Council OKs middle school annexation, Discovery Walk plans and Day Center extension

Rochester Public Schools has moved one step further to the construction of a new middle school, one that was approved overwhelmingly by voters as part of November’s $180.9 million referendum.

On Monday afternoon, the Rochester City Council signed off on the district’s request to annex 40 acres of land to build a new middle school. The district initially asked to annex land outside the Hart Farm neighborhood in southwest Rochester over a year ago, but the city denied the request over concerns of sprawl and associated infrastructure costs.

In the end, RPS reluctantly settled on an entirely different location — a site on 65th Street Northwest that the council approved 7-0 without much comment, but after a longer and uglier process than was intended. 

“This is unfortunate that we’ve had to get to this point,” said Ward 4 Council Member Mark Bilderback. “I hope that in the future, with the city expanding and our school system expanding, that we can find a way to work closer together so we don’t have to go through the issues we went through in the last round. I like what I see; I think this [proposal] is good, but the issues we had before still bother me.”

With the annexation request approved, the district will soon turn to the schematic design process. The district says the design will be brought to the school board in July, and the project is still on pace to break ground this fall.

Discovery Walk plans approved

Later in the afternoon, the council OKed plans to move forward with Discovery Walk, a proposed pedestrian corridor along Second Avenue Southwest connecting downtown Rochester and Soldiers Field Park through the Discovery Square sub-district. The city committed just over $2.7 million to architectural firm Coen+Partners for purposes of documentation, bidding and community engagement.

While the project is still over a year away from breaking ground, Mayor Kim Norton was excited for the finished product, connecting the main downtown area with one of the city’s largest parks.

“This is part of what [Destination Medical Center] is all about,” said Norton. “It’s recreating our downtown, making it more sustainable, walkable, livable, and making it a city of the future. We’re going to have to understand that that will mean continued construction.”

That idea of “continued construction” led council member Shaun Palmer to vote against the item, citing the need to give downtown businesses and residents some time before another major construction project — as Heart of the City construction tears into Second Street and First Avenue Southwest this summer. (Palmer was the lone ‘nay’ in the council’s 6-1 vote.)

“This is an item we need to delay for a long time, because I think downtown needs to recover,” said Council Member Shaun Palmer. “It’s been beaten up and closed — I mean, you can barely walk downtown.”

In response, Council Member Nick Campion noted the current construction projects downtown are slated to be finished by the time the Discovery Walk project breaks ground.

“I’ve heard the comments about downtown being torn up, and the frustration it’s causing, but it’s nothing but a sound [bite] to suggest that this is going to add to that,” said Campion. “This is a project that is scheduled to happen after all of those projects are buttoned up. It’s a good talking point; it’ll look good in the paper, but it’s not reality.”

With the plans approved, the next step sits with the firm to create construction documents and reach out to the community. The city says the bidding process should — barring a larger Covid-related slowdown in construction — start next summer.

Day Center agreement extended

Rochester’s Day Center for individuals experiencing homelessness will stay open through the month of July, after the council approved the extension in a 7-0 vote. Various city employees continue to staff the center, which reported an average of 86 people per day using the facility at Mayo Civic Center. Olmsted County’s Warming Center, located at the Civic Center since March, will move back to its Fourth Street location at the end of June.

It is unclear whether or not the Day Center will continue to operate out of the Civic Center after July 31, but the meeting’s agenda packet says the extra month “provides time to evaluate strategies that provide a smooth transition out of the Mayo Civic Center.”

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.