Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

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View/download the (L) ArtSwirl poster and the (R) ArtSwirl calendar of events… both of them PDFs, courtesy of Kari Alberg, Studio Kari.

We’re teaming up with the Northfield Arts Guild for our August membership meeting. The focus will be the 10-day Artswirl festival that we’re co-sponsoring with NAG.

The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 8 a.m. in the lower-level dance studio of the Northfield Arts Guild, Third and Division streets. We’ll provide coffee and rolls.

Guest speaker Ann Markusen, director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Development at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, will speak on The Artistic Dividend: The Arts’ Hidden Contributions to Regional Development (PDF). Also see The Artistic Dividend Revisited (PDF), published in March.

Professor Markusen is focusing her research currently on the arts, high tech and defense activities as regional economic stimulants.

After the public meeting, Professor Markusen will meet with the boards and staffs of the two groups for a focused conversation on how we can impact the economics of the Northfield community.

Downtown Northfields biggest retail promotion of the summer is upon us. Crazy Daze is set to begin at 7:00 AM this Thursday, July 22. Division Street will be closed off from 2nd Street to 6th Street so that retailers can set up tables and tents on the sidewalk and in the street to hold all of the incredible bargains that they have to offer.

On the top, Maggie Lee from the Northfield News enjoying herself at Crazy Daze 2003. Below, shoppers at Oolala. See other photos from last year’s event in the Northfield.org Crazy Daze 2003 photo gallery.

Events are scheduled in Bridge Square and at individual stores throughout the day. The complete schedule of the day can be found in the July 17th Northfield News.

Crazy Daze is sponsored by the Retail Committee of the Northfield Chamber of Commerce.

See you downtown!

The NDDC’s E. R. Team (the Expansion and Redevelopment Committee) toured the current Lockwood Opera House Project (formerly Jacobsen’s Family Store) with project partner Bob Kuyper on Wednesday morning.

(L to R) me, Dan Bergeson, Joe Grundhoefer, Vic Summa, Keith Covey, Bob Kuyper

The project is moving steadily along and tour participants were able to see the three commercial condos on the ground floor with the preserved and restored tin plate ceilings in each space. The three spaces will soon be home to two existing businesses and one new business, each offering an exciting selection of products and retailing vitality to Division Street.

Upstairs, four dramatic residential condos are coming together. They are all about 2,000 square feet in size. Two have 16 foot ceilings and lofted spaces, one has a screened-in porch and one has a deck on a private courtyard.

The E. R. Team was particularly interested in the commercial condo concept. Although it has been done “up in the Cities”, (see this Strib article titled Condos go commercial), it is new to Northfield. The concept brings ownership to a greater number of people and spurs increased investment in the community. We think that Northfield will see more of this approach in the near future.

See the ongoing photo gallery of the Lockwood project on Northfield.org.

Last night the request by Norman Butler and Dianne Burry to move their restaurant, Chapati: A Taste of India to 1001 Division Street entered another phase that Im thinking of as Round 3.

First the Council denied the request for a Future Land Use Map Amendment at 1001 Division Street South and then it denied the request to adopt an ordinance to re-zone the property from R-2 (1 and 2 family housing) to C-2 (commercial).

In the end, on a unanimous 6-0 vote, the Council approved a resolution that directs City staff to expeditiously explore the use of a PUD (Planned Unit Development) zone for 1001 Division Street with the property owner, Mr. Butler, and the neighbors.

The complete text of the resolution reads:

The city council of the City of Northfield, directs the staff to expeditiously explore the use of a PUD zone for 1001 Division Street with the property owner, Mr. Butler, and the neighbors. The goal of this effort is to permit Mr. Butlers restaurant use at 1001 Division while protecting the residential neighborhood from potential negative impacts from this commercial use or future commercial uses located at 1001 Division Street. The city council directs the staff to develop reasonable standards for the PUD zone that address the mixed residential and commercial use on the site, parking, lighting, noise, outdoor activities, landscaped buffering, hours of operation, future uses and other standards as suited for this purpose.

I’m guardedly optimistic that we will in time see Chapati open for business at 1001 Division Street. The City Council has opened the door to that possibility. For that I commend them.

I have two concerns. The first is that the exploration phase for the PUD move forward with dispatch. I wish that the Council had been bold enough to put a date in the resolution for an end to the exploratory phase or at least a progress report. The other concern is that the list of operational items that could end up with restrictions on them is long. I hope that all parties will be cognizant of the word reasonable that the resolution uses to call for the adoption of standards in the PUD zone.