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Twin Cities
Estelle Timar-Wilcox
Updated:

Roof Depot project seeks alternative funding after missing deadline for site purchase

Roof depot04
A chain link fence surrounds the Roof Depot site adjacent to the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis on May 1, 2023.
Matt Sepic | MPR News

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A Minneapolis neighborhood organization has missed a payment deadline to purchase the former Roof Depot site from the city, after the state Legislature failed to pass funding earlier this year. But community advocates say they’re making progress on a backup plan.

Under its purchase agreement with the city, The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, or EPNI plans to buy the site and convert the space into an urban farm and community center.

But they’re now facing another hurdle. The Minnesota Legislature had promised $5.7 million in funding this year — the final sum needed for the purchase — but failed to vote on the measure before the end of the legislative session.

Without funding from the state, EPNI missed the Monday deadline to deliver the money. Erik Hansen, director of Minneapolis’ Community Planning and Economic Development department, says the city served the notice of termination of the sale agreement Tuesday. 

EPNI has 60 days from the termination notice to pay the balance; otherwise, Hansen says, the agreement will expire.

In a statement, EPNI said it’s working with elected officials to find a new source of funding.

“These partners, from various levels of local government, see how this project will bring good jobs, fresh food, opportunity and overdue justice to the heart of East Phillips,” EPNI leadership said. “An urban farm and warehouse full of small businesses, local organizations, and shared communal space creates abundance that will ripple out to serve Minneapolis and Minnesota as a whole for generations to come.”

EPNI board chair Dean Dovolis says EPNI will announce details of where the funding is coming from on Aug. 6.

“I’m not worried,” Dovolis said. “We will have it all together by then.”

EPNI secured the deal to buy the site from the city in 2023, after a decade-long contention over its future. The city wanted to demolish the vacant building and turn it into a waterworks facility. Local Indigenous and environmental activists pushed for a community center and urban farm. 

The city agreed to sell the site last year, after the state provided $6.5 million in funding and EPNI signed a guarantor to back $3.7 million. The $5.7 million in state funding would have completed the sale.