Lowry Grove Mobile Home Park residents recently received a letter from park owner Phil Johnson, announcing the impending sale of the park.
“It was a very difficult decision to make because I know it will lead to the closure of the park in the near future,” he wrote.
The 15-acre park is located in St. Anthony Village, north of Lowry Avenue and east of Kenzie Terrace. Lowry Grove is comprised of 95 mobile homes and an RV (recreational vehicles) park. Mobile home residents own their units and rent the land beneath them. RV owners pay a monthly rental fee.
Continental Property Group is the prospective buyer. Traci Tomas, Continental’s president, said she met with Lowry Grove residents on May 9 to discuss aspects of the sale. Continental intends to buy the property on June 13 and will issue a Closure Notice to residents soon after, as required by state statute.
“It will be sent out about June 15,” Tomas said. “We need to give residents a nine-month notice to move out. This [time frame] is related directly to the leases they have.”
Some residents say they were shocked and blindsided by the sale notice. They point out that they have the right of first refusal. If they can raise the asking price, $6 million, by June 11, they plan to buy the land and run the park as a co-op. Northcountry Cooperative Foundation, a non-profit organization, has pledged to lend them $3 million, but they need to raise another $3 million.
Antonia Alvarez and Bill McConnell are co-founders of a newly formed residents’ group, the Lowry Grove Assembly. McConnell, who has lived in the park for 30 years, is the group’s president. Alvarez and her children have lived there 10 years. She has been writing fundraising letters explaining the situation.
“We are a humble community, made up of immigrant families, seniors on fixed incomes, and working poor,” she wrote. “If the sale goes through, we stand to lose everything.”
Johnson belongs to a partnership group, Lowry Grove, LLP, that has owned the park for more than 20 years. The park itself dates back to the 1930s. Johnson said the infrastructure, including the roads, water lines and sewer lines, is in very bad shape. Many of the mobile homes are old, small, and need substantial work. Some were built in the 1950s.
“Lowry Grove has an excellent location,” Johnson said. “The land is valuable, and its highest and best use is for something different. For this particular property, its time has come.”
(For more details on the past and present of Lowry Grove, see the story on page 4 in this issue of the Northeaster.)