Former Mr. Muffler building to be demolished as part of city’s Riverfront Redevelopment Plan

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – A site sale in downtown Rochester is leading toward a major step forward in the Riverfront redevelopment project.

Wednesday, city and county leaders celebrated the sale of the former Mr. Muffler site.

It’s located across from the Government Center on 3rd Avenue.

For the past forty years, the city and county have co-owned the building. The county used it for its facilities department to fix road signs and other maintenance.

To make up for this loss, the county is expanding its Human Services building for its facilities department.

Eventually, the building will be demolished and will be the start of the east side of the Riverfront Plan. Destination Medical Center helped make this acquisition happen.

”The transformation of a city takes places one block at a time. As we’re sitting here today, we see a building that’s long been used as a storage facility. We see surface parking along the river. We realize there are better things we can do with these properties,” DMC executive director Patrick Seeb said.

The budget for the entire Riverfront plan is nearly $200,000. No word on when the building will be demolished.

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