PINE ISLAND, Minn. – A new elementary school opens here this week, but to reach it the residents of this town 65 miles southeast of the Twin Cities will drive 2 miles into the fields on crushed gravel roads.
That the school ended up so far from Pine Island's main street stands as one of the more curious legacies of Elk Run, a $1 billion biotech business park launched in 2007 that was promoted as a medical technology hub that could become Minnesota's version of Silicon Valley.
The fast-growing biotech companies and high-paying jobs never materialized on the land formerly devoted to an elk farm. The school was left marooned in cornfields, and locals like landowner Elmer Stock were left to tell the story of what could have been.
"The money didn't come," said Stock, who sold some of his farmland in 2006 to Tower Investments, the California development firm pushing Elk Run. "There's been no building, no development, nothing at all," said Stock.
The project has never officially been declared dead, but Stock took back through foreclosure much of the 382.5 acres he'd sold to Tower. A $1 million property tax bill could put much of the rest of Tower's land holdings near Pine Island into a forfeiture sale by next spring, according to an Olmsted County official. And a significant piece of the project's land went on the market this year at a sharp discount from the prices Tower originally paid.
Attempts to reach someone from Tower Investments last week were not successful.
Along with the school, the project left behind a striking interchange off of Hwy. 52 meant to handle bustling traffic flowing in and out of Elk Run.
The state Department of Transportation built the $45 million interchange, but then slapped Pine Island with a $3.65 million penalty when job-creation targets were missed.