By Mark Fischenich
MANKATO — All it took was some mouse clicks for somebody at I&S; Engineers and Architects — doing a computerized rendering of Mankato’s planned Sibley Parkway — to turn a sprawling concrete plant into a grassy field with a tree-lined road winding through it.
The job on the ground isn’t so simple.
Steve Rentz and Ken Hoffman have removed four or five buildings, including the 110-foot ready-mix building. They’ve crushed countless tons of leftover concrete tile. They’re moving earth to prepare the land for planned housing developments.
“I think we’re coming along really pretty good,” said Hoffman, who, with Rentz, is a partner in developing the expansive piece of land.
City officials, tackling their biggest urban-renewal project in more than three decades, agree.
“It’s really exciting stuff,” said Mankato City Engineer Ken Saffert. “That’s going to be a beautiful corridor when it’s done.”
And “done” is getting closer by the day. The first section of road is basically complete — and open for traffic — from the base of the Highway 169 bridge to just east of Sibley Park. Large planters are in place, dozens of trees are planted, ornamental street lights have been installed.
Construction is also under way on the piece of road that will connect from there to the riverside portion of Sibley Park, Saffert said. That should be completed by fall, allowing traffic to flow along the parkway into Sibley, where it will connect to the existing dead-end road that runs along the river, past the softball fields and picnic grounds and connects to the extensively landscaped road that leads to the southern half of the park.
Construction is set to begin in the next few weeks on the eastern portion of the Parkway — starting near Bollmann Oil on Patterson Avenue and extending through the city shops land to the west.
Next year, the old road in Sibley will be improved with curb and gutter and will include some of the other design features that will make it a part of the Sibley Parkway. And the connection to Riverfront Drive also will be completed next year. That intersection will be a new one, with a new traffic light, just southwest of the Subway sandwich shop.
“By fall of ’09, it’ll be pretty nice,” Saffert said.
In its entirety, the $4.1 million Sibley Parkway is considered the biggest redevelopment project Mankato has undertaken since the 1970s. It’s a public-private project financed with city funds, state grants and assessments against the retail, commercial and condo development expected along the route.
Rentz and Hoffman are the owners and developers of the expansive piece of land that was a concrete company for more than a century and is soon to be condominiums and elderly housing.
The site, completely industrialized for decades, is to be transformed into a greenway attractive for its views of the Minnesota River Valley and easy access to bike trails and Sibley Park. City officials estimate the project will result in $5.1 million in private sector development.
An option has been signed for one parcel, Rentz said. He expects more to come, although the state of the economy could be a factor in how fast the development occurs.
“We basically wanted to get it (cleared) and cleaned up before we got too aggressive marketing it,” he said.
Another four buildings will need to be demolished, and the grading work continues. But Saffert is impressed with how much Rentz and Hoffman have accomplished.
“If you look at what’s been done in the last six weeks ...,” Saffert said. “I expect it to be like a big green field by this summer.”
Rentz and Hoffman, however, would be happy to bypass the green-field phase.
“It’d be nice if somebody bought it before grass is planted,” Rentz said.
