Developer drops $230 million Rochester tower project.

Byline: William Morris

The apparent demise of a $230 million development project in downtown Rochester did not draw an outpouring of grief from the board of the city's Destination Medical Center Corp.

The corporation, which is overseeing the $5.5 billion build-out of downtown centered on the Mayo Clinic, has been working for four years with United Arab Emirates-basedBloom International Realtyon the project. Bloom had envisioned two towers offering 180 hotel rooms, 215 senior apartments and 130 condominiums as well as 43,500 square feet of retail space and a 498-unit parking garage, all on 2.5 acres on the west bank of the Zumbro River, two blocks east of Mayo's downtown campus.

The project is one of the largest yet proposed in the Destination Medical Center redevelopment district and had been touted as a sign of the project's success. But now the developer appears to have abandoned the project, at least for the time being.

At a Destination Medical Center Corp. board meeting Tuesday, Director of Economic Development and Placemaking Patrick Seeb said Bloom had proposed rethinking the hotel and condominiums planned in one of the towers, which city and corporation staff felt would require new approvals from both entities.

Instead, Bloom appears to have withdrawn from its purchase agreement for the property, which had a deadline of Tuesday to close the sale, City Administrator Steve Rymer told the board.

"Right now, unfortunately, after a significant time investment by all of you, the City Council, our team, the Bloom project at this time is not moving forward," Rymer said. "We've not heard anything from them as we anticipated to hear."

The response from board members was summed up by Chair R.T. Rybak, a former Minneapolis mayor: "Too bad, so sad. Let's go do something better."

"As someone who was a big champion of this project, I am absolutely supportive of us not waiting any more for this developer," he said, noting the land is a prime redevelopment opportunity and currently owned by the city. "Let's not negotiate on our knees, because we're in much better shape than we were when this project kicked off."

The project had previously been...