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By Griff Wigley, on July 6, 2011, 10:58 am
Clark Webster, longtime volunteer with Save the Northfield Depot, stopped by my corner office at the GBM this morning to let me know that the City Council voted last night to sell a chunk of its land on the Q-Block to the group (amount? to be determined). It also voted to cover up to $11,000 in legal and environmental assessment fees.
The Save the Northfield Depot group doesn’t use a blog, Twitter, or Facebook so we don’t have any official details. Hopefully, A) one or more of Northfield’s media empires will have a story posted soon; and B) the Depot group will figure out that have a living, breathing social media presence is critical to raising public awareness and raising money.
 
Above: two panoramic views of the Q-Block: Left, from 2nd St, looking SE; right, from Hwy 3, looking west
 
Above: two views of the approximate future location for the old train depot (below).
Update noon: Some other visuals related to the depot and the Q Block, taken from Pages 1-35 of Part 2 of the council packet for last night’s meeting.
 
  
By Griff Wigley, on April 20, 2011, 9:13 am
 Last night, the Northfield City Council discussed whether it should give/lease Q-block property for the relocation of the Northfield train depot.
Are Quarterback Club owner Dale Finger’s objections valid?
What about Council members’ rationale for including or not including the Planning Commission and the EDA in the planning process?
Nfld News: Council: More research needed on plan to move depot
“Is it a viable business plan?” Mayor Mary Rossing asked rhetorically. “To me we’re going to have to make the case this is a good economic value to the citizens of Northfield.” Her suggestion to send the proposal to the Planning Commission and Economic Development Authority for their input got mixed reviews. Councilor Suzie Nakasian supported the idea, but Councilors Patrick Ganey, Betsey Buckheit and Rhonda Pownell found the move unnecessary…
Dale Finger, who not only owns the Quarterback Club, but a majority of land on the block under consideration, opposes the move. “I believe if the depot was to move there, any future development would have to be focused around the depot, limiting what could happen on my property,” he wrote in an April 5 e-mail to the council. “I also see this property being a gateway to downtown and someday hope a retail development will bring more traffic to the central business district.”
More:
By Lynn Vincent, on April 29, 2010, 8:39 am
 [show_avatar email=clvincent@charter.net]Save the Depot is a grassroots effort by a group of local citizens to save and preserve our historically relevant Northfield Train Depot. We started the journey three years ago when our parent group – Northfield in Bloom - noticed the depot because of all the graffiti and weeds marring the building and the saplings growing out from the foundations.
Actually, noticed is too soft a word. Incensed might be better – so incensed that we thought about sneaking onto the property in the dead of night to cut down the trees and plant flowers! But we really didn’t want to come up against Chief Taylor arresting us for trespassing, so we talked with the City Administrator and Progressive Rail to cut a deal. The railroad agreed to sell the building to the City and the City agreed to pass the owner ship on immediately to another group (us), the caveat being that the depot had to be moved off of railroad property.
So we got together with a bunch of railroad enthusiasts and historical preservationists early this year forming the Save the Depot Committee. We held three community meetings with interested citizens and stakeholders to see what other Northfield residents thought about our effort to save the 1888 depot and got a lot of good feedback and suggestions for relocation sites, uses and who might want to own the depot.
Two locations – the Q-Block and Babcock Park – were mentioned the most, and some of the uses suggested were as a transit site, a Chamber/visitors’ center, and a multi-use building.
We want to know what you think and what else you want to know about us, so we are hoping to get a great dialogue going here.
Or you can stop any of us on the street to talk. The committee is made up of Rob Martin, Steve Edwins, Pat Allen, Clark Webster, Chip DeMann, Baird Jarman, and Alice Thomas… and me!
By Griff Wigley, on March 8, 2010, 11:51 pm
The ‘Save the Depot’ committee held a public meeting last Monday, March 1 at the NCRC. Members include Steve Edwins, Lynn Vincent, Rob Martin, Pat Allen, Chip DeMann, Alice Thomas and Clark Webster.
I’ve turned off comments on this blog post. Continue the discussion that’s attached to the Oct. 8 blog post titled Is Northfield’s train depot worth saving?
See the album of 12 photos, the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:
Continue reading Photo album: ‘Save the Depot’ community meeting
By Griff Wigley, on October 27, 2009, 3:32 pm
 Bob Will was our guest this week, talking with us about efforts to save the Northfield train depot. You might think Bob is an old geezer, given that he has a few ‘formers’ associated with his name (eg, former Carleton economics professor, former Northfield Rotary Club president). But he’s more than a little active in community affairs (eg, current member of the City of Northfield Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) and the Streetscape Task Force).
Click play to listen. 30 minutes. I’ve turned off comments for this post. Continue the discussion here.
Continue reading Podcast: Bob Will on saving the Northfield train depot
By Griff Wigley, on October 14, 2009, 7:27 am
By Griff Wigley, on October 8, 2009, 9:17 am
  
Ross Currier sent out a Tweet yesterday morning that he was "Trying to arrange my schedule so I can attend a gathering of few motivated citizens to discuss the potential of the historic railroad depot." About the same time, I was chatting with Bob Will about it at GBM. Bob indicated that the Northfield Rotary Club was considering it as one of their long-term projects. (continued)
Continue reading Is Northfield’s train depot worth saving?
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