A piece of heritage. The weathered siding still shows the leaning rectangular logo of the Chicago, Milwaukee ,St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. The logo has been painted over since the bankruptcy dissolution of the Milwaukee in 1985. The Milwaukee then became part of the Soo Line. Since 2008 the Soo has done business under the banner of its Canadian Pacific parent company. Image: Steve Lunde
Space to grow: A new gym? Another dorm?
WINONA Minn. – The long-abandoned Milwaukee railroad freight house on West Mark Street, next to the Amtrak depot, has been purchased by Winona State University. The university made no announcement of the purchase. Pressed about the deal, a university vice president, Jon Olson, acknowledged the purchase. The land, said Olson, was bought by the university’s fund-raising arm, the corporately separate WSU Foundation. Why? “Investment purposes,” Olson said. The Foundation, whose assets total $650 million, paid $500,000 to the Canadian Pacific Railroad for the site. The structure itself, irreparable from decades of neglect, is worth nothing more than scrap timber. Once valuable for its proximity to the former Milwaukee Road transcontinental trunk, the property now is worth no more than the land. The railroad siding for freight unloading was ripped out years ago.
Built 1888. Railside freight houses were essential before highways became the main artery of freight into Winona.
Image: Steve Lunde
Aerial view. The freight house site is yellow. In the northwest notch is the landmark His & Hers barbershop where thousands f collegian heads have been trimmed. Behind at trackside is a current-vintage privately owned mini-dorm.
Informed speculation
The freight house purchase suggests that the university is looking east.
> Fieldhouse. One possibility is that scuttled plans for a new athletic fieldhouse have been rejiggered. In 2020 there were plans for a complex land swap with Kwik Trip for to build a fieldhouse at Huff and Sarnia. The plan was abandoned after a neighborhood uproar. Now the university’s focus may be the freight house on Mark Street, four blocks away from Huff. The site is relatively narrow strip along the tracks that by itself doesn’t lend itself to a fieldhouse. Also needed would be other property on gentrifying Mark Street, as well as closing off the street itself.
> Dorm. Three years ago Winona State opened two dorms on Mark Street along the rail tracks – both adjacent to the campus heating plant. The university, also, is committed to building another dorm on Mark, also next to the campus heating plant. These will be on Mark Street, only three lots and across Main Street from the freight house property.
> Parking. Never enough.
Mixed aspirations
The most aggressive Winona State expansion was a masterplan developed by consultants in the 2000s to expand the campus south all the way to Lake Park.
> Southward. This would have taken 16 square blocks including ritzy lake-view mansions. When student journalists uncovered the secret plan and published detailed drawings, people in the path of the expansion were up in arms. Winona Post publisher Fran Edstrom, who lived in the neighborhood, led the outcry on her front page. The university backtracked. “Just thinking out loud,” said Jim Schmidt, the university’s vice president for advancement.
> Eastward. When the WSU Foundation built dorms on Franklin Street five blocks from the main campus, a plan was floated for a corridor of campus-related enterprises as a pedestrian link to the main campus. The corridor was modeled on the University of Minnesota’s commercial Dinkytown district with cafes, shops and, the lords forbid, perhaps a tattoo joint. The plan was squashed by Judith Ramaley in 2005 when she arrived as president.
Other dead-end plans:
> Varsity baseball field. As a joint city project on Sarnia Street in Lake Park. YThe plan was abandonedamid neighborhood objections.
> Huff and Sarnia fieldhuse. On Kwik Trip land adjacent property. The plan was abandoned after neighborhood objections.
> West Campus. At the former College of St. Teresa, 1-1/2 miles from the main Winona State campus. Operated 23 years but was shut down in 2020 as impracticable.
Recent off-campus acquisitions
> Laird-Norton executive headquarters. On Fifth Street, four blocks from campus, Converted in 2021 into an elegant art gallery and home of the Art Department.
> Cotter Junior High School. On Wabasha Street, a.block from campus. Converted in 2019 to the home for the College of Education.