City actions pave the way for Ascend project
Owatonna city officials last week approved several measures that move forward a large riverfront development project.
Partners Redline Development Group, Mineral Springs Brewery (MSB), and West Bank announced the $27 million Ascend project last fall. The area is bounded by North Oak Avenue, West Vine Street, and the Straight River.
MSB will occupy a river-side portion of the main floor; plans call for four floors of luxury apartments above. Ascend is the city’s first mixed-use development.
West Bank will be built on a site that was formerly home to the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce and Tourism. Council members voted on June 20 to vacate Ted G. Ringhofer Drive and a portion of North Walnut Avenue. Both are adjacent to the Chamber building, which will soon be demolished.
Chamber president and CEO Brad Meier said that city staff and the family of Ted G. Ringhofer, who led the chamber for 29 years, have settled on a new street that will bear his name.
“The discussion that’s been happening … is the portion of Walnut remaining on the river front on the north side of Bridge Street,” he said, adding the name change will eventually come before the city council for approval. “The family definitely wants to keep the name, and we do too.”
After approving sale of a city-owned property included in the project development agreement, council members reviewed the final plat for the four-acre property.
Greg Kruschke, community development manager, said not much has changed from preliminary plans approved in April. The plat combines all the properties Redline Development has acquired into two lots and one outlot.
The only revision to the drawings, Kruschke said, is a recently discovered state turnback property. Steele County is working to vacate that right-of-way, and it won’t affect the project moving forward, he said.
Also, council member Brent Svenby asked that an easement for a shared driveway off Hoffman Drive be added as a condition for final plat approval.
Next, council members considered a conditional use permit that will allow MSB to operate an 8,300-square-foot brewery and tap room in the new building, with room for two food trucks on a large, river-side patio. The new space is about three times the size of their current home on North Walnut Avenue.
Kruschke said along with the brewing operation, there will be seating and, eventually, private meeting rooms indoors. MSB relies on food trucks because, by law, businesses with brewery/taproom licenses cannot serve food, he said.
A parking lot on the west side of the building and one on the east side of Oak Avenue will serve the business, Kruschke said. Patrons who park on Oak can get to the brewery by using a sidewalk planned along Vine Street.
The permit was approved with two conditions: Sign permits must be acquired for all signage, and none of the signs can have internal illumination.