Southside Pride: The city is overcharging East Phillips for the Roof Depot
Mayor Frey is overcharging East Phillips $12.2 million for Roof Depot
BY DANIEL COLTEN SCHMIDT
The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) gives away locally-grown, organic vegetables and herbs to neighborhood residents. The Farm Team sets up a folding table in Cedar Field Park across from Little Earth and writes a list of produce on a whiteboard under the words, “Free Vegetables!” and “Vegetales Gratis!” They lay colorful foods across the table’s plastic surface, and joyfully encourage passersby to take home whatever they want in upcycled cloth bags.
EPNI is able to give away free food because of grant funding. Since 2023, when the community prevented the Hiawatha Expansion Project, EPNI has won more than $1,800,000 in grants to build a vibrant outdoor urban farm at the former Roof Depot, train 10 youth apprentices in gree careers, provide thousands of pounds of free organic food to East Phillips neighbors, teach monthly cultural workshops on traditional growing techniques, and continue to build the vision for a community-owned climate resiliency hub in East Phillips.
The Hiawatha Expansion Project was a Minneapolis Public Works project meant to consolidate three Public Works facilities into the East Phillips neighborhood, increase traffic by 1,800 vehicle trips daily, demolish the historic Roof Depot warehouse, and build a three-story parking garage in its stead. This project was initiated by Minneapolis Public Works in the 1990’s— before the EPA designated the East Phillips neighborhood a residential Superfund site, before Rep. Karen Clark and State Senator Linda Berglin passed the Cumulative Impacts Analysis law in 2008, before the Minneapolis Green Zones were formed in 2017, and before racism was designated a public health emergency in 2020. Yet, it was under Mayor Jacob Frey’s leadership that the City spent almost $16 million on a project in which the public comment period received 1,063 comments against, and 2 for (source: Tesha Christensen, Southwest Connector, May 2021).
As part of the Purchase Agreement between EPNI and Minneapolis in 2023, Mayor Frey required full repayment of $15.9 million spent on the failed Hiawatha Expansion Project before he would sell the Roof Depot to EPNI. The DFL-led legislature appropriated $6.5 million in the 2023 session, and EPNI raised $3.7 million towards the purchase in November 2023, a total of $10.2 million raised in 2023. The State promised the final $5.7 million in the 2024 session When that failed, they promised it again in the 2025 session, which failed again this June.
In 2024, Sunrise Banks, one of the lenders working with EPNI, contracted an appraisal of the building, and Valbridge Property Advisors assessed the fair market value of the Roof Depot as $3.76 million. EPNI shared this appraisal with the City. Now Mayor Frey has the option to sell the long-contested building to EPNI despite the loss of State funding, or continue to bully the full $15.9 million from the East Phillips community, even though he knows he’s asking more than four times the fair market price.
EPNI met with Minneapolis representatives on June 27, 2025, and offered the City the $10.2 million which EPNI already secured for the purchase of the Roof Depot. As of writing this article on July 21, EPNI still hasn’t heard back from Mayor Frey. The Closing Date for the Roof Depot is September 15, 2025, and without a path forward the hard work of East Phillips neighbors and allies could dissolve with the cancellation of the Purchase Agreement for the Roof Depot.
The EPNI indoor urban farm vision is to expand the food giveaways that are already occurring by growing almost a million pounds of deeply affordable food annually, powering hundreds of local homes with affordable renewable energy, and supporting small-businesses operations with affordable spaces.
The EPNI Urban Farm project was dreamt in 2015 by East Phillips community leaders, and the vision hasn’t changed in 10 years; it is a promise for a culturally vibrant, climate resilient, prosperous, and self-determined future in East Phillips, a population that has experienced environmental racism and discrimination for over 100 years.
After a 10-year struggle for control over the Roof Depot site, the vision in the East Phillips neighborhood is in danger. After the State Legislature failed to pass the bonding bill in 2025, Mayor Frey has provided EPNI no path forward to finalize the purchase of the Roof Depot building.