Homes torn down for Children’s Hospital expansion

BY SKY HORNIG

Over the past year, Julie Miller has watched bulldozers deface her neighborhood. Eight homes, some over a century old, have been methodically leveled, the trees shading the lots taken down as well. What was once a residential block is now a series of bleak, empty lots, which Children’s Hospital plans to use for a new six-story office tower and six-level parking garage.

The hospital acquired over half of the properties on the Columbus and Chicago Avenue blocks from developer Jim Dowds of Prima Land, Inc. The purchase of the land was a direct violation of the Multi-Block Land Use Covenant, a decades-old “binding agreement, which states, “Buildings originally built as housing will not be purchased for health-related uses.” Sen. Linda Berlin (DFL-Mpls.) said, “Good covenants make good neighbors.” Without it, there is not a feeling of goodwill between the neighborhood and the institution, Berglin said.

Miller’s neighborhood falls in the Minneapolis Lifesciences Corridor, created in 2003 under Mayor R.T. Rybak in an effort to advance the city’s health care. The mile-and-half-long corridor extends from the Metrodome to Lake Street and currently consists of 19 health care facilities and 61 research and clinical labs. Miller and her neighbors fear that the corridor favors health care facilities over residents and thus puts any home in its path in danger.

The covenant further calls for “ongoing communication with surrounding resients … as facility changes occur,” yet the residents of Phillips West found out about Children’s’ plans by accident five months after discussions were underway. Of their failure to communicate with neighboring residents from the get-go, Dan Kratz, senior director of business development at Children’s Hospital, could only say, “That’s an area where we could have done better.”

In some ways they have; Children’s now meets monthly with neighborhood organizations for Phillips West and Phillips Midtown, as well as the Abbott Northwestern Community Advisory Committee (ANCAC). However, the covenant states that the hospital should “include surrounding residents in planning and decision-making” and while the hospital’s plans constantly change, it is never in the direction the residents encourage. A four-story, 400-space parking ramp has become six stories and 600 spaces. An existing home, on the lot just feet from Miller’s property line has mysteriously disappeared from the most recent map plans. It took Miller three meetings to get a straight answer about the intentions for that lot: It will be used to dump the snow from the parking lot. Thus, Miller’s home would be sandwiched by a parking ramp and its waste—not to mention the noise and potential danger that comes with snow removal. Miller believes “this is a move to intimidate the neighbors and squeeze us out.”

While plans move forward and houses are bulldozed, Children’s has yet to apply for the rezoning or variances it would need for its proposed structures. Why were the homes demolished prior to even a single approval? Kratz says, “We realized the homes were not going to be compatible with our use of the land.”

But what if Children’s decides not to use the land? Recently Children’s opened talks with Allina and Fairview-University about a joint venture—a new facility. Kratz says that if (“and that’s a big IF”) the joint venture comes about, the majority of Children’s inpatient beds would be moved to the new hospital, freeing up much of its current space. And IF the joint venture comes about, Children’s would most likely abandon the development in Phillips West. And what of the flattened, muddied lots? “We would work with developers and the community to look at what is the appropriate use of that property,” says Kratz. And while the threat of a parking ramp would be gone, so still is the irreplaceable charm of the historic, Victorian homes.

“It’s just so tragic,” states Miller. “[It’s] the fact that Children’s took all these houses and all these trees without having applied for a single planning approval and now may have changed their priorities.”
Kratz asks citizens to keep in mind that Children’s Hospital is a major regional resource for pediatrics. “We specifically serve over 24,000 primary care visits from children who live in South Minneapolis on an annual basis. Children’s is [also] a major provider of jobs for this area.” Even if this is all true, does that give the hospital the right to violate a decades-old covenant?

Miller is hopeful that the answer is “NO.” The neighborhood organizations of Phillips West and Phillips Midtown, as well as ANCAC, have all passed motions supporting a moratorium on all health-related development in the Lifesciences Corridor. They hope the moratorium will give them time to develop a community-driven land use plan. “Our attitude is, neighborhood matters, let’s fight for it,” says Miller. “We’re in this for the long haul. We’re going to fight it. And we’re going to win.”