On Tuesday night, the Northfield City Council met for a work session in which city consultants Bruce Jacobson and Bob Close, Developer Michael Lander, and Northfield Director of Community Development Jake Reilly laid out what is possibly the most ambitious vision ever laid out for Downtown Northfield, and certainly the most comprehensive plan laid out in thirty years.
Coming on the heels of the announced plans to develop the former Archer House space, the city unveiled plans for a multi-phase development project in various sports throughout downtown.
Phase One of the project would redevelop the parking lot at 5th and Washington Street as a complex that would house a 12,000 square foot municipal liquor store, 280 parking spaces, 3,000 square feet for the United States Post office, 2500 square feet of street level retail space that would not be part of the liquor store, 20 market rate affordable apartments, a public art, a rooftop solar array, and other amenities.
Phase Two of the project would put a boutique hotel on the current site of the municipal liquor store and the building to the north.
The developments would be built by the Lander Group, with the understanding that the City of Northfield would then purchase the space for the new municipal liquor store as well as the parking spaces.
The plan also showed a potential housing and parking development at the corner of 3rd and Washington Streets that would be built on the site of the apartment complex at 304 Washington Street and the two adjacent public parking lots, as well as an ambiguous designation of the Post Office on Bridge Square that the city is hoping will become a destination distillery owned and operated by by Loon Liquors.
After a lengthy presentation, the floor was opened to questions by members of the City Council, and nearly every question asked was related in some form to parking. The remodeling of Bridge Square and the construction of a hotel at 5th & Water Streets calls for the removal of all parking along the Cannon River between what is now Bridge Square and 5th Street and relocating those spaces to the four-floor parking construct at 5th & Washington. While the city will see a net gain of 18 parking spots, the members of the Council were reluctant to give complete approval to the plan without a commitment from the city to communicate a detailed parking management plan to the community soon, and with great regularity.
The timeline for construction is ambitious. It calls for the City Council to approve the final development agreement with the Lander Group by September 15th. Lander hopes to break ground on the project sometime next March.
Senate Housing Committee administrator is Councilor Sokup’s day job
The Minnesota State Legislative Session that ended in May is one of, if not the most, impactful session in fifty years, just based on the sheer number of bills that were passed into law and the amount of change those bills will affect.
As an aid to Democratic State Senator Lindsey Port (D-Burnsville), who is the Chair of the Senate Housing Committee, Northfield City Councilor Davin Sokup is the Housing Committee administrator. In that role, he watched as the State made a financial commitment to housing that up to this point was completely unheard of.
As an elected official, Sokup said housing is his keenest interest, and serving as the committee admin was a highly educational experience. Senator Port set a new tone as chair of the committee by focusing on legislation that would help to keep people in the homes they already own, and focused more on closing the racial gap in Minnesota homeownership. While 77% of white Minnesotans own their homes, he said, only 25% of African-American Minnesotans own theirs, giving Minnesota the fifth worst homeownership gap by race in the country.
Sokup said much of that is tied to generational wealth. Black Minnesotans do not own homes because their parents did not, and without a home there can oftentimes be little to pass on from one generation to another. Part of the reason for the low minority homeownership rate, he said, has been the lack of funding for any programs to help people buy a house. That changed in 2023, he said when the state housing budget, which had been $100 million, was increased tenfold.
“This session our budget target was $1 billion. So just having that access to be creative and innovative because there’s that commitment with the dollars that we were able to allocate to new programs is really going to be transformation.”
Other housing programs created this year will help seniors to keep their homes, manufactured homeowners to form coops and purchase the parks on which their homes sit, and Greater Minnesota cities to incentivize development by helping with infrastructure costs.
Sokup said while there was quite a bit of legislation passed this year, the DFL is planning on more next year, and the hope is the committee will be inspired by projects like Northfield’s Hillcrest Village.
“The topic that’s discussed that reminds me of Hillcrest is just how long it takes to do a project like that, and how many people need to be involved and incredibly committed to get something like that done and thinking about how to make [something like Hillcrest Village] easier. It shouldn’t take that many years and it shouldn’t take that many partners. That that’s kind of the larger conversation that happens at the legislature.”
He said his boss in the Senate and other members of the committee will focus next year on removing obstacles on affordable housing and will work to make such developments easier to create.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Northfield City Councilor Davin Sokup can be heard here
Rice County Fair starts today
And the Rice County Fair begins today. The full-size and compact Auto Enduro Races will be the fair’s first Grandstand event of the year, beginning at 6:00. Tickets for the event are $15. For a full schedule of fair events, visit ricecountyfair.net
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
