Finance & Commerce

June 23, 2005

By Brian Johnson

The red brick buildings that once housed the Martha Ripley Maternity Hospital in north Minneapolis are steeped in local history, but at least five years of inactivity and neglect have left the 1915-era structures in a state of disrepair.

Vacant since 2000, the 44,000-square-foot hospital and two small support buildings were last used as a nursing home after the hospital closed in 1956. The buildings, which are on the National Register of Historic Places, have myriad problems ranging from leaky roofs to asbestos issues, giving pause to developers who might want to reuse the structures.

But with Ripley's history as one of the first U.S. hospitals to be run and owned by women - not to mention its sturdy concrete floors and walls - it was "sort of a no-brainer that it needed to be preserved," said Gina Ciganik, project manager for the Central Community Housing Trust.

CCHT, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit housing developer, acquired the former hospital at the corner of Penn and Glenwood avenues in 2001 after learning from a neighborhood contact that it was for sale.

This week, CCHT broke ground on a $15 million renovation project that will turn the historic structures into housing. New construction is also planned for a project that will add 52 rental and eight ownership units to one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Touted as the first quality housing investment in the Harrison neighborhood in decades, the development will include a mix of affordable and market rate units.

"It's in a very challenging neighborhood that has struggled with a lot of disinvestment in the homes," Ciganik said. "We see this as a great investment of capital into that Minneapolis neighborhood that will help be a catalyst along Glenwood Avenue and add to the tax base."

The main hospital, built in 1913, will be renovated to accommodate 16 rental apartments. The other buildings - a Tudor house that served as a residence for nursing staff and a former intensive care unit for newborn babies - will be preserved for a total of four housing units.

New construction will add another 32 rental homes to the development, known as "Ripley Gardens."

The project is named after Dr. Martha Ripley, an innovator in medicine and one of the nation's first female doctors. She founded the Ripley Maternity Hospital in 1886, operating in a building that no longer exists.

Ripley didn't live long enough to see the existing hospital; she died of a respiratory infection in 1912. Her ashes were placed in a cornerstone of the main structure, and a bronze plaque in her honor is on display at the state Capitol rotunda.

An outspoken reformer who was active in the women's suffrage movement, Ripley is credited with founding a hospital that was ahead of its time. It was open to people of all faiths, races and financial means, without regard to marital status, and it had an infant mortality rate that was about 25 percent of the national average at the time.

"It was run by women at a time when there were very few women who were physicians," CCHT spokesperson Nancy Doyle Brown said. "Wealthy women would seek out her services, even though it was originally founded to serve anybody."

Back in Ripley's day, Ciganik noted, there was a need for quality medical care for poor, unwed mothers.

"Today, the crisis is affordable housing," she added. "We're creating opportunities, whether you're poor or rich or want to buy or rent a home. We see it as carrying on her vision" of being inclusive and socially conscious.

CCHT is $1 million short of its $15 million fundraising goal for the project. Funding includes a $500,000 environmental grant from Hennepin County, close to $1 million in TIF financing, and $1.4 million in affordable housing money from the city of Minneapolis, along with other public and private sources.

One of the project's key supporters is the Ripley Memorial Foundation, which was put together when the hospital closed in 1956.

"Its mission is focused on preventing teen pregnancy, but its board voted to put a task force together to raise money for this effort," Ciganik said.

The project also received a $60,000 grant from the Restore America program, a historic preservation initiative of Home & Garden Television (HGTV) and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Twelve projects were selected for Restore America grants this year, including the Pacific Electric Building in Los Angeles (the city's first skyscraper), the Argenta Drug Store in North Little Rock, Ark., (the oldest continuously operating drug store west of the Mississippi) and Pilots' Row in San Francisco (former headquarters for the World War I-era Coastal Artillery Corps).

At the Tuesday groundbreaking for the Ripley Gardens, HGTV cameras were rolling to tape a public service announcement for Restore America. The project is expected to be featured on the channel later this year.

"That's a big deal, because it's national exposure for us, and national exposure for this type of project," Brown said.

CCHT plans to do environmental remediation over the next month, and construction could begin this fall in anticipation of a fall 2006 debut.

Construction will emphasize "green" building concepts, including onsite rain gardens to deal with stormwater issues, energy efficient building systems, and a green roof on one of the newly constructed buildings.

The construction team includes LHB Architects (project architect) and Watson Forsberg (general contractor).