Public meetings to be held January 20 and January 27

By Robert Williams

Editor

The Frazee Economic Development Authority (EDA) has scheduled multiple meetings later in January to discuss the covenants of the Red Willow Estates development with its residents in hopes of bringing multi-family housing to town.

“We’ve been looking for a tremendous opportunity for our town,” said EDA President Heath Peterson.

During the process of getting to this point Peterson and City Administrator Stephanie Poegel have tried to change a narrative of rental housing in Frazee and did so by seeking out a specific type of developer to build apartments.

“The obstacle is the perception that any apartment in town is going to bring riffraff and that’s not the case,” said Poegel. “It all depends on the landlord and what the landlord does to attract renters. If you have landlords that do credit checks, background checks; there are various quality controls put in place and you end up with a different renter.”

The work of the EDA has focused on finding a way to attract working families and elderly people looking to move to the next phase of their lives. The latter situation plays a dual role in Frazee housing.

“That frees up a home for a new family coming to town,” said Poegel. “The (city) council and the EDA have both made affordable, yet quality market-rate housing a high priority, and this does bring that option. It brings the ability for teachers to live in town, not have to work in Frazee and drive to DL or Perham to live. You’re not going to retain those teachers. You’re not going to retain people in any business if they have to drive to where they’re living.”

Peterson experienced the dilemma first hand when he moved to Frazee in 2007 and was looking to rent an apartment.

“I actually ended up living in Detroit Lakes for the first month-and-a-half because there was just nothing and fortunately, Barb Jacobs set me up in a two-bedroom upstairs apartment on Cedar,” he said.

He faced a similar situation when his daughter decided to move back to Frazee. 

“We wouldn’t have The Gobbler today if I didn’t buy the building,” he said. “It’s a positive thing, but I shouldn’t have to buy a building to get my daughter to move back to town. Business owners should not have to go to that step.”

The issue is not one that is solely Frazee’s, but is one that is common throughout the area.

Josh Hanson, former Spanky’s owner, created his own housing to help retain employees by buying and building spaces for them to live near the Rose Lake restaurant.

“Part of the issue was to find housing for staff members at the restaurant,” Hanson said in a 2023 feature with the Forum. “As business continues to grow we’re not having trouble finding help, the real trouble is finding places for the help to live.”

Spanky’s has its own little neighborhood around the restaurant. As of two years ago, out of the eight houses next to the restaurant, six were being rented by employees, Hanson said.

Bringing multi-family housing to Frazee is about growth balance. The town has seen tremendous growth in restaurants downtown with two more scheduled to come on line in the coming weeks, Mae’s Cafe and Sting Nutrition.

“For downtown it’s immeasurable; I think a lot of businesses struggle in the winter,” said Peterson. “You make your money in the summer and you hold on. It would be nice to not have to do that.”

To keep restaurants open and hopefully continue building to a time when Frazee has a larger retail building presence takes more residents. 

“The building itself adds to the tax base, but the people living there add to the community and the life in your community,” said Poegel.

A population increase from two apartment buildings will also have positive residual effects on the school and the lives of teachers and students who want to remain or return to Frazee.

“It’s having more students in the school district,” said Poegel. “When you have more kids in the school district you’re bringing in more people for the things they’re a part of, games, summer rec. People are coming to town more to do things and they’re spending more money in town. That provides more opportunities for high school kids to work. If you’ve got an extra 15 kids that’s another 15 kids to help these businesses downtown.”

“Plus it probably adds another teacher in town and more class offerings; it all goes hand-in-hand,” said Peterson.

“If we want to be a community that welcomes our graduates back at some point in their lives they need places to live and we don’t have that,” said Poegel. “Not everybody can jump into being a homeowner. It’s just not feasible in today’s world that upon college graduation they can go buy the little picket fence. One, the little picket fence house doesn’t exist anymore. A one and two-bedroom house is not being built by developers even. Nobody wants that anymore.”

A key player in potential apartment development in Red Willow is Jason Francis, Vice President of Turnkey Solutions & Development (turnkeysolutionsdev.com).

Francis and his firm recently developed two 32-Plex Apartments in Lake Park. The complex is comprised of 1-bed, 2-bed, and 3-bed apartment units and was coordinated with city input and requirements. 

Turnkey is currently working on a similar project in Barnesville.

“They’re local guys, so they understand what they want. Lake Park is ecstatic about what they’ve done,” said Peterson. “When we did this whole thing we took a lot of care to find the type of person that would bring in high-quality apartments to Frazee. Jason is exceptional at what he does.”

Francis’ company has a diverse portfolio of successfully completed projects that include hotel renovations, interior fit-ups around the country and a pair of Taco John’s ground-up builds in the Dakotas. 

In interviews with Becker County EDA members, along with taking a personal tour of the new Lake Park property, Peterson noted how spacious the apartments were and specific details like square footage and layout, along with each unit having its own laundry facilities, avoiding the communal laundry rooms that are typical of cheap apartments, as being some of the most noteworthy aspects of work done by Turnkey.

“I was blown away with how nice it was,“ said Peterson. “We sat down with Jason and he said, basically, ‘I will not do anything unless it’s quality and nice. We have a certain clientele.’”

One of the county EDA members working closely with the Lake Park project is Frazee native Abby Anderson, a current board member of the Becker County EDA representing District 5. She lives in Lake Park.

“We did our due diligence; we wanted to make sure we got the best for Frazee,” said Peterson. “We feel if we can get this Red Willow going it can turn into more for Frazee.”

Turnkey works directly with a company that vets and sources renters and completes background screenings.

“Jason said, ‘we picked them because they follow what we wanted,’” said Peterson.

Another interesting aspect is Turnkey utilizes private investors to fund the structures they build.

“Having private investors, there are not state or federal dollars utilized to do the building and in doing that there is no requirement to have any specific affordability,” Poegel said. “Those investors aren’t investing their money for the good of investing it. They’re investing their money to make money and they don’t make money by not charging market-rate rent.”

Both Poegel and Peterson were staunch on combatting the notion that any apartment in Frazee is going to be subsidized or social housing.

“We do need low-income housing also, but Red Willow is not the spot,” said Peterson.

The EDA is looking to have the existing covenants of Red Willow changed to allow for multi-family housing in the front four lots.

After researching the history of the development and discussing with people who helped create the development, zoning in Frazee was much different at the time of its construction.

“Residential was one zone period,” said Poegel. “It included single-family, multi-family, apartments, mobile homes, and manufactured homes. All of it was encompassed in one residential zone. So when those covenants said they could add commercial in there it was because multi-family was allowable there at the time. In talking with the engineer and previous city administrators, the intentions for those front four lots were always multi-family. The utilities that were stubbed into there were stubbed in mind of an apartment building or two. It’s all been set up to have that.”

Existing utilities at the property are another big sell for apartments at Red Willow. The only other feasible option for apartment construction is the Mikkelsen property near Dollar General, where utilities are in the street but not into the property. The area would need a lot of dirt work, alongside the infrastructure needs. 

“It would not be cheap; Red Willow is ready to hook up,” said Poegel.

Other areas in town for construction exist but the main drawbacks and prevention points are a distinct lack of any infrastructure in those areas.

“These four lots that were originally designed to have multi-family structures on them are set up and ready to go so when the majority of the houses were done—then the apartment buildings would be built,” said Poegel. “It’s kind of the final step.”

“We are hopeful that this desire to improve the community, and improve the development also, will be something that the neighborhood is for,” said Poegel. “Right now, the EDA is proposing to follow what the intention was and put those apartment buildings on those front four lots. That’s part of the reason why those are bigger lots.”

The front lots are 2.5 times larger than the average home lot in the development.

The apartment plans would have two separate buildings with separate entrances on the north and south ends with a water retention area in the middle.

The EDA has also addressed prior concerns about noise in the neighborhood by creating plans that include garages in the front—closest to the road, then the apartment buildings, followed by multiple rows of mature trees.

“You’ve got that buffer zone between the two,” said Peterson. 

To change the covenants a 75 percent approval rate of lots/owners in the specific area (Red Willow Estates) is needed, which includes Frazee Electric and Frazee United Methodist Church, not just the homes.

“If you own two lots you count as two signatures,” said Poegel.

To provide information to the community as a whole, there will be two public meetings in January. The meetings are scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 20 and 27 at the Frazee Event Center from 5-7 p.m. 

There will be renderings to show what the structures would look like and various individuals will be on-hand to answer questions. A number of notaries will also be available as each signature to approve the covenants’ change needs to be notarized.

The informational meetings are non-structured so people can attend at any time during the two-hour window.

“We want to invite people to come down to the Event Center the 20th or the 27th; we’ll be giving a couple different presentations throughout the evening,” said Poegel.

Frazee EDA members will be in attendance, the City Engineer, along with a representative from Turnkey—potentially Francis. 

Hopes are to include EDA members from Lake Park and Barnesville to discuss working with Turnkey and the effect apartments have had in their communities, as well.

“We’re more than happy to sit down with any resident and talk,” said Peterson.

For those who cannot attend, the city attorney is providing city hall with the full covenant for residents to inspect and all three employees of the city office are notaries and can accept signatures in favor of the project anytime during city office hours.