Developer plans 936 multifamily units on former Rochester golf course

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A Texas developer wants to create more than 900 housing units and new commercial spaces in Rochester as part of a proposed multifamily development under environmental review.

The city of Rochester this week released an Environmental Assessment Worksheet for Austin, Texas-based ML Group II’s proposed West Meadows Development, which calls for 936 multifamily housing units on a 47-acre former golf course property near 45^th Avenue Southwest and Olmsted County Road 34/Country Club Road.

Also included in the plans are 22,000 square feet of commercial space, underground and surface parking, a new internal public roadway, stormwater treatment facilities and other infrastructure, according to the 204-page EAW. A vet clinic and an office building currently occupy part of the site, which was home to a golf course from the mid-1990s until 2015.

Elliot Mohler, Rochester city planner, said the project’s size and density triggered the mandatory environmental review. The review includes a public comment period, which runs through Nov. 14. Next steps include potential city council review in December or January, Mohler said.

Pending city approvals, the developer plans to begin mass grading in 2025. Construction would play out in phases through 2030, with the first two multifamily structures going up in 2025 and 2026, according to the EAW.

Finance & Commerce reached out to ML Group II partner Jorge Morales for comment.

In the EAW, the developer said the “purpose of the proposed project is to provide multifamily housing and neighborhood commercial development to meet the projected demand to the year 2030.”

The EAW cites a 2020 study from Maxfield Research that shows a need for 4,191 new senior housing and 4,525 new rental units in the city by 2030. The study, the EAW notes, was completed before Mayo Clinic announced plans for its $5 billion “Bold. Forward. Unbound.” expansion project, which will bring five new buildings with a combined 2.4 million square feet of space to downtown Rochester.

The Mayo Clinic project “reimagines Mayo Clinic’s downtown Rochester campus and introduces new facilities with a combination of innovative care concepts and digital technologies that will give Mayo Clinic the ability to scale transformation in ways never before imagined,” Mayo said in a 2023 press release.

Rochester is a growing market and, like other cities, needs more housing, Mohler said in an interview.

“I think developers see that one of the easier ways [to address the need] is through multifamily. We’re still getting single-family dwellings built, but the way that our zoning ordinance now works is that we allow housing in every district except for our industrial districts, and we made the review process a lot easier,” Mohler said.

Residential development in Rochester has been surprisingly resilient in the past year.

While multifamily construction is down overall in the Twin Cities, Rochester continues to churn out new homes. Through September, the city has permitted 955 new housing units in 2024, up from 894 during the same period in 2023, according to the Keystone Report, which tracks building permit activity in the Twin Cities and Rochester.

Overall in 2023, Rochester issued permits for 953 new homes, second only to Minneapolis (1,356), as Finance & Commerce reported.

A site plan for West Meadows shows a development site framed by Olmsted County Road 34 on the north and 45^th Avenue Southwest on the west. A future public road connecting the two corridors would cut through the site, with two four-story, 225-unit buildings north of the future road and three four-story, 162-unit building to the south.

Also shown on the plan are stormwater treatment ponds on the eastern end of the site, which is just north of city of Rochester parkland and open space.

The proposed density of 22 units per acre is “consistent with” the targets outlined in a comprehensive plan adopted by the Rochester City Council, according to the EAW.

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