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The Downtown Tofte project proposed by Joe Swanson and Pipasu Soni will provide much needed jobs and add new lodging to a local community and a county well short on workforce housing. However, plans to build this summer might have to be put on hold.
“The project is planned out, engineered and designed,” said Swanson. “We are waiting on a permit from Cook County and that will likely come soon.”
Even with a permit the project has run into a potential snag, said Swanson. “The largest concern is the cost to build is much higher than we first saw in our bids and the rents will not pay for the cost to finance and own when the building is complete.
“We are in need of one more major grant. This grant is the Minnesota Housing Finance Authority rural workforce housing. The program only has $4,000,000 to spread across the whole state over the next two years. That is about 67 cents a year per Minnesotan.”
But as Swanson admitted, “There is significant demand for funds.”
Steering the way through the grant process has been former Bluefin owner Dennis Rysdahl.
“I can say this, Dennis has been working hard for the project as a helper but not as an investor. He led the team in putting together one of the best prepared proposals MHFA will see and the thought and action that has gone into this is commendable. Now we wait. We hope to receive this grant by the end of April, but if we don’t the project is unlikely to break ground in 2022. We hired a professional developer to guide the process as well. Paul Reinke of Silver Oak Development has brought wisdom and extra bandwidth to the team. He has experience getting large apartments and other real estate built.”
The Downtown Tofte Project consists of two mixed-use buildings, including 14 workforce housing apartments and six commercial/retail spaces in Tofte.
The Cook County/ Grand Marias EDA received $450,000 from the IRRRB to construct infrastructure to develop the Downtown Tofte development, estimated (at first) to cost $5.4 million. The total square footage of the two buildings is 21,107 square feet.
As the project moves forward Joe explained, “I have tried to learn patience through this process. Building seems to move slow and there is much demand on the trades we need for a project this size. We are also careful to take care of our existing employees and guests. In fact, we are now focused on hiring maintenance and facility workers. Please contact our hiring team if you are interested. We have three people on that team in Cook County to be sure we get this right. This team will get to support the new buildings as well.
“Our team has more ideas and some land. We hope to build more housing and other economic developments. We will work with the County, Townships and the State as needed to keep sharing ideas and working on building. We welcome ideas on what folks have seen around the country and around the world for alternative and traditional housing choices. Seasonal and year-round mixes are of interest too.”
Who is Joe Swanson and Pipasu Soni?
After several joint ventures, the two friends purchased the Bluefin Bay Family of Resorts on June 30, 2020. Bluefin Bay consists of three resort properties, Surfside on Lake Superior, Temperance Landing and Bluefin Bay. The three lakeside resorts have 229 bedrooms and can host up to 704 guests across a collection of suites, condos, and townhomes. The sale also included The Bluefin Grille, Coho Café and Bakery, Waves of Superior Café, as well as Waves of Superior Spa. In addition, the resort properties include indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, fitness centers, tennis courts, ice rinks, children’s play areas, and wedding and event venues.
A Silver Bay native, Joe worked at Bluefin Bay for seven years during high school and college in housekeeping, dining, and maintenance positions. Today Joe and his wife and family live in the Twin Cities where he works as a 401(k) and business advisor.
Pipasu and his family live in Winnipeg. He is the Chief Financial Officer of (CFO) NFI Group whose headquarters are in Winnipeg. Prior to that he served as an Officer of United Steel Corporation in a variety of financial leadership roles including vice president, Performance and Management & Analytics, Vice President, Finance and interim CFO. Joe and Pipasu met through their children who became friends in school while Pipasu lived in the Twin Cities.
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