probably can't be.

It probably can't be because of an unusual covenant between the owners of the parcel - the Furmans and Israels - and a dozen neighbors along Top O Hollow Road to the north. In return for getting the land just south of this parcel rezoned to allow the Cub Foods store, the owners 14 years ago agreed to give the Top O Hollow neighbors veto power over any proposed rezoning of the 23 acres. That doesn't expire until Jan. 1, 2002.

No matter what the owners might want, no matter what the city staff might recommend, no matter what the City Council might vote, the land must be used for housing unless at least half the property owners agree in writing to a rezoning. That means six or perhaps seven owners must agree. Last week, Rob Hoffman of The Tribune talked with most of the owners, and it seemed unlikely six or seven would sign on.

So, a couple of questions:

1. Why is the City Council even bothering with this Tuesday night until it knows for sure whether the residents will support it?

2. Why haven't the people at Lowe's, or the landowners, sought such a petition?

But even if the homeowners agree to let Lowe's onto the site, it's a bad idea.

That plot, on the north side of town, is not a good site for a big commercial store. That's what the people who zoned the city years ago believed, and that's what the architects of the new land-use plan believe. That, too, is what the city staff thinks. The staff has put together a 14-page memo arguing against the proposal, citing everything from traffic that would be too heavy to lights that would be too bright. And the whole idea of zoning the plot for apartments was to provide a transition from the blocks with Wal-Mart and Cob Food to the orderly single-family homes north of Bloomington Road. That was a good idea 14 years ago, and it's a good idea today.

But lots of people in town - including the advertising sales people and the owners of this newspaper - think it would be nice to have a Lowe's in Ames, and Lowe's clearly wants to come here. So that raises a third question:

3. Is there another good site?

There are three.

Lowe's could be the lead tenant with the prime spot in what clearly someday will be a major retail development on the 37 acres at the northwest corner of 13th Street and Dayton Road. That land is already zoned for general commercial development. An even larger chunk, 54.6 acres, stands west of the K-Mart on South 16th Street; it, too, is zoned commercial, and it's in the midst of existing, traffic-pulling stores. A third possibility is the 21-acre plot off South 16th Street and west of the growing Aspen Business Park.

As Erik Munn noted in a letter to council member Ann Campbell, a big chunk of Lowe's business will come from outside of Ames. That would argue for a site near Interstate 35 or Highway 30, not five miles into town. And we suspect, as Munn does, that there would be far more than the 10 to 15 trucks that Lowe's says would be unloading at the store each day. So even if there weren't a zoning problem, it would seem that the Grand Avenue site is the worst of the four - the worst for the company, the worst for its suppliers and the worst for many of its customers.

This whole thing - the location, the zoning, the covenant - leaves us puzzled. It raises two final questions:

4. Why would Lowe's pick that site in the first place?

5. Why - if there is a vote - would anyone on the City Council support it?

If we were the people at Lowe's, we'd be looking around Ames for another place to build our store.

If we were the City Council, we'd be wondering why the Lowe's matter is even on the agenda for Tuesday night.

And if we were the owners of those empty 23 acres off Grand and Bloomington, we'd be looking around for someone to develop apartments on the land.

For nice as it might be to have a big Lowe's Home Improvement Center in Ames, it shouldn't be built on those 23 acres north of Cub Foods. It shouldn't be, and it probably can't be.

It probably can't be because of an unusual covenant between the owners of the parcel - the Furmans and Israels - and a dozen neighbors along Top O Hollow Road to the north. In return for getting the land just south of this parcel rezoned to allow the Cub Foods store, the owners 14 years ago agreed to give the Top O Hollow neighbors veto power over any proposed rezoning of the 23 acres. That doesn't expire until Jan. 1, 2002.

No matter what the owners might want, no matter what the city staff might recommend, no matter what the City Council might vote, the land must be used for housing unless at least half the property owners agree in writing to a rezoning. That means six or perhaps seven owners must agree. Last week, Rob Hoffman of The Tribune talked with most of the owners, and it seemed unlikely six or seven would sign on.

So, a couple of questions:

1. Why is the City Council even bothering with this Tuesday night until it knows for sure whether the residents will support it?

2. Why haven't the people at Lowe's, or the landowners, sought such a petition?

But even if the homeowners agree to let Lowe's onto the site, it's a bad idea.

That plot, on the north side of town, is not a good site for a big commercial store. That's what the people who zoned the city years ago believed, and that's what the architects of the new land-use plan believe. That, too, is what the city staff thinks. The staff has put together a 14-page memo arguing against the proposal, citing everything from traffic that would be too heavy to lights that would be too bright. And the whole idea of zoning the plot for apartments was to provide a transition from the blocks with Wal-Mart and Cob Food to the orderly single-family homes north of Bloomington Road. That was a good idea 14 years ago, and it's a good idea today.

But lots of people in town - including the advertising sales people and the owners of this newspaper - think it would be nice to have a Lowe's in Ames, and Lowe's clearly wants to come here. So that raises a third question:

3. Is there another good site?

There are three.

Lowe's could be the lead tenant with the prime spot in what clearly someday will be a major retail development on the 37 acres at the northwest corner of 13th Street and Dayton Road. That land is already zoned for general commercial development. An even larger chunk, 54.6 acres, stands west of the K-Mart on South 16th Street; it, too, is zoned commercial, and it's in the midst of existing, traffic-pulling stores. A third possibility is the 21-acre plot off South 16th Street and west of the growing Aspen Business Park.

As Erik Munn noted in a letter to council member Ann Campbell, a big chunk of Lowe's business will come from outside of Ames. That would argue for a site near Interstate 35 or Highway 30, not five miles into town. And we suspect, as Munn does, that there would be far more than the 10 to 15 trucks that Lowe's says would be unloading at the store each day. So even if there weren't a zoning problem, it would seem that the Grand Avenue site is the worst of the four - the worst for the company, the worst for its suppliers and the worst for many of its customers.

This whole thing - the location, the zoning, the covenant - leaves us puzzled. It raises two final questions:

4. Why would Lowe's pick that site in the first place?

5. Why - if there is a vote - would anyone on the City Council support it?