Learn more about in-home care options for your loved ones

A park with sweeping views of the Mississippi River and easy access to a backwater channel will soon open to the public on the former Mississippi Dunes Golf Links in Cottage Grove.

The city bought the parcel last month and plans to open the gates by Labor Day after landscaping and a cleanup of the site, said city parks Director Zac Dockter.

"The number one goal has always been public access to the Mississippi River," Dockter said. "That was always the vision."

The city's plans to develop a riverside park became a possibility after the golf course went out of business in 2017. Private investor David Gustafson bought the land, and city officials said he signaled that he was open to selling a portion of it to Cottage Grove.

The city approved an agreement Feb. 15 to pay Gustafson $1 million for a 20-acre parcel, with half of the money coming from a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources grant and the rest from Washington County's Land and Water Legacy Program. The deal closed June 30.

The city's plan calls for minimal changes to the land, mostly adding trails and maintaining the golf cart paths for bikes and pedestrians. The spot overlooks the river channel known as Mooers Lake, a shallow stretch of water that draws kayakers and canoers.

"You're in a really big metropolitan area, but you've got this unique, remote river area with gorgeous vegetation," said City Administrator Jennifer Levitt. "You're on a backwater, so it's great for paddling."

The city hopes to develop a partnership with the National Park Service because the river is a major flyway for migrating birds, Levitt said.

An environmental review of the property found it was home to vegetation such as Hill's thistle and Purple Sandgrass, along with such bird species as the Henslow's sparrow, Loggerhead Shrike and Lark Sparrow. The review said the site also has potential to be a habitat for the state bee, the endangered rusty patched bumblebee.

The park is the first of several land deals expected as portions of the nearly 200-acre golf course property are divvied up to become a city park, a 90-acre housing development and a 12-acre expansion of the adjacent Grey Cloud Dunes Scientific and Natural Area, a state-managed 238 acres that are home to rare species.

The residential development would sit to the north of the new city park; the development site is under option by Rachel Development of St. Michael, Minn.

As a part of the residential development plan, the city was also granted 10 acres to the west of the new park that could become the home of a four-season building, playground, boat launch, outdoor classroom, picnic area and other features if voters approve a half-cent sales tax expected to be on the ballot next year. The tax would raise about $17 million necessary for the improvements, Levitt said.

Minneapolis-based Trellis Co. wants to bring deeply affordable senior housing to Cottage Grove, an unusual product type in the city.

Trellis is expected to go before the Cottage Grove Planning Commission on June 26 with plans for the 52-unit project, according to a city staff report. The unit mix includes 36 dwellings for households at 30% of area median income and the rest at 60% AMI.

“Housing at these income levels provides an opportunity for deeply affordable senior housing, which is currently very limited in the city,” the staff report notes.

The project would rise on an existing vacant lot at 7601 79^th St. S., which is at the southeast corner of Hemingway Avenue and 79^th Street. Nearby attractions include a mass transit line, Gateway North Shopping Center, Park Grove Library and Oakwood Park.

Trellis couldn’t be reached for comment Monday. The company says it owns and manages 50 properties with more than 4,000 units throughout Minnesota and that “nearly all” of the units are affordable and many are age-restricted.

To cover a “gap in financing” for the estimated $15.86 million Cottage Grove project, Trellis is seeking $175,000 in tax increment financing assistance from the city, according to the staff report.

Citing a report from Maxfield Research and Consulting, the project narrative says demand for affordable senior housing is strong in Cottage Grove. As of 2017, the report notes, Cottage Grove had 150 units of affordable senior housing with a vacancy rate of 0.7%.

As of January, Matt Mullins of Maxfield Research and Consulting estimated that 745 units of affordable senior housing would be delivered this year in the Twin Cities. Roughly a third of all senior housing units under construction today are in the affordable realm, he said.

Demand for affordable senior housing remains strong overall. In addition, Mullins said he’s seeing more affordable housing projects move forward, in part, because of economic conditions that make market-rate deals hard to pencil out.

While higher interest rates and tighter underwriting requirements are problematic for market-rate projects, developers of affordable housing can draw on “mission-based” funding sources to make the numbers work, he said.

“You may have to combine eight, 10 or 12 sources of funds [for an affordable project], but there’s mission-based money out there willing to lend on it,” whereas there’s a “wait-and-see approach” on market-rate, he said.

Funding for the Cottage Grove project would include tax credits, local grants, a Washington County GROW loan and other public and private sources, according to the staff report. The $15.86 million estimated cost works out to $305,000 per unit.

Architectural renderings submitted to the city show a four-story, rectangular building with stone and cement fiber exterior materials and 43 parking stalls. The unit mix includes five studios and 47 one-bedroom apartments.

Planned amenities include onsite management, a craft room, storage lockers, a secure mailroom, and vinyl plank flooring.

Construction could begin in 2024.

Interest is growing in Cottage Grove around what’s slated to be the state’s largest industrial park, and Norhart is jumping at the opportunity with a nearby multifamily development of its own.

The Forest Lake-based developer is traversing city entitlements for a five-story, 299-unit apartment building at the southwest corner of 100th Street and Hadley Avenue. It’s the first multifamily proposal near Northpoint’s planned 3.4 million-square-foot industrial park, a project that has extended infrastructure to the edge of Cottage Grove and set the stage for further development.

“We like the area. Our COO lives in that area and speaks highly of the growth that we’ve seen in that part of the state,” said Mike Kaeding, CEO of Norhart. “It’s an area that’s looking to expand and grow, which is a valuable asset to us.”

The building will have a glass front façade as Norhart looks to create a more consistent branding across its developments.

It’s a market-rate project on the higher end of quality and amenities, Kaeding said, and will include studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. The site will have 476 parking stalls, 283 of which are underground and the rest in a surface lot.

It will include luxury amenities like a game room, movie room, coffee area, fitness center, pet spa, pool and electric charging stations — “the whole nine yards,” Kaeding said.

He said the company is trying to change the game and solve housing affordability, mostly through driving down construction costs. “We’re already achieving about a 20% to 30% reduction in cost,” Kaeding said.

He said the company applies innovations found in other sectors, like agriculture and manufacturing, and has brought all the components in-house — supply chain aspects, trades, manufacturing capabilities and leasing.

He said people in the manufacturing world would say construction stakeholders are crazy for separating all the operations. Things get delayed and costs increase. He said the methods have helped Norhart build one apartment unit every five hours, driving timelines from 15 months down to nine.

“We’ve been — not quite — but nearly doubling in size every year,” Kaeding said. He hopes the company can produce 60,000 units a year in a decade, which could flood the market and drive housing costs down. The company has about 250 employees, 15% of which are international.

Norhart isn’t the only company interested in the area around Northpoint’s Cottage Grove Logistics Center. MWF Properties is eyeing some land, and some national single-family homebuilders are also scoping the area.

Norhart is heading to City Council on May 17 for further approvals and could break ground toward the end of the year. Kaeding said it will be a phased development to avoid flooding the market too quickly, with about two years expected for the construction cycle.

City Administrator Jennifer Levitt said single-family residential has been booming throughout Cottage Grove, but the city is “always looking” to diversify its housing stock and provide lifecycle housing.

The project’s proximity to jobs, freeway access and a 200-acre nature preserve make it “the perfect equation for this parcel,” Levitt said. “That’s why it’s really exciting for us to see a high-density apartment complex come in and be successful.”

Cottage Grove industrial park gets OK for phase one

Transit-oriented project to bring 328 new apartments to Oakdale

The city of Cottage Grove will get its first Mississippi River park of more than an acre this summer when it closes on a 20-acre parcel that was once part of the Mississippi Dunes Golf Course.

The site sits near the former location of the golf course clubhouse, which burned down in a suspected arson fire in 2021, and just west of the 237-acre Grey Cloud Dunes Scientific and Natural Area, a state-managed area that's home to rare species.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

"It's a fantastic opportunity to bring us closer to the river," said Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey.

The new park is the first of several land deals expected in the area as portions of the nearly 200-acre golf course property are divvied up to become a city park, an expansion of the state's SNA area or the site of a new housing development.

The golf course closed in 2017, and much of it was sold to a private owner, David Gustafson, two years later. The city approved a purchase agreement Feb. 15 to pay Gustafson $1 million for the 20-acre parcel, with half of the money coming from a state Department of Natural Resources grant and half coming from Washington County's Land and Water Legacy Program.

The new park will overlook Mooers Lake, a channel that runs north of Lower Grey Cloud Island. It doesn't have a name yet, and beyond a few trails that will continue to be managed, not much will change, said Bailey. "We want to keep it wild," he said.

A Cottage Grove master plan calls for buying from Gustafson another 10 acres to the northwest, or just upriver, to add a picnic area, playground, boat launch and parking lot. It would sit near the site of the burned-down clubhouse at 10351 Grey Cloud Trail S.

The only other park property along the river in Cottage Grove is the 1-acre Hazen P. Mooers Park, which is little more than a parking lot and overlook with a spot to launch kayaks or canoes.

The DNR is also in negotiations with Gustafson to buy two parcels. The first is a 12.4-acre piece to the east, or downriver, of the city's new park that would become an expansion of the SNA. The second is a 38-acre parcel that was once the golf course driving range. It sits south of 103rd Street, west of the existing SNA, according to Bill Bleckwenn, statewide acquisition coordinator for the SNA program at the DNR. Those purchases are expected to close sometime this year.

A separate deal for a private developer, Pulte, to build homes on the golf course land fell apart late last year when it pulled out citing market conditions. The developer originally planned to build 312 single-family homes, eight twin-home units, and a 52-unit senior-living cooperative on a site between the Mississippi and S. 103rd Street in Cottage Grove.

The project had drawn opposition including a lawsuit filed by a group called Friends of Grey Cloud that sought to force the city to do a more thorough environmental review at the site because of its proximity to the river and the Grey Cloud Dunes SNA.

The suit was dismissed last year on a technicality due to when it was filed; city officials said this week that they expect the project will eventually go ahead with another developer.