By Rich Larson, News Director
St. Olaf College held an informational meeting last night for the Northfield community to address some of the questions and the perceived 
misconceptions regarding the “Ole Avenue” housing project.
The school is proposing to build new student housing on the far West end of St. Olaf Avenue at the base of the St. Olaf campus. The school has already gone before the City Council to ask that the City re-zone the area and issue a Conditional Use Permit for construction. The Northfield Charter requires two readings of a re-zoning motion, and the first reading passed on December 2nd. However, the Northfield planning commission has recommended that the City Council not issue the CUP until the additional parking spaces in the plan, which the commission called excessive, are removed.
The project has also caused concern about traffic in the area, light pollution, and encroachment of the campus on the surrounding neighborhood.
Will Kratt of ISG architects, the company that has designed the plan, said that the amount of new parking spaces the new project will create has been vastly overestimated. Of the 189 parking spaces that will be part of the housing project, Kratt said 161 of those spaces are existing slots that will be adjusted or replaced, and that the total number of new parking spaces the housing project will bring is 25.
“It’s important to note that the total number of new spaces is a small fraction of the number that is being installed with the reconstruction. And some of those uses are related to ADA accessibility, a small number of new employees, new visitors and 100 new students being brought back to campus.”
The second reading of the re-zoning motion will be Tuesday, January 5th.
The one-hour informational webinar was recorded and has been posted to the Ole Avenue Project website. To watch the recorded webinar, click here.
NAFRS takes delivery on new Heavy Rescue Vehicle
The Northfield Area Fire and Rescue Service took delivery of their new Heavy Rescue Vehicle on Friday. NAFRS Chief Gerry Franek said that his crew immediately got to work on it.
“The new truck is in service now and it looks wonderful. We’re very excited. The guys did a lot of hard work to maintain that transition, which is not easy. There are so many pieces of equipment, and gear, and radios; it’s a big task. The guys really stepped up to the plate and helped out last Saturday. We still have some things to do yet, but the new one is in service and we’re loving it. It’s a beautiful, beautiful truck.”
NAFRS has been raising money from private donations for more than two years to acquire the new truck. Chief Franek said that the vehicle cost about $700,000, and they remain about $49,000 short of having it paid off. However, Capital Construction has announced that they will match donations made to NAFRS for the vehicle between December 15th and January 15th up to $15,000.
The old Heavy Rescue vehicle needed replacing because at more than twenty years old, it had become obsolete, particularly with its hydraulic extraction tools. Those tools had been designed for use with cars made in the 90’s and auto manufacturing technology has improved so much in two decades that the system on the old truck was no longer usable.
With the delivery of a new 4×4 vehicle for use against grass fires, Chief Franek said that NAFRS is close to having a top-quality fleet of vehicles. The idea now, he said, is to replace things on a regular basis, to keep from themselves in need for multiple vehicles again.
“I think we’re getting pretty close to having our fleet in tip-top shape, and we’re really thankful to [the community] for supporting NAFRS and all of our efforts to replace and keep our vehicles current.”
“We’ve got a replacement schedule now, so we can prepare for this in the future.”
Those interested in donating to the Heavy Rescue Vehicle fund can visit the NAFRS website at nafrs.org.
New names for Sibley and Longfellow
And in his update to district families last week, Northfield Superintendent of Public Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann said that the district is now accepting 
suggestions for new names for Sibley Elementary and Longfellow School.
Last month the Northfield School Board adopted Policy 809, which stipulates that any District building not be named after an individual or a family. Both Longfellow and Sibley were named after individuals, and therefore must be renamed by next November. Dr. Hillmann explained the nomination and selection process.
“We are ready to start soliciting suggestions for both of those buildings. We’ll have a few links of people being able to submit those suggested names. There will be committees then at each building that will filter those suggestions down to three or four, for the board to consider. And I anticipate that the board will hear those in late January or early February.”
Click HERE to offer a suggestion to rename Longfellow School
