by Frank Lee
operations@thenewsleaders.com
St. Joseph may soon be home to a new bed-and-breakfast should the owner of the rental home who proposed the project follow through with it.
“There was one bed-and-breakfast in the residential area, but I’m not sure if it ever took off, so I’m not aware of any operating at this moment,” said St. Joseph City Administrator Judy Weyrens.
Cory Ehlert owns a rental home at 29 Minnesota St. E. in the B-1 Central Business District, which is St. Joseph’s downtown area; the district’s permitted uses include commercial, such as restaurants, retail shops, coffee shops and professional offices.
“We had a request to convert a house in the central business district to allow for a bed-and-breakfast, but that zoning district did not allow for it,” Weyrens said of Ehlert’s amendment request. “So the council amended the ordinance to allow a B&B in the Central Business District.”
The intent of the district is to “encourage the continuation of a viable downtown by promoting uses dependent of high volumes of pedestrian traffic, to provide for regulation of the high-intensity commercial uses located within the original core of the city,” according to officials.
St. Cloud does not allow B&Bs in its downtown business district. Owner-occupied B&Bs, however, are allowed in the residential districts as a conditional use, while in Cold Spring, owner-occupied B&Bs are allowed in the city’s downtown district as a special use.
“Now we can have the developer come back and submit an official request for a special-use permit to operate a B&B, so it isn’t in operation yet and that hearing should be in February – provided the developer follows through with it,” she said following the ordinance amendment.
Ehlert and developer Joe Prostrollo have worked on the project for some time and plan to call the B&B business “The Estates of St. Joseph” because the rental home next to Mill Stream Shops & Lofts is known to College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University students as “The Estates.”
Prostrollo proposes $125,000 in renovations to the Minnesota Street West home owned by Ehlert, with each suite of the B&B having its own bathroom and all rooms handicap-accessible with the installation of a chairlift. Guests could stay a maximum of seven consecutive days.
“One of the things St. Joseph has been missing is lodging,” she said. “I think people are looking for alternatives, so I think they would complement each other. Those who want to stay in a hotel can go to the Asteria Inn and to have something downtown like a B&B is very nice.”
Prostrollo told the St. Joseph Planning Commission at its Nov. 14 meeting at City Hall that the estimated tax revenue for The Estates of St. Joseph bed-and-breakfast for 2017 would be $6,580 and $13,180 for 2018. The goal is to have the B&B opened by July.
He said targeted guests of the B&B would include alumni of the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, parents and students of the educational institutions in St. Joseph and Collegeville, employment recruits for those places of higher learning and sports fans.
Owner Cory Ehlert proposes to convert the rental home at 29 Minnesota St. E. in the B-1 Central Business District into a bed-and-breakfast called “The Estates of St. Joseph.”
