How plans for Pine Meadows unraveled and what could the future bring: Signs point to a better economic outlook

From manufacturing company expansions, to construction of office buildings and renovations of established business, 2014 may be the year the economic recovery picked up steam in the lakes area.

Three office buildings are in construction in Baxter at Fairview Office Park and along Isle Drive. Apartment buildings continue to go up in the Baxter. Companies, like Cross-Tech in Crosslake, overcame additional challenges surviving a winter fire. New restaurants either opened their doors or renovated existing eateries. Entrepreneurs and home-based businesses may surprise by their sheer numbers. And lakes area mainstays in the resort industry continue to be a draw bringing people to the region.

Hiring signs are commonplace throughout the lakes area. Manufacturers report challenges in finding workers to fill openings.

After years when describing the Great Recession's recovery as difficult seemed a serious understatement, companies report expansions across industries. This month, even long-vacant buildings such as the former Westside Cafe and gas station in Brainerd is now the subject of a demolition permit for a new venture. That isn't to say challenges are all in the rearview mirror. The demolition plans for the former Wausau Paper after decades of papermaking in Brainerd, came after many avenues were explored to keep the plant viable into the future.

Late last year, Good Samaritan Society announced it planned to purchase the former Pine Meadows Golf Course in Baxter and build a campus there. Community members were asked to participate through an online vision survey regarding future development.

"We are excited to become the guardians of this great piece of land and are now looking to understand what the community wants," Deuth said in a statement.

But things could have been very different.

The Pine Meadows Golf Course in Baxter opened in 1920. In the last four years of its life, the ownership lost about $450,000. In 2004, Pine Meadows closed and was listed for sale. The Brainerd lakes area had been booming. Expectations were for significant population increases.

A group of six investors bought the former golf course for $5 million. Craig Fink, principal at Denali Energy, was a partner in the venture and its leading spokesman. Fink moved to the lakes area from the Twin Cities to get into real estate development. When the 80-acre golf course was brought to his attention as a potential development site, Fink saw the opportunity for a mini Shoppes at Arbor Lakes development, referring to the landscaped commercial and residential district in downtown Maple Grove. He said the state demographer was predicting the Brainerd lakes area would double in population in 2020.

Instead of sprawling development north on Highway 371, the Denali Group envisioned a Baxter Town Center with higher density housing, office and retail. The project was described as one with an emphasis on green space, where people could live and work and play.

The Paul Bunyan State Trail bordered the property. It was just blocks from Highway 371 and 210. Fink said it took the city of Baxter a while but it eventually generally supported the project. A gathering at the site included developers and city officials with architectural drawings of what could be there. Fink recalled a city leader saying the former golf course was the only piece of property large enough and in the right place to create a downtown for Baxter and a sense of community.

"I thought this was a way to tie things together," Fink said of the plan. They put together a team of architects and planners and began moving through the approval process to rezone the land and develop it. As developers, Fink said Denali paid for 95 percent of the cost to construct Cypress Drive, a road planned as part of the city of Baxter's transportation plan to link Highland Scenic Drive and Woida Road since the 1970s.

It's bittersweet for Fink, who invested his time, energy and finances to the project, to think of how such high hopes and serious planning for a town center ended. Almost immediately after they purchased the property, Fink said the city of Baxter put a six-month moratorium in place for planned unit developments.

"Everything took a lot longer than we ever anticipated," Fink said. "I do run into people on the street that say that's what we need - but it's in the past."

Because the property wasn't directly on Highway 371, Fink said the project needed a big-box retail store to bring traffic to it. And in July of 2007, he said they achieved a household name. It's not a name he wants to drop now, seven years after things fell apart. A purchase agreement with the household-name retailer was expected to take 10 to 14 days. It was the domino needed to put the project into motion. It was a done deal. The Denali Group already had letters of intent from a host of name retailers who were ready to move once a big box was part of the mix. Those retailers included Bed, Bath and Beyond, Michaels Crafts, Petco and Granite City Brewery. In addition there were other interested housing developers and builders. And even talks with Red Lobster.

What was expected to take two weeks to finalize in the summer of 2007, took two months. Before the letter of intent could be executed with the lawyers, the market collapsed. Fink said had the agreement been executed, he thinks the project could have survived. Instead, the retailer canceled its agreement with Denali.

"It was the beginning of the end," Fink said. They hung on as long as they could, hoping the market would recover. It never happened. It's hard to say if the development would have been far enough along to continue or if the recession would have been so long and deep, it wouldn't have survived. It's the kind of question that can cut into one's sleep.

"It hasn't always been easy," Fink said. "There have been lean years. You go where the opportunities are. That's what we are doing."

That summer of 2007, Fink said he thought his ship had come in and he'd have a mixed use, landscaped development for the next generation, including his own children. Instead everyone pulled back from building plans as the Great Recession took hold.

"If we would have been soon enough to be ahead of the fallout? It's hard to speculate," Fink said. "Collectively we kept it together as long as we could."

Finally, they had to cut their losses and move forward. It wasn't easy.

"I still believe in the general concept," Fink said. "I wholeheartedly think we were doing the right thing."

The plan to develop office space and a retail shopping destination in a development that catered to pedestrians ended before it could begin.

Now Fink is out of the real estate market locally. Denali transitioned to energy with a wind farm, solar and biomass energy. Fink said the country hasn't had an energy policy for 40 years, which is shortsighted both by Washington D.C. and Wall Street. Oil and coal have gotten 10 times the subsidies as renewable energy, he said.

Fink described work on the biomass side as taking waste and utilizing technology to take something no one wants and give it market value. Keeping waste product out of landfills and utilizing a local sustainable resource for energy just makes sense, he said.

Denali Energy also works with transload facilities, where frac sand in Wisconsin is transported from truck to rail to meet the high demand in the North Dakota and Texas oil fields.

He said in the aftermath of the Baxter Town Center, he dug a little deeper and kept the faith.

"When you are down, you have to get back up," Fink said. "The only way to lose is to stay down. It was a failure for circumstances beyond our control."

At times, it seems as if it was only yesterday, Fink said. He said it's the kind of venture that means having a healthy mourning time, gaining support from family and faith and then putting it behind you. There isn't a magic answer, he said, instead it involves prayers and staying positive.

"I do hope someone does something special with it because it's a great piece of property," he said of the former golf course.