The garage doors are still there. Full height, facing Laverne Avenue, built wide enough for a fire truck to clear in a hurry. By late this year or early next, they'll roll up for a different kind of rush: the Friday fish fry crowd at Tap & Ladder, a roughly 150-seat self-pour taphouse rising out of Lake Elmo's decommissioned fire station.
A quarter mile away, at the corner of Laverne and Upper 33rd, the old Parks Department building is getting its own second act as a satellite location of Machete Cocina Mexicana, the Woodbury restaurant known for its handmade tortillas and its 21-inch "Quesadillota." Two municipal buildings, sitting empty for years in the part of town locals call the Old Village, are about to become the kind of places where you actually run into your neighbors. That's not a coincidence. It's the direct result of a public process that started with a city-commissioned study asking residents what they wanted there in the first place.
What the Village Area Study Actually Asked For
In 2024, Lake Elmo conducted a Village Area Study to figure out what to do with its aging Old Village core. According to Jason Stopa, the city's Community Development Director, the answer that kept coming back was straightforward: people wanted "a restaurant, retail space, or a place where residents can meet." Not a specific brand, not a chain, just a gathering spot within walking distance of Lions Park.
The city turned that feedback into an actual real estate transaction. On June 17, 2025, Lake Elmo issued a Request for Proposals for the former fire station and parks building. Nine development teams responded. Three were named finalists. The Economic Development Authority's RFP committee reviewed all three and recommended one team to the full City Council: Brian Heidt and Amanda Urban, working in partnership with Julian Ocampo, the owner behind Machete Cocina Mexicana. The council's vote wasn't close. It passed 10-0.
That kind of unanimity on a development deal is worth sitting with for a second. Nine competing proposals is a real field, and a clean sweep suggests the winning concept read as the version residents had actually described in the study, not just the most polished pitch. Heidt put it simply when Woodbury News Net covered the announcement: the projects are "for Lake Elmo, by Lake Elmo."
Two Buildings, Two New Tenants
The fire station conversion is the more architecturally interesting of the two. City documents describe a self-pour taphouse with a 28-tap wall, an approachable menu of burgers, brats and a Friday fish fry, and flexible indoor seating alongside a dedicated children's play zone with a rock climbing wall. The full-view garage doors that used to open for emergency calls will open onto a patio instead, and the building will keep heritage displays honoring Lake Elmo's fire service and local veterans. Heidt has also said the ownership team plans to partner with the Patriotic Kenny Foundation on charitable gaming events like on-site bingo, which gives the space an ongoing civic function beyond just serving beer.
The parks building next door becomes Machete's second Twin Cities location, with a patio overlooking Lions Park. It's the same menu and the same craft cocktail and margarita program as the original Woodbury spot, just with a different view.
As of this spring, the property mechanics were still being worked out. A minor subdivision cleaning up the site's old parcel lines, consolidating nine separate parcels into two, was approved by the City Council on March 3, 2026. Phase II environmental testing was underway at that point, and the development team and city were still negotiating a formal purchase and development agreement. Tap & Ladder's own website now says construction is underway, which tracks with a spring agreement clearing the way for a build-out through the summer. Coverage from earlier in the process pointed to a late 2026 or early 2027 opening, and nothing since has moved that window earlier or later.
A Centennial Year That Isn't Finished Yet
The redevelopment lands in the middle of a milestone most residents have already been marking all year. Lake Elmo Township was established in December 1925, which makes 2025 through 2026 its hundredth year, and the city built an entire calendar around it. The centerpiece was a Centennial Street Dance at Lions Park on September 13, 2025, with a flyover from the Commemorative Air Force of South St. Paul, remarks from Mayor Charles Cadenhead alongside several former mayors, and fireworks closing out the night. Cadenhead's framing at the time was less about nostalgia and more about direction: "As we honor the past, let's commit to building a future that reflects the same spirit that has defined us for a century."
The anniversary got outside recognition too. Congresswoman Betty McCollum used floor time on September 18 to mark the occasion, telling colleagues that Lake Elmo "has played a special role in Minnesota as a place of historic significance and great natural beauty."
The original 2025 celebration month didn't stop at one street dance. The city's own recap lists a community picnic at Lake Elmo Bank, an ice cream social at Gorman's, a movie night, a music fest, the Fire Department's open house and a Pioneer Day at the Sally Manzara Interpretive Nature Center, all folded into that September. Rather than let the milestone end there, the city turned the street dance itself into an annual fixture, billing this year's Lake Elmo City Celebration at Lions Park on September 12, 2026, as the start of "this new Lake Elmo tradition." A few pieces of that fall calendar are still ahead as of this week:
- Lake Elmo Fire Department Open House, Monday, September 28, with station tours, live demonstrations and fire safety activities for families.
- Washington County's input process on the planned Middle St. Croix Valley to Phalen Regional Trail, still gathering resident feedback as design work continues.
- Continued construction progress at the fire station and parks building site, visible to anyone walking or driving through the Old Village this fall.
Put next to each other, the fire department's own open house and the fire station's conversion into a restaurant tell a version of the same story. The building stops being a place trucks leave from and becomes a place people walk into, but the city made sure the firefighting history stays visible inside it rather than getting renovated away.
A block over, the Old Village's hospitality scene picked up another new address this year. The former Holiday Inn & Suites reopened in July 2026 as Ironwood Lodge, a boutique property under Heart of America Group, giving out-of-town visitors a reason to stay closer to Lions Park instead of driving in from the highway. None of this required tearing anything down. The fire station, the parks building and the old hotel all kept their bones and just changed jobs.
That's the part of this story that's easy to miss if you only catch the restaurant headlines. Lake Elmo didn't solve its "we need a gathering place" problem by building something new from scratch. It answered a resident survey by repurposing two buildings the city already owned, ran the decision through a competitive process with real oversight, and landed on a result the council backed unanimously. The centennial gave the year its ceremony. The fire station gave it its clearest, most literal symbol: a building built for emergencies, about to spend its next hundred years hosting Friday night dinners instead.
Watching the Old Village take shape building by building is one of the better ways to understand where Lake Elmo is headed next, and it's the kind of thing worth keeping an eye on if you're already part of this community. If you ever want to talk through what a specific corner of Lake Elmo is doing to its property values, or just compare notes on the fish fry once Tap & Ladder opens its doors, Karin Rice-Duncanson is easy to reach. Let's Connect.
