Rochester's riverfront vision could turn asphalt parking lots into green parks
May 31—ROCHESTER — Standing in the parking lot of a former muffler shop, community leaders promoted
a vision for Rochester's riverfront
that would turn the many surface parking lots into green spaces and housing.
Officials from the city of Rochester, Olmsted County and Destination Medical Center gathered on Wednesday by the former city-county workshop and storage building at 322 Third Ave. SE to talk about a future built around the Zumbro River with fewer parking lots. They displayed maps of a proposed redevelopment vision for an east parcel, which includes the Third Avenue property, and a west parcel, which includes the former Red Owl/ Legends building.
As an early move toward this plan,
the city recently paid $450,000 to Olmsted County
to be the sole owner of the Third Avenue building. It is slated to be demolished sometime in the future.
"Along a river front, the aura of a city resides. And you wouldn't really know the city of Rochester is on a riverfront because in many cases, you can't even see it," said David Gamble of Boston-based Gamble Associates.
His firm has drawn up possible options for a "radical transformation" of the sites that could include a 2.5-acre park with between 300,000 to 500,000-square-feet of residential and commercial developments. Gamble's vision includes possible options like a residential tower, a kayak launch area, riverfront gardens, an outdoor movie screen and much more.
"I would say these plans are frameworks that were created through public engagement. So we established principles around which developers would submit their concepts," explained Gamble. "These (maps) are really viewed as conceptual plans to stimulate interest leading towards our request for proposals this fall for interested developers."
Potential developers will pitch proposals following the spirit of Gamble's plans to the city. It has not been decided if the city will request one proposal for the entire riverfront or two separate proposals for the east and west parcels.
While creating a riverfront to attract the public to gather for recreation and events, this proposed redevelopment would build on top of many current parking lots. Where will the people visiting the future riverfront park the vehicles?
Gamble responded that beyond the riverfront area there will still be 3,500 parking spaces within a five minute walk.
"We see surface parking along the river and we realize that there's better things we can do with these properties. Not only better for the community, but better for the tax base," said the DMC Economic Development Agency Patrick Seeb. "This whole transformation process that we're going through is really about understanding how we don't have to take for granted that surface asphalt parking lots as the state or the condition in which we live."
