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610 SW Alder Street, Suite 1200, Portland, Oregon 97205 | 503.222.1600 <br />Elk River Downtown <br />Recommendations & Implementation Strategies <br />Case Studies <br />Downtown Stillwater – Stillwater, MN <br />Categories: Hotel, riverfront revitalization, placemaking <br />Major Outcomes: New construction, including multiple hotels, spurred by the creation of a new bridge and conversion <br />of the old bridge into part of a pedestrian and bike network. <br />Description: <br />Stillwater is a small tourism-driven town in the bluff country of eastern Minnesota. Prior to the closure of the 87-year- <br />old lift bridge in 2017, 18,000 cars crossed the aging bridge daily, bringing visitors to the city’s shopping and dining <br />establishments downtown. The bridge closure came on the heels of the opening of the St. Croix Crossing south of <br />downtown. In 2018, two new hotels opened in downtown Stillwater and a third hotel broke ground on an expansion. <br />The new hotels include Hotel Crosby (55 rooms) and the Lora hotel (40 rooms). <br />In addition to new hotel construction, owners of retail stores downtown embarked on façade improvements of 19 th <br />century buildings and in 2019 Wolf Development broke ground on the adaptive reuse of the town’s historic armory, <br />which was converted into apartments and commercial space (Fieldhouse 34). These investments reflected the strong <br />economic climate as well as the increased ease of pedestrian access to downtown due to the bridge closure. <br />Figure 1. Stillwater’s Historic Lift Bridge, Now Part of St. Croix Crossing Loop Trail <br /> <br />Source: Twin Cities Outdoors. <br />APPENDIX B <br />Page 147 of 157