University of Minnesota Rochester’s education district plans remain years out

ROCHESTER - Despite buying up millions of dollars worth of downtown real estate, the University of Minnesota Rochester may not begin construction of its long-awaited education district for at least another decade.

The acknowledgment was one of the notable findings in the school’s latest master plan update, which will go before the U’s Board of Regents in September. The comprehensive “Campus and Climate Action Plan” is the second of its kind for the university, which began welcoming students in 2009 and remains the newest of the five University of Minnesota campuses.

The Rochester campus has spent $10.2 million in university funds and city sales tax revenue since 2011 on 4.8 acres at the southern edge of downtown for a future campus buildout. When the initial master plan was created in 2014, with the city abuzz about the start of Destination Medical Center, university officials anticipated the first building going up in six to eight years.

Those plans, however, were put on pause in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The biggest setback came when the downtown YMCA shut down, ending a promising partnership that was years in the making.

Now, as the university looks ahead to the next 10 years, it is reshaping its goals and timeline for the proposed education district. University officials have set flexible enrollment targets that would trigger potential development — with 2,500 students being the likely threshold for construction on university-owned land.

This fall, enrollment at the Rochester campus is expected to hit 1,000 students for the first time. The number reflects a 43% increase from the school’s enrollment five years ago.

“We believe that as we start approaching that 2,500 student mark … we’ll start initiating a capital project to develop that land for housing and for some of the academic spaces that we have talked about,” said Monique MacKenzie, the U’s director of campus and capital planning, during a presentation in June.

But, she cautioned, “We don’t believe that’s going to happen in 10 years.”

In the meantime, the Rochester campus will continue using a leasing model that university officials say has served it well. It now has space in six buildings scattered around downtown Rochester, including the newly opened Student Life Center in the former DoubleTree Hotel; the center includes 400 beds along with a dining hall and fitness area.

Across the street, the university is working on plans to remodel its longtime home in the top two floors of the Galleria. It leases additional space in 318 Commons and the Discovery Square complex, where students take classes in a collaborative environment that also includes offices and lab space used by Mayo Clinic and other health companies.

“There are a lot of ways to have a campus,” said U President Rebecca Cunningham, a former emergency physician who took over the position in July. “One of the things that strikes me here is what an amazing place it is to be a student, nestled in the middle of this vibrant, innovative health care ecosystem. That’s a campus in and of itself.”

While growth in the built environment is part of the planning for the Rochester campus, so too is the need to drive innovation in academic programming. Two years ago, the school launched NXT GEN MED, an accelerated program that offers students the chance to earn a health sciences degree in 2½ years while getting hands-on experience at Mayo Clinic.

The university has also received national attention for its commitment to equity. While two-thirds of the student body comes from historically underrepresented populations — students of color, first-generation students and low-income students — university officials say there’s no statistical difference in student outcomes.

Lori Carrell, chancellor of the Rochester campus, said maintaining those outcomes is a crucial component to the university’s gradual growth.

“We have sustained our outcome of equity in that students from any background have the same chance of success here in our rigorous health science program as any other student,” Carrell said.

One of the university’s challenges is to generate greater interest in health care careers as it takes the leap to its next enrollment goal of 1,500 students. The workforce demand is already there, Carrell said, with projections showing the need increasing due to an aging population and an exodus of workers during the pandemic.

Generating that interest, she said, will require finding the right partners and investment opportunities. It will also take some imagination as the university considers the best ways to expand its academic programs and its presence downtown.

“To think about nostalgia in terms of what a campus should look like is to derail innovation,” Carrell said. “[The Rochester campus] will never look like a traditional campus. The outcomes, historically, of those traditional campuses are not the outcomes we seek.”