Housing serves as an engine for economic growth

BY RENEE RICHARDSON Brainerd Dispatch

BRAINERD — Brainerd, Baxter and Crow Wing County are expected to continue to add residents — both retirees and those looking to work remotely.

For economic growth for existing businesses, housing is also a key factor.

With jobs available here, where will workers live?

Municipalities are tasked with looking at population needs, current and future, and determining how to meet those needs without losing the very things that draw people here — woods, lakes, amenities.

Unlike its next-door neighbor Brainerd, first established in 1881 with the expansion of the railroad to the West, Baxter’s growth into a significant retail center began more recently. Baxter was incorporated in the spring of 1939. The city had steep growth from 1970, when the population was less than 2,000 people, to present day. In 2022, Baxter’s population was listed at 9,030 in 3,594 households by the state demographer. Baxter compiles its own projections looking at the Census data and also its own building permit data. The city expects the total housing units to be close to 4,000 by the end of this year. Baxter also lists its estimated population at 9,341 for the end of 2024, although the demographer’s numbers are used as an official count.

“Baxter is expected to continue growing significantly for the next twenty-plus years,” a demographics report to the Baxter Planning and Zoning Commission noted in October of last year. “Crow Wing County is

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“Brainerd is due to increase less than 8% to about 14,613 population, whereas Baxter with all of its available land, is due to inherit much of Crow Wing County’s increased population, growing by 68% to 12,814, approaching Brainerd’s size.”

Baxter has a considerable number of options for housing development within the city. Last fall, city staff estimated there were about 600 vacant single family lots platted in the city in 2014. And looking at trends, the city expects the share of multi-family residences to grow and account for about 40% of the dwelling units in Baxter by 2030. In anticipation of the city’s population growth by 2035, Baxter estimates it needs 360 acres for 720 single family homes or 88 acres to accommodate 880 multifamily units.

Baxter has added apartments with The Lofts on Novotny opening this year and the construction of Pinehurst Apartments on Hinckley Street as part of a multi-phase construction project. In 2023, Baxter also heard from a developer interested in building a four-building apartment complex, with 70 units each, along Evergreen Drive near Highway 371 and the southern entrance to the city. There are additional single family homes going up in the city.

Price Homes out of Elk River lists Baxter maintenance free home sites at Preserve Circle off Foley Road in southwest Baxter with a common area including waterfall, pond, gazebo and walking trails. On its website, Price Homes also lists home sites at Westwood Oaks with wooded lots of 0.37 to 0.72 acres west of White Sand Lake on