MANKATO — The first step in the redevelopment of Mankato’s 54-acre Jefferson Quarry could break ground this summer, creating 20 to 36 below-market-price houses or townhouses targeted at people looking to purchase their first home, according to the project developer.
The proposed “Quarry View” housing development is set to go before the Planning Commission next week and the City Council in April.
“At this point, what we’re committed to is a single-family housing project that targets lower-income first-time homebuyers,” said Brett Skilbred, representing Coldwell Banker Commercial Fisher Group, which is developing the project.
The written application to amend the approved land use in the area from light industrial to medium-density residential promised to provide “below market affordable housing alternatives … for all age groups and demographics.”
Skilbred praised city staff for helping identify programs that assist developers in meeting the needs of first-time homebuyers. Specific income-thresholds and home prices won’t be known until the fate of applications is determined.
“This isn’t a big money-making endeavor,” he said. “It’s a partnership — the city and a developer working together to make this happen.”
The new homes are being planned for a Mankato street that only a tiny percentage of area residents have ever seen — Eighth Avenue. The gravel path runs along the lip of the tapped out quarry on the far western edge of the Germania Park neighborhood. And even that neighborhood — a small residential area squeezed between the industrial properties along Third Avenue to the east and the quarries to the west — often goes unnoticed.
Eighth Avenue is platted for three blocks but it is unpaved and has no utility lines below it. With just four homes currently sporting an Eighth Avenue address, the housing development could bring a very different atmosphere to the secluded area.
“We’re going to bring a number of young families to the neighborhood, probably with a lot of kids,” Skilbred said, noting that leaders at nearby Grace Baptist Church and Grace Christian School are excited about the prospect.
The 20 detached homes or 36 townhouses would be built on the two blocks between Harper Street and Cleveland Street on parcels owned by Pentagon Acquisition LLC, a firm associated with Holtmeier Construction that purchased the Jefferson Quarry in 2021 after previous owner Jordan Sands defaulted on a $22 million loan following a steep decline in the silica sand market.
The proposal fits with a 2023 land use plan developed by the city and the landowners. The preliminary concepts for the quarry itself showed a variety of intensive uses, including a possible public plaza connected by large flood-tolerant concrete platforms stepping down to the Minnesota River, multiple walking paths, parkland, specialty shops and a possible restaurant with river views. High-density housing — most-likely multi-story apartment buildings — were suggested immediately adjacent to that public space. And medium-density housing, such as duplexes or townhouses, was called for between those busier areas and the lower-density homes of Germania Park.
“The project is in response to the master planning effort put forth by the city and the landowners,” Skilbred said. “… We’re looking at some transitional housing opportunities that will fit within the neighborhood to meet the needs identified by the city for affordable single-family housing.”
The plan is to build two-story homes or townhomes along Eighth Avenue so that the upper floor will offer panoramic views of the quarry below. That may be difficult to imagine now, but overgrown vegetation will be cleaned up by the time the lots are being marketed, he said: “By that time, it’ll be quite a view to be honest.”
Eighth Avenue will also be improved by then, part of a broader street reconstruction and modernization planned for this summer that will also extend utilities to the development.
But the neighborhood will continue to have a distinct style — one that is largely without curb and gutter or storm sewers and one that has a somewhat casual attitude about where property lines end and city right-of-way begins.
“This is a very unique neighborhood,” Skilbred said. “This is one of the older neighborhoods in Mankato. I think it was originally platted in the late 1800s.”
He expects would-be homebuyers to like what the area has to offer, including the greatly improved neighborhood park that the city transformed nearly a decade ago and the informal ballfields provided to neighborhood kids at Grace Baptist.
If the City Council approves the necessary land-use, zoning and platting changes, the hope is to break ground in conjunction with the city’s construction of Eighth Avenue this summer. Construction of the first homes would start in the fall with a goal of getting them enclosed so that interior work could continue through the winter, although the pace of construction will be market-driven based on the number of buyers stepping forward.
Safety improvements will be included in the project, too, such as fencing off the steeper walls of the nearby quarry. Eventually, there could be pedestrian and bike connections made between the neighborhood above and the existing riverside trail on the opposite side of the quarry. Those sorts of amenities will probably only come as the quarry itself is redeveloped, a more daunting endeavor for developers because streets and utilities would need to be brought into the sprawling site.
But Quarry View could provide momentum for additional projects to transform the Jefferson Quarry, according to Skilbred.
“That’s the hope,” he said. “That’s why we’re calling it ‘Phase 1’ of the quarry redevelopment.”