June 12th, 2006

From the Rochester Post Bulletin

Publication Date:6/9/06

Pub Section And Page:A4

By Jeffrey Pieters

jpieters@postbulletin.com

A six-story, 69-unit condominium building is “a great start” to the “urban village” residential zone planned on First Avenue Southwest in downtown Rochester, local leaders say.

Members of the Rochester Downtown Alliance board unanimously endorsed the plans at their meeting Thursday morning. “I think this is a great start to what we hope to see happen downtown,” said Gary Smith, director of RAEDI, a Rochester economic development firm, and a member of the RDA board.

Mendota Homes, a Twin Cities firm, will build the condominiums this fall on the former KTTC-TV site, at the corner of First Avenue and Sixth Street Southwest. The building would open by November 2007.  Faced with stucco, brick and glass, the building will be “kind of the anchor” for the rest of the urban village, said John Mathern, Mendota Homes’company founder and president. Open-air decks, attached to community rooms on the first and second floors, are intended to make the building appear active and alive, almost around the clock.

“The idea is to have people on the street beyond five or six in the evening,” Mathern said. “We want them out until 8 or 9 o’clock at night.”

About two-thirds, or 45 of the 69 condominium units will be two-bedroom, with the remaining units one bedroom. Sale prices will range from about $160,000 to $350,000, Mathern said.

The building will contain 105 to 110 enclosed parking stalls — one for each bedroom — split between two levels, on the ground floor and underground.

Next year promises “one massive mess” on lower First Avenue, said project architect Jon Neubauer of TSP Architects and Engineers. Besides the condominium building, the Rochester Family Y expansion — also overseen by TSP — will be under way, and a city street project will reshape First Avenue. The street and condominium projects are being coordinated so they have a matching look, Neubauer said.

“It’ll be beautiful when it’s done, and thank goodness it’s happening at the same time,” Mathern said.

Assuming the building plans receive city approval when expected, demolition would start as soon as September, he said. Within a month or two of that, construction would begin. The structure itself, made of precast concrete and prebuilt panels, will rise quickly.

The longer part of the construction process will be completing interior details, Mathern said. Early buyers will be able to specify materials and other finishing touches for their condominiums, he said.