By J.D. Duggan, Finance & Commerce
At the southwest corner of Highway 169 and Rockford Road in Plymouth, an empty mall sits atop more than a decade of scrapped plans.
Plymouth’s Four Seasons Mall has a long history of proposals that led to dead ends, but Wellington Management Inc.’s most recent sketch is gaining steam. The city bought the land last June and put out a request for proposals for redevelopment, selecting the St. Paul-based developer in January.
The proposal includes two five-story, mixed-income apartment buildings with about 411 units with an underground garage, a 300-stall public park-and-ride ramp, a 15,000-20,000 square foot retail building and a two-story, 32,000-square-foot office building.
“It’s really kind of creating a community, in some respects,” said Casey Dzieweczynski, vice president of Wellington Management.
About 80 of the units are expected to be available to households earning up to 60% of the area median income. Redevelopment costs are estimated at more than $160 million.
The 17-plus-acre site includes a wetland area and a high water table, which has posed challenges for past developers — but Dzieweczynski said his team is ready to tackle it.
“We enjoy the challenging sites, we enjoy working with the public sector, kind of the reimagined vacant spaces, especially where there are challenges in the infrastructure and environment,” he said. “The initial interactions with the city, it just seemed like they were really eager to partner with someone who’s going to be a collaborative partner.”
Wellington also hopes to revamp some of the nearby bike and pedestrian trails that connect to regional trails. Dzieweczynski also said they plan to make the wetlands more accessible for public interaction.
The developer will be seeking tax increment financing and other public funds, like a grant from Bassett Creek Watershed District for stormwater management.
Wellington is presenting a draft at a community open house this Thursday and plans to go to the City Council in June or July. If everything moves forward smoothly, the developer will begin demolition at the end of the year or early next year.
Danette Parr, Plymouth community development director, said she’s optimistic about the plans.
“We’ve always envisioned that as a site that would be a great amenity that would draw people, provide jobs, diversify tax base and be a vibrant corner. It’s along a gateway into our community, so the hope is that it’s special and it draws people to it,” Parr said.
The history of scrapped projects started with Walmart purchasing the site in 2010, but the city never gave approval for Walmart’s plans. Since then, Maple Grove-based Rock Hill Management proposed a project in 2017 with two hotels and senior housing but couldn’t secure financing. Plymouth-based Dominium looked at a mix of affordable housing and retail that never came to fruition.
Those aren’t the only projects that never made it into the ground, but Wellington’s history gives Dzieweczynski confidence in his company’s ability to make something work.
Wellington has been working on a project in the Harrison neighborhood near north Minneapolis that includes two office buildings. Wellington partnered with the city and Artspace, which developed a 100-unit affordable artist loft building. The company sold another parcel to a local land trust so Habitat for Humanity could develop 17 affordable townhomes.
That site has historically faced contamination, blight and a high water table, much like the Four Seasons.
“We have experience with those soils and we’re confident. [The Four Seasons redevelopment] is an achievable plan despite those challenges,” Dzieweczynski said. “It feels like the city recognizes the challenges and opportunity. They’ve been a great partner so far, so we’re excited to keep working with them and the community.”