For the second straight year, Minnesota lawmakers failed to deliver promised funding to a group seeking to transform a former warehouse in south Minneapolis into an urban farm and community hub.
The Minnesota Legislature in a special session Tuesday passed a flurry of bills to complete the state’s $66 billion budget. The package included a $700 million capital improvements bill, but local funding — including a promised $5.7 million allotment for the East Phillips neighborhood nonprofit to complete its purchase of the Roof Depot building — wasn’t included.
It’s the latest in a years-long struggle over a former Sears warehouse at East 28th Street and Longfellow Avenue. The city bought the property in 2016 to expand its public works campus, but residents in East Phillips wanted the building to pursue a greener future for a diverse and historically polluted neighborhood.
But leaders at the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI), the nonprofit behind the project, remain confident that their vision for the 230,000-square-foot building will become a reality.
“We will buy the building, period, and we will get it done,” EPNI Board President Dean Dovolis said.
In 2023, state lawmakers promised $12.2 million to broker a deal between the city of Minneapolis and the institute that would allow the neighborhood nonprofit to buy the Roof Depot building. Lawmakers gave $6.5 million in 2023, and promised another $5.7 million the next year, contingent on EPNI raising $3.7 million of its own. EPNI secured the money, but lawmakers failed to approve the funding.
The city amended the purchase agreement in 2024 to give the institute another year to secure the remaining funding. Now a second legislative session is over without the money coming through. The agreement has a current closing date of Sept. 15, but could be amended before July 1.
Rep. Samantha Sencer-Mura, DFL-Minneapolis, said lawmakers will continue to fight for funding.
“The inability to secure the funding needed to complete the Roof Depot purchase was one of many disappointments coming out of this legislative session. Our Minneapolis delegation fought hard for the funding, but we were ultimately not successful given the political dynamics of the legislature this year,” Sencer-Mura said.
East Phillips neighbors fought City Hall for a decade to obtain the Roof Depot. The city had planned to use the site to expand its public works campus and for a new water yard. EPNI plans to convert the building into an indoor urban farm, local business and organization hub, and affordable housing.
In February 2023, mass protests at the site prevented the city from moving forward with the building’s scheduled demolition, allowing the institute to obtain a temporary injunction from a Hennepin County District Court judge that halted demolition plans. State legislators from Minneapolis helped craft a $15.9 million purchase agreement between the institute and city that would allow the nonprofit to buy the site with $12.2 million in funding from the state.
A recent appraisal set the building value at $3.7 million, Dovolis said. Institute staff believe the city should work with them to complete a purchase at a lower price. The city purchased the building for $6.8 million in 2016 and has said it needs to collect more money to account for holding costs, architectural plans and other fees that fell onto taxpayers.
Joe Vital, EPNI’s interim executive director, said the project is about more than a warehouse, and that the city should support it.
“It’s about correcting decades of environmental racism, it’s about food access and clean air, and it’s about getting out of the way of a community that is ready to finally step into a healthier future,” Vital said. “The benefits of this project to Minneapolis are clear, and we’ve done everything we were asked to do.”
The building is located across the street from the former Smith Foundry, which closed after a federal environmental investigation, and an asphalt producer that left the neighborhood last year.
The organization has only gotten stronger in those two years, Dovolis said, and garnered lots of local interest. EPNI has fundraised and held regular community meetings and educational sessions on urban farming.
“The project is in great shape,” he said.
