The City of Hastings has a 50-acre parcel of industrial land that it has long held out seeking a large manufacturing operation to locate on the site off Spiral Boulevard.
Barriers to that are ease of transportation routes to Hwy. 61, and the fact that there just aren’t a lot of firms in the market for that much space.
The Hastings Economic Development and Redevelopment Commission (HEDRA) heard a report Thursday night that the firm currently contracted to market the site, Gaughan Companies, has floated the idea of using a portion of the site for residential development.
“Gaughan is to send staff examples of master plans that have done before and will continue meeting with staff on industrial leads and discussing possible residential and commercial uses,” a memo to HEDRA members states.
“John (Community Development Director John Hinzman) and I met with one of the representatives from Gaughan in January to discuss the possible interest of using a portion of the site for residential development,” said Alex Menke, city economic development coordinator. “After discussing, we’re not closed off to the idea at all but would like to create more of a master plan for the entire site instead of doing kind of a patchwork approach on that, just to make sure that it is a thoughtful development, whether it’s all industrial, all residential, a mix of all those things,” said Menke, “just to be intentional and explore what the market conditions are and what that appetite would be.”
HEDRA members discussed the possibility of residential on the site at its last meeting.
“It would be a big change out there. I’m not opposed to looking at that change, but I don’t want to be construed that we’re making a change to residential or something else out there,” said Hinzman, “The reality is we’ve had an industrial park out there that we’ve been marketing for a long period of time that has not gone as quickly as we would like. So, we should look at other possibilities, and we’ll do so very deliberately. I just wanted to emphasize that.”
“I like that approach,” said HEDRA member Peggy Horsch, “you know, just kind of maybe pulling back a little bit on that, just to see where we’re at.”
If a new direction comes forward, it would come before HEDRA in the future.

Gateway Corridor
HEDRA received news that a $55,300 grant was approved to pay for environmental investigation work on Block 28. The HEDRA has purchased all the property in the block on the west side of Vermillion Street from Fourth Street to Fifth Street, with the exception of Spiral Pizza.
In 2027, timed with the construction for Highway 61, the city envisions demolishing the current buildings on the block to develop a four-story mixed-use building with commercial space at street level and residential units above.
The Block 28 project has been long in the works with the commission previously reviewing the plan back in 2018. Hinzman presented the current plan to make sure it’s aligned with the opinions of the Hastings Planning Commission.
One of the changes since the 2018 draft is a shift from office space within the building to residential units. According to Hinzman, the proposal would have some 80 residential units.
The project has been dubbed the “Gateway Project” because it is intended to provide a better first look for those coming over the Highway 61 bridge into Hastings.
Work to be done under the grant includes paying for continued environmental work on the property, including a Phase II Environmental Site Assessment and writing a remediation and asbestos abatement plan.
“This is great news,” said Menke.
An earlier Dakota County grant can be used as matching funds, which means HEDRA’s costs on the project will be minimal.
“What this essential does is establishes more certainly as to what’s present on the site and what needs to be abated. We’re not abating anything at this point. We’ll know at the end of this. We’ll have a response action plan which will stipulate what we need to do, and we can have a cost estimate of what that will be. Hopefully, if there’s things we need to do, there are other grants that we can apply for,” said Hinzman.

Red Rock Parking Lot
With Metropolitan Council projections that its transit operations won’t reach Hastings, HEDRA is preparing for redevelopment of the 100-car park-and-ride lot located on Tyler Street between Depot Park and Lake Isabel Flats.
The lot was created with funds received from the Met Council in anticipation of the future Red Rock Corridor reaching Hastings. Twenty years later that has still not happened and no longer appears to be, leaving commissioners wondering what else could be done with the space.
Unfortunately, due to how the funds were received by the city of Hastings from Met Council and through state bonding for the site’s initial construction, if the site were to be sold to a developer, the city would be on the hook to pay fair market value back to the state.
“It’s a more complicated site up front,” said Menke.
The city is currently working to get the site appraised so that it is ready for a future developer if interest arises.
HEDRA voted to terminate the 40-year ground lease with the Metropolitan Council on the site with the blessing of the council.
“By signing this document, it does not change the fact that this will still remain a public parking lot for the time being. It only puts the entire ownership interest of the property in the hands of HEDRA,” a memo to HEDRA members states.
If the property is sold for development, HEDRA would have to pay market value of the site to the Metropolitan Council.