Tornado warning doesn’t stop Coon Rapids open house
by Peter Bodley
Managing Editor
Not even tornado warnings, thunder and lightning or torrential rain early Sunday afternoon could keep people away from the latest open houses for two homes that are being remodeled for the city of Coon Rapids’ Home for Generations.
The completed exterior of the remodeled Home for Generations house at 10911 Dogwood St. N.W., with its new front entryway, siding and landscaping by the house. Photo by Peter Bodley
Two homes that were vacant and foreclosed when purchased by the Coon Rapids Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) for remodeling and eventual sale were on display May 22.
The house at 10911 Dogwood St. N.W. had been completely remodeled, while the property at 537 109th Ave. N.W. was still in progress.
That’s because the house was sold during the remodeling and the new owner wanted an 8- by 28-foot, one-story addition constructed the entire length of the rear of the house, work that was not part of the original remodeling package.
According to Michael Hunstad, Counselor Realty, the realtor that the HRA retained to market and sell the property, the remodeling had to be put on hold because plans for the addition had to be prepared, permits pulled and the supplies brought in.
Engineering for the trusses also had to take place, Hunstad said.
Lennox Builders, the company hired by the HRA to remodel the home, has started work on the addition and that and the interior remodeling will be completed by the end of June, he said.
The story-and-a-half home has had dormers and a covered front porch added with interior layout changes to be finished with the use of sustainable remodeling methods and products.
The new owner, Michelle Weber of Andover, will be closing on the property July 1, Hunstad said.
There were 109 people that stopped by the house during the open house and at the time of the heart of the storm, there were 15 to 20 people in the home seemingly unfazed, he said.
The same was true of the Dogwood Street home on which remodeling work by Dercon Construction has all but been completed.
According to Kristin DeGrande, Coon Rapids neighborhood coordinator, the storm did not seem to bother people as they went through the house.
She counted 160 people that took a tour of the house Sunday, DeGrande said.
The split-level home has a new front entry way addition as well as reconfigured living space, including a new kitchen and open floor plan.
“People have raved about the entryway,” DeGrande said.
There is new siding on the outside of the home and new landscaping up by the house.
“The remodeling has made a great difference to the home and people like what they see,” DeGrande said.
One of the visitors was Mary Ann Rasmussen, a Coon Rapids resident, who was looking for ideas for remodeling her own home, specifically her bathroom.
“I like what they have done to the house,” Rasmussen said.
In fact, she said she was more impressed by the work done on the Dogwood Street home than at the property on Crooked Lake Boulevard, which she visited when the open house took place last year.
“It is very tasteful and better quality,” Rasmussen said. “I also like the earth tone colors in the new carpeting.”
According to Dean Marquette, owner of Dercon Construction, who worked on the house himself the entire project, he had been too busy to notice the end product until he arrived for the open house Sunday.
“I was shocked,” Marquette said. “I did not realize how good it looked before.”
About the only work left to be done on the house is to install a large gutter and complete the shelving in the closets, DeGrande said.
While the HRA will now start to market the home for sale in an effort to recoup its costs through a series of other open houses in June, the Home for Generations program is also targeted at people who are looking to remodel and modernize their own homes at an affordable cost, she said.
“It’s a great program,” said Darbi Comparetto, Re/Max Advantage Plus, the realtor hired by the HRA to sell the Dogwood Street home.
There will also be a series of open houses in June – Sundays, June 5, 12, 19 and 26, noon to 2 p.m., and Wednesdays, June 8, 15 and 22, 4 to 6 p.m.
The 1962 split-level home on Dogwood, which had been vacant since June 2010, was purchased for $100,000 and has a $55,000 remodeling budget.
The Orrin Thompson 1.5-story home on 109th Avenue was built in 1959 and purchased by the HRA for $93,664.
The original remodeling budget for this home was $45,000, but the extra work for the new owner has added $12,500 to the cost, DeGrande said.
The purchase agreement has a sale price of $160,025.
The 109th and Dogwood homes were the third and fourth homes acquired by the HRA for the program.
A fifth home, an Orrin Thompson rambler at 11635 Xavis St. N.W. in the Thompson Heights neighborhood just west of Coon Rapids High School, was purchased by the HRA earlier this year for the Home for Generations program.
But remodeling on that home won’t start until either late this year or early in 2012.
The first home purchased through the Home for Generations program was a 1950s rambler on the 11600 block of Juniper Street N.W. The remodeled home was sold in the summer of 2009.
Remodeling work on the second home, a 1970s split-level on the 12900 block of Crooked Lake Boulevard, was completed last summer and the house was put on the market in August 2010.
The house has not yet been sold, but there has been interest shown lately by three potential buyers, according to DeGrande.
Peter Bodley is at peter.bodley@ecm-inc.com
