DMC Board Approves $38M Mixed-Use Development For Discovery Square

The Destination Medical Center Corporation’s board of directors, which oversees developments related to the 20-year, $6 billion plan to transform Rochester into America’s health care capital, approved a $38 million mixed-use development project on Wednesday.
 
Titan Real Estate and Investments and Opus Group will work together to build a new 156-unit apartment complex with 9,000-square-feet of retail shopping space.
 
“It fits well within the Discovery Square sub-district plan, one of the top priority areas for the [Destination Medical Center, or DMC,] initiative and the DMCC board,” said Lisa Clarke, executive director of the DMC Economic Development Agency, in a statement.
 
Minneapolis-based Mortenson Construction is spearheading the development of Discovery Square, Mayo Clinic’s new research and development hub, which will operate as the densely populated central artery within the overall DMC project.
 
“Discovery Square will leverage the already vibrant and growing entrepreneurial environment in Rochester,” Clarke added.
 
Mortenson, which came on board in September, updated the DMCC board on Wednesday with a general timeline of activities leading up to the groundbreaking ceremony in the fourth quarter of 2017.
 
“The effort has truly taken a village,” Jeremy Jacobs, development executive at Mortenson, said in a statement. “We are [currently] in advanced stages of planning for the first phase of the much-anticipated entrepreneurial and life science research ecosystem located at Discovery Square.”
 
Meanwhile, the DMCC board received several transportation plans to consider for the downtown area. Minneapolis-based engineering consultation firm SRF Consulting was hired by the City of Rochester to perform transit studies throughout 2017 to help the DMCC decide on ways to upgrade the local infrastructure. One such option that is being considered is a “city loop,” or aboveground rail system.
 
SRF said its next plan is to evaluate community input based on the current transportation options and narrow the field to three.
 
The next meeting of the DMCC board is set to take place on April 27.