Lourdes removed from consideration as landmark

Randy Petersen, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·3 min read

Mar. 19—ROCHESTER — The

former Lourdes High School

is being removed from Rochester's list of potential landmarks, making way for anticipated demolition of the 83-year-old building.

"This is

one of the early conflict points

we are going to have with

Bold. Forward. Unbound.

(In Rochester.)" Rochester City Council member Patrick Keane said in supporting the 7-2 vote to remove the building from the list.

Mayo Clinic, which owns the building at 621 W. Center St., requested removing the building from the list of potential landmarks because it wants to use the site to build a new logistic center as part of its $5 billion, multi-year expansion project.

Doug Holtan, Mayo Clinic's chairman of its Department of Facilities and Support Services, said the site is critical to the plan, and Mayo Clinic studies options for potential reuse, but the existing building is too small and planned tunnels would undermine the integrity of the building.

"We believe this is not a viable reuse for the existing structure," he told the council.

Keane said Mayo Clinic officials shouldn't anticipate all changes proposed by its planned expansion will see council support.

"I want this for our community, but I also want Mayo to think about more than patients and who come into their hospital," he said. "They have to think about what they are doing to the people who live here, who don't go to the clinic. ... They don't want a warehouse down the street; they want you guys to worry about making it something with urban appeal."

Council member Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick voted against removing the Lourdes building from the list of potential landmarks, but joined Keane in encouraging the Mayo representatives to keep residents in mind.

"This is our community that helped you build your empire, and we are not to be forgotten about," she said.

During a 43-minute public hearing, seven of 11 community members argued for protecting the building from planned demolition, pointing to potential alternative uses for the building and the possibility of shifting plans.

"It's needed, but it's not absolutely needed on that block," former Rochester Heritage Preservation Commission Chairwoman Christine Schultz said of the planned logistics center that will allow Mayo Clinic to move supplies and equipment throughout the system. .

Kirkpatrick agreed, saying she wasn't convinced that an alternative isn't possible.

"I can't support tearing the building down," she said, joining council member Molly Dennis in voting against removing the building from the list of potential landmarks.

Katie Arendt, a Mayo Clinic obstetric anesthesiologist serving as a physician leader for the Bold. Forward. Unbound. project, said Mayo Clinic plans to acknowledge the building's history in a 30-foot linear park on the west side of the planned logistics building.

"While we look to the future, we also want to honor the past," she told the council, outlining a plan to use portions of the Lourdes exterior in the park.

Additionally, she said plans call for donating the cross on the building's steeple to the Diocese of Winona-Rochester for use at its new pastoral center in northwest Rochester.

Council member Mark Bransford, a Mayo Clinic employee, encouraged Arendt and Holtan to use as much of the existing building as possible.

"For me, the saving grace on this is the pocket park and at least some homage to what Lourdes is," he said.

Council President Brooke Carlson said she believes the Lourdes building is historically significant for many residents but added that the memories of the building can be shared as the city continues to move forward.

"History can be recognized in many ways," she said.

Mayo Clinic has not yet applied for a demolition permit, and final plans for the proposed site haven't been submitted, but the council officially documented plans for the park in its decision Monday.

Holtan said Mayo Clinic is committed to the park and its recognition of the site's history.

"The pocket park was always going to be green space buffering the Kutzky Park neighborhood," he told the council.