As Mayo Clinic expands, Rochester neighbors resist encroachment

ROCHESTER - A $5 billion Mayo Clinic expansion has been in the works for years, promising to reshape a growing downtown with new clinical buildings and thousands of new jobs.

But the latest plans show lots of big rubber tires meeting the road, and that has at least one Rochester neighborhood riled.

As many as 63 trucks a day are expected to be routed through the quiet, tree-lined Kutzky Park neighborhood on their way to and from a proposed 185,000-square-foot, four-story Mayo warehouse. Residents near the route packed a neighborhood meeting with Mayo and are reaching out to officials there with worries about noise, exhaust and traffic safety.

It’s the biggest neighbor opposition yet to expansion plans for Mayo, the state’s largest employer, which counts more than 40,000 workers at its 30-plus existing buildings in downtown Rochester. Including the warehouse known as the West Logistics Center, five new buildings are planned for construction by 2030.

“There’s a lot of frustration with what feels like to us is a high level of unanswered questions,” said Cameron Mullen, secretary of the Kutzky Park Neighborhood Association.

Much of the concern stems from changes Mayo has made to the initial plans officials discussed with the neighborhood. Mayo moved the entrance to its warehouse from a busy north-south thoroughfare to a residential street, to accommodate the city’s plans for a more bike- and pedestrian-friendly 6th Avenue NW.

At a Kutzky Park neighborhood meeting last week, some residents described the warehouse designs as a “gut punch” compared with Mayo’s earlier plans.

Residents want to see more large trees along the property, which is the site of the former Lourdes High School, but they’re concerned power lines to the warehouse might not be buried, which would result in a smaller tree canopy.

And a promised community park space commemorating the property’s history is slightly smaller than what Mayo initially planned, among other issues.

Mayo officials said they welcomed the feedback as they prepare to apply for permits within the next month. They point out plans for the park have already changed to incorporate more of the former Lourdes site after some neighborhood discussion, and other issues — such as burying future power lines — will likely happen.

“This is the first of many conversations we’re going to have,” said Erin Sexton, Mayo Clinic’s director of enterprise community engagement.

The Mayo warehouse is expected to be up to four stories tall. Architects say lighting along the building will be on 24 hours a day, but they’re trying to use softer lights to address potential concerns. The proposed community park was slightly narrowed to accommodate changes to the warehouse design.

Neighbors say they want to hammer out more details before Mayo submits its application.

Mayo started construction in earnest earlier this year, demolishing Lourdes, vacant since 2013, as well as the Damon parking ramp and a few other buildings to make way for its expansion.

Officials last month also shared more details about their planned Osmun and Waterman clinical buildings downtown, which will be 10 and eight stories respectively. Those buildings will feature clinical care, with some inpatient areas, as well as numerous access points for pedestrians, cars and a planned bus rapid transit line along 2nd Street SW.

Though Mullen said he’s optimistic residents and Mayo officials will come to a compromise, he knows of several residents who distrust Mayo after the neighborhood spent years fighting over the medical center’s employee buses running through the neighborhood.

Shuttle buses ran dozens of times per workday through the neighborhood for a few years starting in 2019, at one point making more than 250 trips daily. Residents often complained about the noise, dust and pollution from all the traffic.

The bus fight likely caused much more dialogue among Mayo, city officials and residents this time around, said Olmsted County Commissioner Laurel Podulke-Smith, a longtime Kutzky Park resident.