Mason City council sets public hearing date for sale of land for “The River II” project

MASON CITY — The City Council in Mason City on Tuesday night set the public hearing date for a purchase sale and development agreement with Talon LLC to construct a second market-rate housing development in the southern part of the downtown core.

Talon had success with their first development, The River, which placed over 120 units on land that previously served as the overflow parking lot for Southbridge Mall. Talon is planning to put just under 100 more units on nearby land along 2nd Southwest between US Highway 65 and South Madison.

City Administrator Aaron Burnett says The River has been at full capacity since right after it opened and there are few, if any, housing opportunities currently available in the downtown area.  “I know that The River apartments have a waiting list, it’s a long waiting list, it’s not just one or two names. They are very excited about this development, and frankly, I think we’ll start talking about phase three once phase two is done. The housing study that we continue to get completed has highlighted a demand basically across the spectrum for housing, and especially when we talk about this type of housing, it’s housing that allows people to transition to our community and buy a single-family home, things along those lines. A very key part of our community in getting people to move to Mason City.”

The site Talon selected includes some land that had been designated as a park, but was never used for that, and the land borders a brownfield area with contaminants in the soil that need to be mitigated. Burnett says Talon is finalizing things with the Department of Natural Resources on the remediation plan.  “They’ve done all the analysis. I believe they have an approved plan of action with the DNR. They just need to figure out where those soils go to that are removed from the site. I believe they will be going to the landfill, but they have to get that all verified with the DNR, and then they’ll have the green light to move forward once the council moves forward with disposal of the property to Talon. I would imagine that we would see the brownfield mitigation happen very quickly after the transfer of the property, with construction maybe a month and a half after that.”

Talon would purchase the property from the city for $50,000. The council will hold a public hearing about the sale at their June 7th meeting.