Latino developer has big plans for four razed lots near former Third Precinct in Minneapolis

For years, the three-story building on Lake Street in Minneapolis just east of Minnehaha Avenue bustled with energy.

Town Talk Diner drew an early-morning crowd. Spanish-language Radio Rey hosted a stream of guests. At night, El Nuevo Rodeo pulsed with regional Mexican, salsa and Latin pop.

“There was a lot of power in that building. When you walked in, you felt something; there really was a whole vibe,” said Maya Santamaria, who owned the nightclub and Radio Rey, among other businesses in the Odd Fellows building.

The murder of George Floyd by officers from the nearby Third Precinct station in 2020 unleashed a wave of unrest that destroyed the entire block. For the last five years, the stretch of 27th Avenue just off Lake Street has been a grassy lot.

But plans to redevelop the block are moving forward. Colombian-born entrepreneur Wilmar Delgado recently purchased a fourth lot on 27th Avenue, where he plans a seven-story project with 100 housing units and ground-floor retail.

The final piece of the project clicked into place when nearby Holy Trinity Lutheran Church announced the sale on Facebook of the lot at 3017 27th Av. S.

Delgado, 50, is buying the property with help from the city of Minneapolis and investors, but the cost is still undetermined. He’s lived in Minnesota for more than 25 years and is stepping into the role of developer for the first time.

The recently acquired lot used to have a building owned by Migizi, an Indigenous youth-empowerment organization, but the building was damaged in a fire during the unrest and later demolished.

In May 2021, Holy Trinity agreed to buy the lot as part of the church’s Stepping Out in Faith initiative.

Ingrid Rasmussen, the church’s pastor, said she was outside with members of the congregation in the early days of the civil unrest when Brian Dragonfly, an employee from Migizi, came by to notify them the building was on fire.

“He brought this lantern and asked if the congregation would tend the fire that had burned their building down until they could rebuild Migizi in a new location,” Rasmussen said.

The congregation cared for the fire in the lantern for more than three years before it was ceremonially extinguished in 2023 during the ceremony to open Migizi’s new building, less than a mile west on Lake Street.

Holy Trinity protected the property from outside developer interests. Rasmussen said the goal was to find a developer of color with community ties.

Delgado purchased the lot from Holy Trinity for about $175,000, the same price it was sold for in 2021, Rasmussen said.

Delgado owns a home health company called Life Fountain but said he became interested in property development after seeing news coverage of the unrest.

“Everything looked like a bomb was hitting Lake Street; it was heartbreaking,” he said.

Delgado also secured a neighboring plot that used to house El Nuevo Rodeo, for $900,000, according to Hennepin County documents, and another parcel that was formerly the Gandhi Mahal Restaurant for an undisclosed fee.

He also owns the parcel at 3013 27th Av. S., giving him four contiguous lots. Delgado said when he first looked at the area, the lots had three different owners with their own redevelopment plans. His current project “fell together piece by piece.”

The focus of Delgado’s plans have always centered on the 2700 block of E. Lake Street. Since 2003, Santamaria housed her businesses there at 27 Event Center, home to El Nuevo Rodeo, a restaurant and nightclub, a Spanish-language television and radio station and other businesses.

El Nuevo Rodeo was Minnesota’s largest Latino concert venue, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. It was during those years that Santamaria met both Floyd and Derek Chauvin, the officer found guilty of his death. The two worked security for her.

In January 2020, she sold the building to Adenal Investment of Woodbury for $2.8 million, five months before the unrest that led to its destruction. She moved her radio station to Richfield.

Delgado said his development will be called Viva and will have low-income and market-rate units. He is working with Redesign, a nonprofit community developer.

The city has also been helping, along with entities like the Lake Street Council and the county. Delgado said much of the support hasn’t been financial but rather technical assistance or networking related.

The city awarded him 150 hours of pre-development help through a program that offers free classes, workshops and advice for emerging real estate developers. In 2023, Delgado received a $150,000 pre-development grant from the city for his project, then called “Rodeo Plaza.”

Last fall, the project received a $450,000 grant from the county. At that time, before Delgado had purchased all four lots, plans called for 46 housing units and 6,300 square feet of retail. That iteration was expected to cost $29.7 million.

Delgado said a groundbreaking is expected in 2028 at the earliest. For the next two to three years, the land will be used as a soccer field.

About the partnership

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.