Developer puts dates to Elk Run project

PINE ISLAND, MINN. - Tower Investments says in a letter to Pine Island that it will develop nine biotech buildings with a combined total of more than 400,000 square feet of available space by 2013 in the city's Elk Run biobusiness park.

In a letter dated May 7, Tower Investments submitted a four-year development plan for Elk Run to City Administrator Abraham Algadi.

City officials expressed enthusiasm -- and relief -- that construction equipment will soon be working at the site 15 miles north of Rochester.

"We're extremely pleased to be moving forward and to be working with Tower," said Karen Doll, director of the Pine Island Economic Development Authority. The letter from Tower's Minnesota Elk Run project manager, Geoff Griffin, says Tower plans to build the following structures:

2010: One 50,400-square-foot biotech building.

2011: Two 50,400-square-foot biotech buildings.

2012: Two 50,400-square-foot biotech buildings and one 40,000-square-foot biotech accelerator building.

Griffin says 180 jobs will be generate in the next four years. "We will also continue to aggressively pursue additional job creation developments within and outside the 250 acres bioscience park," he said.

Algadi said he's pleased to see Tower Investments finally moving forward. "They are planning on having the crews working on the road within a week's time," he said.

Many believe the Elk Run project has been in a seemingly perpetual planning stage with little to show in terms of jobs, structures or progress. Elk Run has faced much criticism related to delays, lack of public disclosure of expected occupants, a spat between Tower and sellers of part of the land the company purchased, and concerns about soil contaminated by chronic wasting disease, which had struck the elk herd there.