Minneapolis City Council OKs demolition of 1914 grain mill along Hiawatha Avenue

Another grain mill is slated for demolition on Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis, which would make it the fourth out of nine mills to fall victim to progress.

The Minneapolis City Council voted 12-0 Friday to uphold a demolition permit for the idle Nokomis Mill on the southeast corner of Hiawatha and 35th Street. A small preservationist group had appealed the permit, saying they’d rather see the buildings repurposed into affordable housing.

The developers, cousins Louis and Steven Zachary, plan to buy the mill from Archer Daniels Midland Co. and build housing but say it’s not feasible to reuse the buildings. They launched Zachary Construction Group about a year ago, and this is their first project.

The Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission approved a demolition permit for the Nokomis Mill on Feb. 4, but the permit was appealed by Joel Albers, a health economist and pharmacist who leads a group called Save Minneapolis from the Wrecking Ball. The group formed about a year ago to save the historic Bethany Lutheran Church.

Albers argued that rather than demolish the steel elevator and mill and numerous steel and concrete bins, the developers should incorporate them into affordable housing or perhaps a brewery.

During a previous committee meeting, Council Member Katie Cashman said she’s a huge fan of adaptive reuse projects, but it wouldn’t “financially pencil out” even if the developers could get tax credits. Denying the demolition permit would be based on “hope and wish” that someone else will come forward with a lot money to do that, she said. It’s better to give the property new life, she said, especially when the city is seeing “low levels of interest in housing.”

Louis Zachary told the committee they recently learned the site is severely contaminated and would cost $1.5 million to clean. That’s in addition to $676,000 per year ADM pays to secure the buildings, according to the developers. The buildings are frequent targets of graffiti and trespassers.

“If it was economically advantageous to leave buildings in place, we’d have already done that,” he said.

He said his goal is to get the buildings demolished by the end of 2025.