The grand opening for the new Timber Ridge development in Cannon Falls will be Thursday, Nov. 28, with an open house on Saturday, Nov. 30, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. to show the Phase 1 single family, villa and estate lots. It is being put on by the developer, Endres Cannon Falls, LLC, and Lisa Lundell of Cannon Realty, and will take place at 6701 Ridgeview Drive (the completed spec home).
Timber Ridge is the combination of the old Sandstone Ridge development and property that was already owned by Endres Cannon Falls, LLC, south of Sandstone Ridge. The development is off County 25 Boulevard south with access from County 25 Blvd.
Leon Endres grew up near Hampton and spent a lot of time in Cannon Falls. He went on to work in business and site development and as a result has extensive experience building not only housing throughout Minnesota, but also industrial, commercial and entertainment developments. He and his partners in Endres Cannon Falls bought 47 acres of farmland in 2016 that was adjacent to Sandstone Ridge and both properties have since been combined into Timber Ridge.
“I wanted to invest locally in Cannon Falls by using my experience in developing high-end
projects throughout the United States,” said Endres. “Cannon Falls deserves a high end development that can grow with the community, we want this to be a neighborhood that we can be proud of.”
It is a promising potential start for the old Sandstone Ridge development which has been a continuous question for the City of Cannon Falls since the 2000s and has changed plans multiple times. When construction first began at the site back then, infrastructure such as roads, water, sewer, etc were put in but there were problems with the construction partially due to the soil composition and caused the roads to buckle plus other damage. Since then the property has changed hands multiple times as different entities deemed it too expensive to fix the issues and continue with the development.
Endres said his engineers and consultants explained that the natural soil in the area consists of Decorah Shale over Platteville Limestone. The shale is structurally sound but becomes harder to manage when it is moved or gains too much moisture. Endres said that it looked like not enough care was taken to take those factors into account when backfilling the original infrastructure, which helped cause the damage. This time, the layout of Timber Ridge was designed to take advantage of the natural topography and “roll with the land.”
“In addition to planning the neighborhood with minimal mass grading activities, additional home building
techniques to secure a sound foundation will be applied,” he said. “These techniques include a sand base for all footings, backfilling with sand and daylight or gravity drain tiles for the foundations.”
Endres also said that soil investigations will be conducted for the eight lots already built in the cul-de-sac in the northeast corner and each lot has its own soil correction plan.
In August of 2023, Endres Cannon Falls, LLC, purchased Sandstone Ridge from the City for $1 and removed/corrected the old curbing and Sandstone Road. The development plans include 71 single-family lots of varying sizes and styles, a future multifamily site, a city park and a wooded city park with trails. The single-family lots will include slab-on-grade for villa homes; traditional lots for first-time homebuyers; larger lots with deeper backyards that can have larger accessory buildings; and a handful of large estate lots on the southeastern portion of the development of what was the original Endres property.
“Our vision is to create high-quality single family home sites with ample space for outdoor activities and building pads for accessory buildings for workshops, art studios, workout rooms, storage (especially for recreational vehicles) or any other creative use,” Endres said. “We are also working on a multifamily site to develop luxurious apartments with amenities like workout facilities, a club house and pool if the community supports it. Our intention is to have these amenities available for our entire community.”
The phase 1 lots available are the eight lots in the cul-de-sac, seven villa lots near the center of the development and the four estate lots in the southeast of the development. An additional 20 single-family phase 2 lots are available to be reserved.
