Location: City of Lake Elmo
Washington County, Minnesota
Year: 2004 Completed
Developer: Bob Engstrom, Robert Engstrom Companies
Planner/Designer: Jack Buxell, J Buxell Architecture
Development Size: 241 acres
Number of Units: 125 (113 single family detached; 12 single family attached)
Open Space: 144 acres (60%) Ag accounts for 32%
Fields of St. Croix case study document
The Fields of St. Croix, a conservation development, was built between 1997 and 2004. It is located 30 miles northeast of St. Paul, Minnesota and resides between the Lake Elmo Village Center and the City of Stillwater. This development was one of the first large scale cluster housing communities to be permitted and built in Minnesota.
The 241 acre parcel was originally 3 separate farms. The City of Lake Elmo and Bob Engstrom, the developer, worked together to achieve conservation goals, and the city revised its comprehensive plan to encourage conservation development because of this project. Of the 241 acres of the site, 144 acres or 60% of the land was saved for permanent open space protection. A conservation easement granted to the Minnesota Land Trust guarantees its permanent protection.
In the first phase of The Fields of St. Croix the City allowed much smaller lots. In the second the smaller lot size was not permitted, therefore the character of The Fields, and other conservation developments built under the ordinance, is visually not unlike conventional developments in the area.