May 28th, 2005

NORTHFIELD — Northfield, meet your new neighbor.

Sure, it’s going to be a couple months before the city council decides if it will offer Mendota Homes a contract that will give them exclusive development rights to the Riverfront Redevelopment site, but John Mathern already has hurdled a big challenge — public input meetings.

It was a step that the Little Canada-based developer elected to take. Rolling out the preliminary site work for the public in two different meetings, gathering their input with the intent of answering concerns and tweaking the plans if necessary.

“It’s real smart,” Mathern said. “It’s not the developer handing this over and saying ‘This is it.’ It’s ‘How does everyone feel about this?’”

In reporting the results of the meetings to Northfield’s Economic Development Authority, City Economic Development Specialist Deanna Kuennen said that “the community seems very supportive and excited about the project.”

That is the kind of excitement Mathern, the owner of Mendota Homes, hopes to generate as he and his administrative team prepare for a Tuesday deadline when preliminary site work, financial and marketing information are presented to the city for review.

Mathern and his team met with city staff on Thursday to review plans prior to Tuesday’s deadline.

“All of the details will be there Tuesday,” he said.

If the preliminary work meets the goals and expectations that were set by the public and endorsed by the Northfield City Council, Mathern will construct a seven-building, mixed use development along the Cannon River.

The Crossing

Currently, the area that is known as the Riverfront Redevelopment site is muddy ruts, puddles of water and construction equipment associated with the Minnesota Highway 3 project.

On Thursday, Mathern announced that the future development will be known as The Crossing.

Driving around the site, Mathern almost seems oblivious to the mess as he points out what could be one of the future gateways into Northfield.

Where a hydrant sits along the highway is near where one of the future access points to the site will be. A bunch of concrete culverts rest near the location of one of the site’s condominiums.

But one feature that’s almost impossible to imagine without literally standing on the site is the expanse which will further the city’s River Walk.

Allotting a reasonable amount of public access to the site is one of the goals that Mathern is expected to meet.

Mathern has promised in public meetings to allow more “green space” on the site than it had in previous incarnations.

The developers also plan to be environmentally sensitive to the site — one of the major concerns discussed at the public meetings.

Mathern hopes to start construction on the first condominium building and the first office building in September.

Dispelling rumors

With Mathern’s name comes a lot of rumors — not necessarily bad rumors, but a lot of speculation as to how much land the man is eventually going to own in Northfield.

Earlier this month, it was whether Mendota Homes was going to buy the old Community National Bank building on Division Street.

Mendota Homes has the purchase agreement back from Community National, Mathern said on Thursday confirming the talk.

“We could say that’s in the final stages,” he said. “It’s not signed, but it’s there.”

Mathern has agreed to keep the original bank building, but to tear down the newer part of the building.

“The building that will reappear at the Community National Bank site will be keeping with the historical buildings of Northfield and in close adherence to the city’s Historical Preservation Commission’s guidelines,” he said.

Mathern sees the development becoming a mixed-use building as well.

Another topic of speculation is the property Mathern owns in the city’s Q-block — the area on the west side of Highway 3, surrounded by Second and Third streets and nicknamed as such for the presence of Quizno’s Subs and the Quarterback Club on the property.

Earlier this spring, the Northfield City Council gave a directive to it’s Economic Development Authority to research and develop redevelopment guidelines for the Q-block.

The EDA mulled the direction it’s going to take with the Q-block Thursday at its meeting.

City staff say this is a measure they are taking because, like the Riverfront Redevelopment site, the city owns parcels of the Q-block.

However, Kuennen, who also serves as the city liaison to the EDA, said that this discussion is the “ground work” that needs to be done if development opportunities arise.

“We’re not developing their site,” she said. “We’re not even declaring it a redevelopment area.”

As for Mathern’s involvement, “I think it’s public knowledge that we have a purchase agreement with First National Bank in the Q-block,” he said.

A critical piece of any development that arises in that block hinges upon the guidelines that the city establishes for that block.

“We will be waiting for those guidelines to see how our property there under purchase agreement fits under those guidelines,” he said.

Track record

So what kind of track record does Mendota Homes have? How successful have other of their projects been?

Mathern has been in the development business for about 30 years, he said. Mendota Homes has been in existence since 1991.

Most of the work the company does is known as in-fill work. Instead of constructing developments on the fringes of communities, “we work in established community settings,” he said.

On the company Web site is a list of condominiums that have been built in the St. Paul area. Ranging in starting price from the $160,000s to $390,000 they are located in the North St. Paul, the Highland Park area and in other St. Paul neighborhoods.

The city of Roseville is one area where Mendota Homes has constructed a condominium development.

“They’ve only developed about 42 units in Roseville, located on the far west side of the city,” near Ramsey County Road 88, said Dennis Welsch, community development director for Roseville.

Thirty of those units are represented in a three-story tower which is an owner-occupied condominium. The remaining units are single-level townhome units, Welsch said.

The planned unit development met with “no controversy,” Welsch said, and involved “all of the typical things that went into a development.

“There’s nothing derogatory that I could say about (Mendota Homes) and wouldn’t even if I could,” Welsch said.

The most glaring difference between the Roseville project and Northfield’s redevelopment is that Roseville involved privately owned property.

In fact, most of the projects Mendota Homes works on involve privately-owned property, Mathern said.

Despite the extra set of hoops in place because of Mendota Homes’ involvement with the city of Northfield, “they’ve been accommodating to our process, they’ve been respectful to our community and our community’s wishes,” Kuennen said.

“… It’s been very good and neat to work with their team,” she said.

Mendota Homes was one of six developers that the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation mailed information to about the Riverfront Redevelopment site.

Ross Currier, currently the NDDC’s executive director, was a board member of the NDDC and on the organization’s expansion and redevelopment team.

“It was one of our priorities to get something to happen on the Riverfront site,” Currier said.

“I thought, ‘How hard can this be to get someone here when it’s right next to the river and and within walking distance of our cute little downtown’,” he said.

Three developers responded “and one of them actually kind of pursued it and that was John Mathern. He came down, looked around, met a few people, got excited about Northfield and started acquiring land,” Currier said.

If successful, what does Currier think this development will bring to Northfield’s downtown?

“Well, I just think that having people live downtown is good for the downtown economy, more people down here shopping and buying things, but also I think it will be good for safety and cleanliness,” he said. “And I just think … it raises the standards in terms of expectations” for Northfield’s downtown.

In addition, it will physically connect with the downtown via the continued River Walk, bring an additional $35 million in investment to downtown, strengthen the west side of the downtown and hopefully contribute to the safer pedestrian crossing of the highway because of its presence, Currier said.

Has the preliminary designs set forth by the developers meet Currier’s expectations?

“Yes, definitely,” he said. “Again, I was just really interested in getting additional housing downtown, but I wanted something that would fit into downtown and continue that visual, but pedestrian connection with downtown. The design connects with downtown visually and in a pedestrian-friendly way.”

‘It’s the river’

Whether people like it or not, Northfield is quickly becoming more of a metro area than a small town known for its erstwhile cows.

Townhomes, single-family units, condominiums — any number of new developments are cropping up around the fringes of Northfield.

So what is going to make the Riverfront Redevelopment site — or The Crossing, as Mathern has dubbed it — different than other developments?

“Besides the river,” was the caveat to that particular question.

“The reason to live there is not the creation of a community. The community is already there,” Mathern said. “All we’re doing is we’re putting people in a downtown community.”

It’s a rare opportunity to be able to redevelop land that is established so close to a city’s downtown.

Expanding upon Northfield’s downtown community is one of the biggest factors that will make this development unique, Mathern said.

But then he pauses. “And by the way, it’s the river.”

– Michelle Kubitz

Reprinted with permission from the Northfield News.