Coffee shop to replace homes on Dane Street

Aug. 5—MANKATO — The ongoing conversion of single-family homes into more intensive uses around Mankato's hospital is continuing with a planned coffee shop at the corner of Madison Avenue and Dane Street.

Three single-family homes and a small 47-year-old office building are set to be replaced with a yet-to-be-named coffee shop and drive-thru.

The new business will be just 300 feet from the focal point of a $155 million expansion of the hospital — 121 additional patient beds being constructed by Mayo Clinic Health System in a three-story addition to the northeast side of the campus.

In documents filed with the city, developers of the coffee shop didn't mention its proximity to the hospital and the hundreds of nurses, doctors, other staff and visitors the facility attracts each day. But a required traffic study, which describes the business as a "coffee/donut shop," indicates it will focus heavily on drive-thru customers.

Preliminary concepts for the 1,660-square-foot shop filed with the city of Mankato show just six customer parking spots. The business is projected to generate 866 daily trips on weekdays, and the concept plan shows space for as many as 17 cars to stack up in the drive-thru lane.

The coffee shop will replace the 1976 office building at 895 Madison Ave. that's now the home of the Alliance Insurance Agency, along with three houses at 108, 112 and 116 Dane Street. All three were constructed just after World War II as single-family homes and are now being rented.

The four parcels, which have a combined assessed market value of $917,600, are owned by Van Tol Properties LLC, which is developing the coffee shop. Van Tol Properties also owns four of the remaining homes on that side of Dane Street between Madison Avenue and the hospital. The same company developed the adjacent M2 Lofts apartment complex along Marsh Street in 2015, converting former Hilltop Florist greenhouses into a $17.3 million 89-unit residential building that faces the hospital and is targeted toward adult professional tenants.

The coffee shop development requires an amendment to the city's Land Use Plan, changing the parcels containing the homes from "low-density residential" to "commercial."

"Van Tol Properties has thoughtfully considered the Mankato market, the site, and the viability of the proposed commercial re-development to ensure the site is appropriate and the demand present to pursue this development opportunity," wrote project manager Nate Myhra of engineering consultant Bolton and Menk. "The proposed commercial use would be a good re-development of the corner of Madison Avenue and Dane Street."

Myhra noted the new building would be located farther south from the Madison-Dane intersection than the insurance agency is, and the entrance to the coffee shop would be 175 feet from the intersection. The current building is less than 20 feet from the traffic lanes on Madison, and it has a parking lot entrance less than 50 feet from the intersection, along with another parking lot entrance directly onto Madison.

Speaking to the Planning Commission last week, Myhra said the new configuration would enhance safety and create better sight distances at the busy intersection. The commission is recommending the City Council approve the land-use change when it takes up the topic Sept. 11.

The conversion of residential properties to commercial or institutional uses in that part of Mankato is far from a new phenomenon. With the steady expansion of the hospital campus and, to a lesser extent, the growth of the adjacent Bethany Lutheran College campus, homes have been replaced with buildings, parking lots and other facilities from Dane/Dickinson Street on the east to Main Street on the south to Division Street on the west.

When it comes to direct expansion of the hospital and college, the city governs land use in the area through an "institutional overlay district," which requires both entities to submit and periodically update master plans showing their vision for future growth.

Bethany has largely kept its growth north of Marsh Street or on existing athletics fields south of Marsh. If the college continues to grow, its master plan shows the campus spreading into residential areas south of Marsh Street and west of Division to the edge of Mulberry Street and Alexander Park.

The college already has purchased several residential lots along East Plum Street and Hinckley Street. The plan suggests those lots, and the streets themselves, might one day be replaced with a college building and a parking ramp, although some of the purchased homes have for the time being been preserved as rental housing.

Mayo's master plan envisions the hospital campus eventually encompassing all of the property bordered by Main Street, Oaklawn Avenue, Marsh and Dickinson. Along with many former residential properties already converted to parking lots and medical facilities, the organization owns roughly two-dozen other lots south and southwest of its currently developed facilities that are open green space or rental housing as they await the next Mayo expansion.