Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

Bruce Schwartau of the University of Minnesota Extension Service will present a “Retail Trade Analysis for Northfield and Rice County” at the June NDDC Downtown Forum. The Retail Trade Analysis is based on state sales tax revenue and shows local market trends over the past 10+ years. It highlights both areas of strength and areas of opportunities for Northfield retailers.

What will a Retail Trade Analysis do for Northfield? Bruce has prepared a one-page explanation (pdf) called A Healthy Retail Community = A Healthy Town of some of the reasons for looking at this data.

The forum is being sponsored by the First National Bank of Northfield, the Northfield News and the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation. It will be held on Tuesday, June 7th at 8:00 am in the Archer House Riverview Conference Room, 212 Division Street in downtown Northfield. The public is invited and coffee and cookies will be served.

At a recent Block Head Gathering, a number of building and business owners talked about a couple of issues that were important for folks “south of 5th Street” on Division. These issues were making those blocks on the south end of 5th Division feel more like the north end of Division and slowing down the speed of vehicular traffic on that segment of Division.

As the discussion developed, it seemed that the two issues were related. Because folks driving cars tend to get up a good head of steam on the stretch between Woodley and 5th, it seemed designed more for vehicular traffic and less designed for pedestrian shopping. People seemed to think that a stop sign at 7th Street would be a good way to address both the speed and the feel along that stretch of Division.

Council Members Davis and Pokorney were in attendance at the Block Head Gathering. They both thought that it was a good idea. City Engineer Hamilton was also present. She thought that it was something that could be done. It seemed like a good idea that could be implemented quickly.

Weeks passed. We then heard that someone on City Staff thought it would be a better idea to put the sign at 6th Street. We thought about it a bit more and realized that soon hundreds of new residents would be coming up 7th Street to downtown from the Village on the Cannon. The 7th Street location seemed like an even better idea.

Friday afternoon, Roger DuFours Sr. called me at my office. He had heard that the City was putting in a stop sign at 6th Street. They also told him that he’d be losing parking spaces in front of his store for the stop sign. He had already spoken to me about the tight parking situation on that block. He doesn’t want to lose any spaces.

EconoFoods and Lansing’s both have parking lots. If it’s necessary to remove parking spaces for a stop sign, it would have a less of an impact at 7th Street.

Roger also pointed out that 1st National Bank’s drive-through facility is located at the corner of 6th Street. He suggested that if traffic was backed up at the stop sign, it would be difficult for folks to exit left out of the facility.

For pedestrian safety, economic vitality and parking preservation, the stop sign should go at the 7th Street intersection instead of 6th Street. We hope that Council Members Davis and Pokorney and Mayor Lansing will look into the matter. The folks south of 5th Street are counting on them.

Dan Bergeson, NDDC President, and I really miss Bagel Bros. Joe Grundhoefer, NDDC Vice President, and I really wish we could buy a pair of Dockers in town. Therefore, we’re kind of hoping for a Bruegger’s (or the local equivalent) and a place that sells Dockers as part of any development on the Q Block.

(…and, of course, we’re all assuming that the Quarterback Club would always be a part of the Q Block…)

The problem would be parking. Those types of stores really want to be sure that there’s plenty of it available. So you’d probably have to build a fair amount of parking on the site.

There’s also many people in town, including a number of NDDC stakeholders, that believe that crossing Highway 3 should be made safer. Some of the experts suggest that the key to making it safer is for north-south drivers to realize that they’ve entered our downtown and thus be encouraged to slow down. A substantial built presence, like a two-story structure with a near-zero lot-line, along the highway corridor would contribute to this desired realization.

A vision comes to my mind.

This is a relatively new structure at Grand and Victoria in St. Paul. It has a parking ramp hidden behind zero-lot line retail. Of course, you’d need a stop light at 3rd Street so people could get around to the ramp entrance.

Those are my thoughts about the Q Block Development. If anyone else has any photos of good development ideas, please send them to us, we’d be happy to post them. (Click the photo for a larger view.)

At the NDDC, we place great value on Reassurance, Recruitment, Retention, and Rumors. More on that some other time.

However, we will share a hot rumor with you. We have heard that there is a verbal agreement to sell the downtown Community National Bank building to Mendota Homes and that the written agreement is either executed or close to execution.

We understand that it is Mendota Homes’ intention to remove the one story building and build a structure that is more in keeping with the type of structure built on the other corners of that intersection. Specifically, we have heard that there will be underground parking, that Community National will retain a downtown presence on the the first floor, that a rapidly growing downtown office user will be on the second floor and that there will be three floors of housing above.

We believe that two levels of office users and three levels of residential users will contribute to the vitality of downtown. At the NDDC, we also value downtown vitality.

On Thursday, May 19th, the Northfield School District is holding an Open House for the public to view and provide feedback on Carleton College’s proposal for reuse of the Historic Middle School and site.

The Open House will be held at the New Middle School Media Center, 2200 Division Street South, from 5 pm to 7 pm.

The School Board expects to make a decision on June 13 about how to reuse the facility and wants to receive public input.
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