MN Daily: East Phillips works to raise funds for Roof Depot purchase
As community leadership works to raise funds to buy the site for their planned urban farm, agreement negotiations with the city have slowed progress.
via The Minnesota Daily, by Gustav DeMars and Alex DeYoe
East Phillips is working toward building an urban farm for the community after Minneapolis agreed to sell the former Roof Depot warehouse site in May.
City officials and East Phillips residents battled over the Roof Depot site for years, with the city planning to demolish the building and build a consolidated public works facility despite community backlash. The site sits on high levels of toxic arsenic from a former manufacturing plant that leaked chemicals into the neighborhood for decades.
The pollution caused residents to suffer from health problems such as asthma, according to a 2021 City Council analysis, which made many concerned over a demolition’s consequences for the community.
Now, the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) is fundraising $3.7 million by Sept. 7 to purchase the 7.5-acre site for their proposed neighborhood hub that would include an indoor urban farm, affordable housing and skills training centers.
“When we’re successful, this will become a real guide to help on process in future projects,” said EPNI Board President Dean Dovolis. “This really becomes a beacon of hope and process for a lot of communities, and so we’re sort of honored as East Phillips to really help lead this effort and make this happen.”