Downtown Fire Site Update - Dec 2024
An initial rendering of the site with mural shortly after the fire.
It has been two years since Mulqueen’s Hardware Store burned on Main Street, and thanks to our courageous emergency responders and neighbors, we remain grateful that no human lives were lost and the rest of our historic downtown was saved. Since the fire, our City has been working with a number of partners exploring many different opportunities for rebuilding on the site. Recently the City has been considering a public-private partnership where the City would utilize grants and donations to build a new city hall, library, and retail incubator space as the base of the building, and partner with a developer to build, own, and operate apartments above.
This model is becoming more common in rural communities because it:
Allows the use of charitable donations and grants that cannot be put into private development, helping to offset the high costs of construction
Generates new tax base (and much-needed housing) while filling key municipal needs
Spreads development costs between two partners, so things like site prep and elevator infrastructure can be shared
Creates a condominium agreement for ownership and ongoing maintenance
The gallery below is a slideshow from ISG Architects with background on the conceptual design process, some potential floorplans of the new space, and an estimated budget. These are all DRAFTS and there has not been Council approval to move forward with anything except the next phase of design and fundraising.
FAQ About the Downtown Site
Wait a minute…why can’t we just rebuild the hardware store? We met with many hardware store brands (True Value, DoItBest, Ace, etc) as well as regional stores (Fisk Farm & Home, etc) and none were interested in the space. They cited the Main Street location as problematic due to the smaller potential store footprint, lack of outdoor merchandising space, and lack of parking; in short, most hardware stores are built as pole sheds on bare ground with a large parking lot and outdoor space to display merchandise like grills, shovels, etc. (Think of Mabel’s Village Farm and Home and Caledonia’s True Value as examples of this.) The good news is that we have an opportunity for a new hardware store in Spring Grove that meets these requirements (more to come on that soon!), but we needed to shift our focus for the downtown site.
Why is the city even involved? Isn’t it privately owned? The site is currently privately owned, and the group of local investors who purchased the site from Bud Mulqueen initially intended to rebuild a hardware store with apartments above. Due to the aforementioned issues, they shifted focus to look at other types of commercial ventures, local business partnerships, and many different ratios of commercial to residential. Unfortunately, no matter how you slice it, the high costs of construction, high interest rates, and low market rental rates made the project unviable with private capital alone. If the City moves forward with the project, it would buy the site from the current owners and do a request for proposals to find a developer to partner with for building the residential units; the City would not own and operate the apartments.
But if it can’t work for the current owners, how would it work for the City? As a municipality, the City qualifies for grants and donations that a private developer doesn’t. Creating a public purpose within the space, such as a public library, allows the City to access funding that would not be available to private development. To date, the City has secured approximately $1.4million in grants and identified several million more. At the December 2024 council meeting, the council voted to continue fundraising and grant writing for the site as well as the next phase of design with architectural firm ISG. Grant funding from the Blandin Foundation will cover these design costs.
How much would this cost? How can we afford it? The project will likely cost between $8-10million for the City’s portion. We know, that’s a lot of money! The only way the City could afford this is to raise the majority of funds through grants and charitable donations, which it will be actively working on in the coming year. The council does not intend to raise taxes to cover the project; the financial viability of the project will likely be determined later in 2025 after an initial fundraising phase.
Do we actually need a new library and city hall? While both current sites are adequate, there are several issues that a new building could help solve. The library rents space from Spring Grove Communications, so while they have been an excellent partner there is no guarantee for that space to be ours in perpetuity. The library could also use more space to expand their collection and programming in more meaningful ways; the downtown vision includes a children’s area, a makerspace classroom, and meeting/event rooms so the library could offer more youth programming, arts classes, and other unique events. The current city hall lacks private meeting and office space, and has issues with handicapped accessibility compliance.
What happens if we don’t continue this public-private partnership idea? The site will likely remain undeveloped until a new buyer, or a new use, is identified. The City would work with the owners to ensure the site remains safe and secure for pedestrians.
So what’s next? Over the next few months, the City will continue working with ISG on the schematic design plans and applying for grants to support the project. (If the project does not continue, these grant funds would be returned to the funders.) The City will be creating a public engagement strategy to share the designs and gather feedback, launch a fundraising campaign, and keep the citizens informed of the progress.